davidmalcolm

I was thinking I might get a series 5 but I've learned to always get the best processor you can and given that they didn't beef it up this year, I'm thinking that means that next year is going to be a good year to buy. For now I'll keep rocking my series 1 that is still in pretty good shape. As far as people thinking they should make the watch work with Android, I could see them allowing the cellular models to work agnostic of the phone, I think the non-cellular watches will probably always require an iPhone. They might then make a version of the Health App for Android, though they might not want to put that data on Android devices given how easy it is to swipe information from those. I know Linus of Linus Tech Tips has actually stated he's going to try switching back to an iPhone as one of his phones so he can get a new Apple Watch. It's funny, the other day somebody asked me what I use my Watch for and I was like, "Well it's a fitness tracker, not that I use it for that much. But I use it to do things like turn off lights, switch music tracks, get notifications, mostly I just don't have to pull out my phone as often."

A10? Didn’t the iPad already have A10!? Yeah it did. They bumped the screen but didn’t improve the Soc.

I feel like Apple has historically dropped the ball so hard on the Apple TV. They could have had an iPod level success on their hands if they would have just made it a bit more piracy friendly. It should have been able to stream any video from your Mac or PC from the start. Plex finally allows a pretty good solution, but it took years before there was a genuinely good solution. (AirVideo was another good one back in the day.) For whatever reason they hobbled it so that it could only play mpeg related files, even though most torrent sites were using divx/avi files. They could have opened it up to allowing the box to use other codecs but they refused for 'reasons'. This meant that instead of the Apple TV being able to use pirated content and exploding in hardware sales, it only worked with the video content available for purchase from Apple. Eventually it got better once Netflix became a thing, but early on the Apple TV was this device with so much unmet potential. Then the version that actually allowed apps came out, and the only good thing to come out of that was a more chaotic Netflix app, a terrible Amazon Prime Video app, and the Plex App. (Plex is fantastic though. Even if I don't love the UI.) I really wish Apple would make a set of Human Interface Guidelines that app makes HAVE to stick with, because the Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon apps are all going to be different and gross to jump between. Apple should really just offer to spend a bit of money and design good apps for these companies because they suck at making them. In the end now that I have Plex, I'm quite happy with my Apple TV 4K. But it took a long time to get to there, and it's mostly because of non-Apple software that I'm running on it. (Though I did play around with the 'Smart features' on my Vizio TV and I nearly threw up, so I'm happy that with HomeKit Siri can turn off the TV or change inputs and other than that I'll stick with using the Apple TV box. Still, Apple needs to push hard to have games that work with legit game pads and that aren't just tap tap tap bullshit games.

AnotherBrick said:

There is one sentence that will prevent me from buying a HomePod: “Apple's HomePod is a fantastic home speaker. It connects solely over Wi-Fi and streams Apple Music natively, but nothing else.”

A device which claims to be an audiophile grade speaker that only plays mp3 quality music and cannot accept other sources unless that source has AirPlay, which probably eliminates turntables for people who are vinyl purists, absolutely killed my interest in the device. I wanted something that could play the highest quality bit rate for digital and could play my high end vinyl collection as well.

Any 'audiophile' already has a sound system that they're not looking to replace. Also, audiophile is much more useful as a term to identify those who are self deluded, rather than those who actually appreciate music quality. Apple streams a very high quality version of the music files to the HomePod, the HomePod then uses machine learning to then do things to the file to bring out aspects of the music that you wouldn't hear with a normal set up. It delivers a refined and evocative sound that is unlike most other audio systems on the market (And pairing a few of them together will enhance that).

This is like saying that you'd rather prefer film over a high end DSLR or over a modern iPhone camera. Feel free to, but shut up if you don't realize all the reasons someone living in 2019 might want this. Vinyl might be worthwhile for people who only want to listen to old records that were recorded on magnetic tapes. But for most music made in the last twenty five years, whatever is on a vinyl record is going to be pressed from a digital recording.

Apple sold music long before Spotify existed. Spotify is free to make their own phone ecosystem. Frankly Spotify isn’t in much of a place to claim that Apple is anti competitive given that Spotify is the market leader, and the HomePod is a niche device. 

As as far as the sole control over apps sold thing. This has always been about ensuring that malware stays off the platform. Apple’s 30 percent cut was widely known when Spotify was being made. Besides they’re currently the market leader and don’t allow people to sign up through their app anymore. 

Apple wants to keep a thousand different apps from constantly begging for your credit card information, and that’s a good thing!

Also the App Store doesn’t drive up prices for consumers. They’d just need to point to Procreate verses Photoshop. You can get apps for insanely cheap on the iPhone and iPad. Far cheaper than you can when they’re sold directly from the developer.