rapcatmeow

lordjohnwhorfin said:

On the other hand Southwest charges only $8 for a full day of onboard internet (iMessage and WhatsApp can be used for free), their fares are always low, and they will check two suitcases for free. American charges $25 for the first suitcase and $35 for the second, each way. Assuming you only use one suitcase, that's still $50 more on top of a ticket that is bound to cost more than Southwest's low fares, so seems to me you're better off going with Southwest and paying the $16 extra (both ways) which will also get you full internet. 

I'm not sure if you are a regular user of wifi on the airlines, but they all usually go through GoGo Air.  Alaska and American use GoGo for their inflight wifi and Apple Music is blocked even with a full Internet subscription. I have an annual GoGo wifi pass and for the last couple of years, you haven't been able to stream or download any Apple Music songs that you don't already have downloaded. 

This announcement is a big deal and hopefully it means American will stop blocking Apple Music on the paid subscriptions. 

Andrew_OSU said:

buttesilver said:

USB-C (TB3) has been a letdown for me. The ports or the cables get loose way faster than any other connector I've ever used. It's nice to have unidirectional plug-in, but on all my babied devices, the connectors are hit and miss. Not well developed. And I'm not sure how you'd fix it, but I have a number of devices I either need to get new cables for, or figure out a way to "fatten" the plugs to make them tighter...

Thank you for this! My sentiments exactly. So many times has my USB-C cable come out of my Mac without me even noticing.

This is a super specific scenario, but I have a 20TB LaCie drive connected to my Mac, but it provides only a tiny amount of power over Thunderbolt 3. Even with power coming in, while working, my battery actually goes down, yet the charging indicator says charging. I always have to keep a second power cable plugged in, but when it dislodges just slightly and stops charging, I don't get a notification because the hard drive provides a tiny trickle of power. Then, my computer will abruptly shut off when it inevitably runs out of juice. Very frustrating to this day!

I had the same issue with the charging cables that came with my MacBook Pro and iPad Pro but since I got the new iPad I ordered a Thunderbolt 3 cable from Apple and nearly got stuck in the ports on the iPad Pro and MBP. Looks like Apple is shipping out thinner connectors on their charging cables. 

gowhitestripes said:

The biggest thing many want to know is if this can work as a home theater system. Can it? Will the sound match competing systems? Will it work with an Apple TV? When?

I was hoping it would do this with an Apple TV. I’ve been holding out on a sound bar so I could just have a few of these in my bedroom for decent sound. 
But Apple doesn’t even have Stereo sound support on these at launch and multi room audio is delayed yet again. 
I’m really hoping to have these ready by summer. Last year I had multiple Airport Expresses connected to 2 Marshall Woburn speakers and a Behringer Sub and PA system for my pool in the backyard. I wanted to replace the Marshalls with these. Only requires 1 power cable and they were supposed to do multi room audio. Currently I have to use my MacBook to run synced audio and it’s not as convenient as running off my phone. 
This whole HomePod launch is disappointing. In the meantime, I was gifted an Echo and for the Alexa stuff, it’s really good at controlling the smart home stuff. Things that Siri can’t do yet. 

Seems like Amazon is taking the lead and it pains me because I have an all Apple ecosystem that is substandard to what Alexa can do. 

longpath said:

Bummer, there goes my planned big gift for the family 😢

Same. This is all I asked for for Christmas. I was hoping to have 5 or 6 of them initially. 

stpat said:

I hope Mac OS gets some love. It's been absolutely unstable since the upgrade for me, especially when running Parallels. 

Hope you upgraded Parallels. The old versions won’t read the new Apple File System (APFS) so it corrupted some files when trying to open them in the parallels side. Had to do a mandatory parallels upgrade on all of our company machines when we updated our Macs.