Alger
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Apple TV+ commissioned 'Foundation' after a one-sentence pitch
"I figured out a way to have some of the characters extend their lifespans."In other words, a completely different story.I'm a huge sci-fi fan and finally forced myself to finish Foundation (the first book) because of this impeding TV series' release. I had tried few times before and always had put it down out of sheer boredom, but figured I just wasn't sophisticated enough as a teenager. In ripe middle age now, I find Foundation's "ideas" are elementary and never investigated at their core ("psychohistory" is never even explained except by begging the question); the characters all one-dimensional, boring as cardboard (and all the women are even less than one-dimensional, except physically) yet pompous & verbose; the plot is fundamentally about power-grabs and militarism – not exactly groundbreaking "ideas" – about at philosophically imaginative as a James Bond novel, minus any sex appeal.
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Apple's HomePod mini review: the speaker for the rest of us
Apple are not a political party or movement to be loyal to at all costs. They are a product, branded as the best overall, and I've purchased more than $10K worth of Apple products because they are the best experience overall, not because I like the name. I also own a large amount of Apple stock, so I want the company to continue their breathtaking success - I just don't see how they're going to grow their smart-speaker market with this product.williamlondon said:
Perhaps Apple isn't the company for negative nellies?! -
Apple's HomePod mini review: the speaker for the rest of us
Couldn't agree more. 1) My full-size HomePod has impressive "heavy" sound, but in general the bass is set way too high and there's no way to adjust it. Apple prides itself with music appreciation, but without an equalizer you just can't take such a device seriously. 2) Literally each and every time I play music from my Mac or iPhone to my HomePod, I can 100% count on there being some connectivity issue. I walk in the door, tell my iPhone to play its music on HomePod, it does, then 15 seconds later it loses the connection, for no reason. Every. Time. Reconnecting wastes about 3 minutes of my time, then the connection drops again at random intervals after that - 10 minutes, 30 minutes, between songs/videos, just randomly. I paid $349 for it 2 years ago and, although I still use it in my work-from-home office, I wouldn't buy it now at 1/2 that price and the Mini just sounds like more of the same, only weaker. Surely they could have figured out a way for it to play music from a phone using only Bluetooth, like at the beach (it requires WiFi to function at all, and only 802.11n?! - sorry, what year is this? This product is off-brand because it's riddled with compromises and seems behind the times. My HomePod's reliability is as if it wasn't even made by Apple, to connect with Apple products. I hope this isn't an indication of what's to come from them.MacQuadra840av said:This review makes no sense at all. The majority of the article identifies all the flaws of the mini, and carries over all the flaws from the first failed HomePod, yet somehow they give it 4.5 out of 5 stars. Apple cannot even clear them out at $199 on sale, yet they come out with another severely compromised product and overprice it at $99. AI forgot to bring up the failed Wi-Fi issue with the mini. Many reports coming in of the mini's Wi-Fi failing constantly, and rebooting it only fixes it for a few minutes before Wi-Fi fails again. Wi-Fi is required for the product to function, so basically people are left with a round ball that does nothing. It is odd that Apple now powers the mini with the silicon from the discontinued watch 5 and makes it run tvOS(?), but then again, they powered the original HomePod with the outdated and discontinued A8. Even worse, they are using an outdated Wi-Fi protocol because the mini only supports 802.11n! Even their discontinued AirPort Extreme from 2013 supported 802.11ac! No wonder it is failing on Wi-Fi networks. It is like they are making these things from their own bargain bin of leftover and outdated parts. (Remember when Apple made lousy PowerPC 603e computers by jamming a 64-bit processor onto a leftover Quadra 32-bit board? That is how they are building these HomePod products).
I honestly don't know why people think the HomePod sounds good. It is far too heavy on the bass and too boomy, and Apple refuses to incorporate tone/EQ controls so people can tailor the sound to their own liking. It is Apple's way, or no way. Too many restrictions on a speaker that take away the enjoyment of its sole purpose - to listen to music. Sorry, but the 4.5 rating is a joke.
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LG UltraFine 5K Display listed as 'unavailable' through online Apple Store
Been using one of these at work for the past 2.5 years. The after-images/latent images/ghost images (whatever you're supposed to call them) are growing more pronounced every week, to the point where you literally cannot do Photoshop work on an image (for example) until it has been on screen, stationary, for a couple minutes.
