steveau

joekewe said:

larrya said:

I became preoccupied with all the socketed ICs pictured. What a different time!  Pretty easy to replace and upgrade back then. 

Usually ICs were socketed because the design wasn't finalized, components like RAM were improving faster than circuit board production, or the company (i.e. Apple) couldn't afford enough components to stuff all of their production run. This allowed them to build a reasonable minimum quantity of boards, without having to pay for expensive components until they shipped. The happy side-effect was that users could easily upgrade ICs themselves. The negative side-effect was less reliable boards (socketed vs. soldered components).

When I bought my first computer, an Apple ][, I had to upgrade to an 80 column card, which involved lifting an IC, inserting a carrier that I'd soldered the card I/O to and the re inserting the IC. Fun memories, but I'd much rather buy off the shelf stuff that "just works".

Siri was recently improved without any fanfare, at least for Australians anyway! Previously it would only recognise my speech if I adopted an American accent, which I'm not very good at and it's hard to keep up, but a few of months ago I did an Apple TV search and Siri recognised me wordperfect. Last week I bought "Blade Runner - Final Cut" on iTunes and my girl and I settled down to watch it last night, but it was dubbed in French. I hit pause and thought for a while, with Leon's ugly, agitated mug filing the screen. On the older AppleTV remotes you could hold select and options came up, but that doesn't work on the new remote. Idea! I hit play, held the Siri button and said, in my normal voice, "Change Language to English" and a millisecond later Leon was speaking in English - almost magic! But it made me wonder: when Siri sleeps does she dream of electric sheep?

anantksundaram said:

On a vaguely related topic, anyone have any thoughts/speculation on anything new and different that the next iteration of the 12.9" might bring?

I have my fingers and toes crossed that they will announce native handwriting recognition for MultiTouch iPad's. This will resolve the debate (see comments above) between those who want to do more detailed word processing/spreadsheet type work with their iPad's and are therefore clamouring for mouse support and other 2-in-1 (ugh!) capabilities, and those who say that this means that they should use a Mac, which is like a plumber telling a cabinet maker which chisel to use (guys, please respect that each of us knows our own requirements-to-do-the-job better than someone who's never actually met us). Clearly, native HWR would allow those who need a mobile device on which to do text and numbers (including fine editing of that input) to do so with an iPad Pro and those who don't need a mobile device, or who require more grunt or screen real estate etc. to use a Mac (or in my case both, and to seamlessly handoff between the two). So, even if you don't personally see the need for OS level HWR in iPadPro please support it anyway, because it will give other Apple users the power to be their best (RIP Steve).

xzu said:

The Apple pencil is amazing, make it ubiquitous. 

And add native handwriting recognition into iOS; that would make it doubly amazing.

thinkman@chartermi.net said:

Those Apple geniuses did it again. I call it the Apple one step forward, three steps backward waltz! The iCloud setting is NO LONGER IN THE MAIN SETTINGS WINDOW! WTF, you say?! Yup, because it's something you use so often, they chose to hide it in the "Masthead" - the very top of Settings, under your name/photo - you'll now find "Apple ID, iCloud, iTunes & App Store". There it is. And why? NO FUCKING REASON AT ALL other than to confuse us! Whether or not you've noticed it over the last few years, whenever they "update" a program or OS, they add functionality, but almost always remove (for me in some cases) critical functionality.

Agreed, and how about the new Numbers for iOS! The neat keypad icons have been changed and the Querty keypad comes up by default - why? It's a spreadsheet guys, or didn't you notice.