auxio
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The cheesegrater Mac Pro could still be the best Mac ever made
A bit late to the discussion, but I was able to put a modern GPU in mine using the Pixlas Mod (splicing another line off the PSU). As you said, the PSU has plenty of headroom it's just not exposed by the motherboard. No one really could have anticipated the amount of power modern GPUs draw back then.zimmie said:The power distribution is pretty weird. The power supply has plenty of headroom, but you only get two aux power connectors for GPUs, and they have a weird capacity (120W each, rather than the more common 75W or 150W each). Some GPUs (e.g, the Radeon RX Vega 64) draw exclusively from the aux power connectors, which can cause the system to brown out, even though it has plenty of power budget left (the 75W allocated to the slot isn't used). Wouldn't be safe to draw more over the two aux connectors, which is why there should have been more than two.
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Boot loops and failed installs plague fourth macOS Sonoma developer beta
I've been having this experience all along. My problems turned out to be due to the fact that I was trying to use an external hard drive for it. Specifically a USB-C drive. After reading this thread on MacRumors, I switched to a Thunderbolt drive and everything has worked fine since.
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Apple cracks down on apps identifying users through device fingerprinting
Honestly have no idea what you're talking about. Let's define these words:BiCC said:bwilllius said:The linked documentation describes super awful API calls to creation date and modification date of a file. Also getting free space is now a sin. All calls are harmless.
The MacOS kernal is a Sandbox. Getting access to free space is going Blockchain style. I would just like to add - if a kernal is a Sandbox you are 100 percent correct, the API calls are harmless. Why is Apple not giving you access to memory is mindboggling. Through JavaScript you can do a lot, and Apple admits it for URL. I think the management at Apple are spacing out!! It's out reaching. Good on you b.
Kernel - The core of the operating system which manages system resources (CPU time, memory, access to devices, etc) for things which need to use them. Applications typically don't know/care about what happens at this level, and almost never directly interact with it.
Sandbox - A contained environment in which applications run. Applications get their own reserved storage, memory, etc and can't access the resources allocated to other applications (or the operating system). This is typically done at a higher level in the tech stack than the kernel, which has no knowledge of what applications even are. The kernel only knows how to manage access to low level hardware/resources for whatever is using them on the system (could be a device driver, could be a system daemon, could be an application, doesn't matter).
So calling the kernel a sandbox is meaningless. They're two completely separate concepts.
And applications always have access to memory/storage to do whatever they need to. What Apple is doing is limiting is apps which ask "how much memory/storage is left on the entire system?". The vast majority of apps don't need to care about how much is left, only that they have access to what need. The kernel is the only thing which needs to know how to manage memory based on how much is left on the system.
And then you throw in the term JavaScript, an interpreted programming language typically contained within a web browser environment. So the web browser controls what it has access to. Which is typically far less than what a native/non-web application has access to because the web browser can only give it access to things which are common across every single platform it runs on (from tiny embedded Linux systems to Mac Pros). The lowest common denominator of all those systems.
"Apple admits it for URL" - what does that even mean? A URL is an address for a resource on the internet (web page, image, etc). Sure, it's been hijacked as a means for web apps to send data (URL parameters), which are a classic source of buffer overflow security issues, but URLs have nothing to do with how much an app can do on the system.
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Apple cracks down on apps identifying users through device fingerprinting
I'm a developer too, and I understand the frustration. But turn your ire on those who feel the need to use their technical ability for scams rather than creating technology which is actually useful to people (and thus worth more than just advertising revenue).
It's really a sad day when the predominant business model for app developers is: create a free app which will capture people's attention and then milk them for all the data they're worth while using it. And of course, being scammers who don't understand the meaning of the word "ethics" and feel it's their right to do whatever they please to others for profit, as soon as Apple tries to limit what data they can get, they start doing "clever" things like this (using uptime, free space, etc. to create a unique fingerprint).
For myself, I'll be happy to explain to Apple why I use certain APIs if it means less scammers and more genuinely useful apps in the world. Good riddance to a business model which is moving humanity backwards, not forwards.
