Calamander
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iOS 18.4 lands with more Apple Intelligence, Apple Vision Pro app
How do I turn off AI? Apple Intelligence settings seem mostly about Siri. As long as it doesn't start summarizing things or choose which notifications to show (insane idea IMO, you're pretty much guaranteed to miss important notifications?!)... I don't mind Siri itself. I use it for reminders only basically.Alex1N said:My 16 Pro Max has become appreciably more responsive since I nuked ‘AI’ on it, especially with regards to Siri. What do I miss? Nothing. I certainly don’t miss oppositely-wrong summaries (which occurred even after Apple paused some in other areas like news summaries). As a side note I’m slightly fed up with the delay in activating RCS here in Australia.
Turning ‘AI’ off has made using my phone less cluttered and much smoother. Like others here I’ll only be installing the update for the security stuff. I’m not holding my breath on CarPlay improvements in my three-year old KIA, though.
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Apple testing M4 MacBook Air with ultra-wide camera & Center Stage support
You are likely right on the "design language" which is what a design academic would view it as.charlesn said:
The design language for Apple's entire product line is now rounded rectangles. Whether you like it or not is entirely subjective, but this does unify the look of Apple products.....M68000 said:To me, the question is about form factor. Is the iconic wedge design gone forever? I own two MacBook Airs and they’re precious to me. Simply the best laptops I’ve ever used. But, if the new ones have the same shape and weight as the MacBook pros, are they really “Air” models?
That being said, the new MBA (post wedge shape) is a design disaster of epic proportions. I can never tell if it's a 14" pro or an air. Visually, there's no difference.So the new MBA, design wise, is a cheap MacBook Pro. And the MacBook Pro has never been as fat as it is now either - even the Titanium MBP was thinner!
Why is it a design disaster?
Because it looks visually much, much thicker than it is. It is a marvel of engineering, thin as can be, and yet, it doesn't get any of the good looks that should normally be associated with such an engineering feat.
Windows Surface laptops are looking better these days - thinner, more modern. It's sad.
The wedge shape definitely looked a lot better than the current design, which is why I picked up one before they went out of production. Also rose gold - sorry that's the best looking laptop Apple has ever made. Then they sacrificed it on the altar of design language.It continues with the loss of design chops at Apple. Remember the days of the iPod nano? Apple was miles ahead of the competition in both manufacturing and design.
Today, others have caught up in manufacturing, and Apple's lost its taste. Probably happened when Ive left. Now we have nobody there who is really world class.
Make no mistake: You are witnessing live how Apple went from the best designed hardware on the planet to a middling a-ok kind of player. And I see no stopping of this trend, even iPhones have never been as ugly as they are now. Nobody seems to care, people buy them anyway. But are they designer masterpieces? Surely not. Plenty of Androids looking as good if not better (they don't perform better.. but Huawei and Xiaomi both make better looking phones)
PS: I am aware it's "technically" thinner - technically 31-31-31 is thinner than 36-24-36 and yet ... most guys prefer the latter - shape matters!
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Apple testing M4 MacBook Air with ultra-wide camera & Center Stage support
Last thing I need is yet another device shooting lasers into my eyes. Why even try to make eye-friendly monitors?davgreg said:Why no FaceID on Apple laptops?
Seems like low hanging fruit. -
Apple testing M4 MacBook Air with ultra-wide camera & Center Stage support
I am from the EU - long before these regulations come into effect, they will be abolished along with the people who made all these useless and power-grabbing rules. Hopefully we just roll back to before all this craziness happened - maybe the day before the EU forced every person in the entire world to click on "accept cookies" banners. That would be great. No one cares, EU, it's just annoying for everyone, nobody benefits from this.charlesn said:
The bulk of the new battery regs aren't scheduled to go into effect until 2027/28. But they're pretty strict in their definition of "user replaceable." No specialized or proprietary tools can be necessary, unless provided free with the product. No thermal heating can be required, no use of solvents, etc. This just might be a throwback to your G3 Pismo. Honestly, I wish tech companies would ban together and just drop the European market rather than continuing to saddle the rest of the world with products that adhere to EU edicts.nubus said:The real change is to happen in 2026 when iPads, laptops, and iPhones will get user replaceable batteries due to EU regulations. I do hope it will be a bit more compact than the replaceable batteries on my PowerBook G3 Pismo.
That being said the new repairable Android phone I just saw on YT makes another point still - you can actually make something really small, while still keeping it repairable.
I think Apple is already doing this, they replaced the glue on the batteries and then maybe put some more normal screws on the back, and bingo, you have "user replaceable". We will never go back to the separate battery unit (for those who remember) - that was a poor design, sacrificing space and weight for a feature nobody ever used - swapping out your battery on the go with a replacement unit is not something people ever adopted.