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Instagram chief's mic drop: 'Android's now better than iOS'
You keep bringing up WhatsApp, which is most certainly a web-based app (EDIT: it is web based), and doesn't follow any sort of platform design guidelines. I can assure you that it does not look nor feel nor function the same as native iOS apps. Which is also most likely why you don't have things like good share sheet integration and similar. Here's Apple's official guidelines for app design on their platforms.avon b7 said:I'm fine with change if the change makes sense to me.
File management in userland on iOS only made some sense way back in the very early days of iOS and even then was questionable. File management (as in files and folders) isn't 'complexity'.
Files and folders work.
Things as mundane as email attachments became an issue because Apple refused to support them on-device and wanted to shunt users up into the cloud. That was just unnecessary. By the time iOS came around, everybody was familiar with the concept of a 'Downloads' folder.
The notion that somehow space is constrained on mobile screens and therefore it's better to avoid classic folder structures due to complexity doesn't make sense either.
Everyone understands the concept of folder structures and interfaces with cloud content via mobile without issue using folders. Why would they experience issues navigating local storage?
The core of the system itself is directory based. I can understand the idea of abstraction and wanting everything to be filed and retrieved by apps, but only to a point and that only really works for some limited scenarios and is limiting flexibility for the user and simply ends up causing headaches. To the point that Apple had to give in in the end and try to remedy a situation its own design caused, but it is still an issue.
The best option would be to simply allow users to manage their files and have the system deal with it. Of course, that would make it work like Android but then again, Apple's approach was shortsighted from the outset so that is inevitable.
Even in the old days iTunes would be flexible enough to allow you to add files from anywhere or copy them to a central location. Users were still at the mercy of an archaic syncing process that was fraught with issues and extremely slow.
Terminal is a power tool for power users. It is only there in the first place because because the root system uses shells. It's for users who are accustomed to command line interfaces and who use them regularly. Just like programming, you really need a breadth of 'extra' knowledge like syntax requirements etc to feel comfortable. The Mac was created to free us of prompts.
I've dabbled with Terminal only because of limitations at higher levels with applications. Often shortcomings at higher levels.
Yes, Terminal can do what Disk Utility did but that doesn't tackle my point. That was that functionality was eroded to make things easier for Apple, not the user.
Exactly the same thing happened with iTunes.
We use applications like Word the way we do for a huge reason and it is precisely to get away from command line interfaces.
If I wanted 'power' in text creation I would use TeX. Sometimes I've had to, but 'coding' text and compiling files is only a valid option (like with Terminal) if you are accustomed to it and are going to use it regularly.
In terms of 'new' versus 'old' and technology advances, some things always surprised me.
Finder was technically much better in OSX than Classic Mac OS. Just like modern file systems are better than older ones.
The problem from day one was that the 'new' Finder was a pale shadow of its former self in spite of its solid foundational changes. The Classic Finder always gave you the sensation it was one step ahead of you. Ready to give you what you wanted just when you needed it. It may have been built on a house of cards (like HFS) but in its own way, it was surprisingly solid and nimble. Robust even.
So, along came OSX Finder and all its modern underpinnings but it felt lobotomised and along with it came the spinning beach all of death. In usability it was very much a step back.
Better technology doesn't always lead to better solutions in userland.
Apple has got many things wrong with iOS on a conceptual level and has had to change tack in some key areas. The same has happened in hardware. Files is just one example. Customisation is another and again the 'complexity' notion comes back into focus. The iOS settings panels have always been a mess.
This is a situation that never needed to exist in the first place and, in its essence, was also resolved back in Classic OS.
Simple Finder.
The debate over simplicity vs complexity played out within Finder and was resolved by a toggle switch. Erm, simple. If you wanted to keep things simple, simple finder was there.
My Android phones have always had the option to hide complex settings away but it was always an option, never an imposition.
I have always challenged the 'Apple knows best' line. Apple definitely doesn't and it has shown over the years.
Safari was introduced as a smiley face for WebKit. It was touted as a small, lightweight, fast browser. It had to be because Apple couldn't go head to head with Firefox or Chrome at the time so they played on the 'simple' theme.
However, that was never going to cut it, and slowly Safari has been laden with more functionality (along with WebKit) over the years. There are still way too many areas where it just fails and Chrome will do the job. The reasons are many but in userland, getting the job done is what matters.
That aspect, as people try to do more and more on their mobile devices has exacerbated the limitations within iOS and is possibly the reason why iOS has been adopting so many features that have been present on Android. A few years ago I got the sensation that almost every new feature announced at WWDC was already present on Android and it was widely commented on at the time.
When HarmonyOS was revealed in 2019 the concept of multi-device interoperability was brought to the fore and their developer conference through up a screen showing the different device operating systems and how each system was effectively 'siloed' from the rest. Getting them to 'talk' to each other 'natively' was going to be problematic unless the system had been designed with multi device interoperability in mind from the outset.
Since then every WWDC has given us something along the multi device interoperability line. The question has to be. At what cost? Are they kludging it together like Classic MacOS reached its goals? Are they re-tooling things at a foundational level?
Are the different Apple operating systems designed for distributed file systems, shared busses, distributed security, seamless networking?
The entire networking stack for HarmonyOS was re-written to provide the backbone for everything sitting on top of it. From speed, through stability to security.
I see the 'new' functionality' (sometimes announced but labeled as coming sometime in the future) and wonder what's going on down below the surface.
At the end of the day, 'change' boils down to if it improves things for users. Change for the sake of change (especially aesthetic design change) can be frustrating. Especially if things change too much in a relatively short period of time.
Whatsapp on iOS and Android is an example. Although apparently not a system related change, they are playing with moving the 'state, chats, calls...' tabs from the top of the screen (where they are on Android) to the bottom (to where they are on iOS).
I've seen stealth updates where they move to the bottom of the screen and then suddenly they are at the top.
When similar changes are made at an OS level it raises questions and those questions often lead to very poor answers.
Another thing I notice about most free, web-based apps that make money from data harvesting is that they purposely lock you into them. Meaning, when you do something like click a link, it stays within that app (never sends you to a full web browser). The reason is because they want to keep harvesting every bit of information about what you do, and if they send you to another app (Safari in this case), they can't do that. The lack of a share sheet is likely the same thing: they'd much rather you share something to someone from within their app, rather than sending you to another app to do it. They likely allow it on Android because they can track you across apps.
Seriously, turn your questions about free apps into questions about the business model and why they force you to do things a certain way or limit features. Chances are it has to do with keeping you within their app for as long as possible so they can get as much data as possible. There's actually a movie which discusses this. It's the exact opposite of making your app as efficient and intuitive as possible (the goals of user interface design when I first started out as a software engineer).
As for challenging "Apple knows best", here's the thing: almost every single tech enthusiast I know and have worked with is so fixated on technology and the intricate details of it that, I feel, most have lost sight of the human purpose of it and how it can be used to benefit people who don't have the same kind of mind as them. They're so caught up in the feature wars that they don't even see that most of these features don't contribute to the central purpose of the technology and just create confusion/clutter for those who don't have any interest in technology and just want to use it to accomplish natural, human activities like communication with others, finding information, or capturing memories/information as simply as possible.
You talk about change for the sake of change, yet you want Apple to change things to add a whole bunch of features you've seen in the past. Most of which have disappeared over time for good reason. Advanced filesystem maintenance? Did people other than tech enthusiasts ever really want to do that? It was only necessary because of the design limitations of technology at the time (e.g. things like defragmenting your filesystem, yuck). I think a lot of tech people have a hard time coming to terms that they've spent so much time learning about things which, when you take a step back, were only necessary to know because of technical limitations and/or poor design at the time. It really feels like wasted time when you see it that way. And that's where I'm at: I assess whether it's worth my time to learn something, or whether I can find something else designed differently to avoid spending all that unnecessary time.
Honestly, at this point it's simply a matter of what you've gotten used to between Android and iOS. I'm a highly technical person, and I get confounded trying to find things in Android simply because I'm not used to it, and because every device manufacturer throws their own spin on things. I can do everything I need extremely efficiently in iOS. Mobile phone style devices have pretty much matured to the point where the interactions are well defined and known, and it comes down to familiarity with the organization and paradigms of each OS. The next major evolution in technology is in wearables (getting devices even more out of your way).
