noelos

I think Apple *could* start a search engine but if they wanted to be as valuable to advertisers as Google/Facebook ad markets they would have to indulge in some of the same shady user tracking behaviours.

With the status quo they get to remain the company of privacy first for their customers while making a huge chunk of money from Google for rent-seeking.

I'm sorry - but the excuses about Siri being crap because of privacy concerns just doesn't hold water.

"Hey Siri - play Scarborough Fair". Now I have "Scarborough Fair" by Simon & Garfunkel in my library, and I'd guess this is the version that 99.9% of people would want 99.9% of the time and it's a track I've also asked Siri to play literally hundreds of times because it helps my toddler get to sleep.

And yet, every time it is a gamble if she will play this, or some other rando version, or some other rando song completely. Siri learns NOTHING and doesn't even use the contextual knowledge available to make a reasonable guess of what you want.

Or what about a simple query while I'm driving and I idly ask what year some actor died. "I can't answer that while you're driving". Is that to preserve my privacy or is it just because they haven't put in the work to make Siri be able to answer simple queries in natural language?

byronl said:

dymmas said:

You can’t download to listen offline.

🤦‍♂️

The app experience is great. Hopefully they adopt it for the Music app.

How does the app experience differ to the Music app's?

It's familiar. Shows music from the main Music app (matched and Added) that fits a classical Category.

Metadata tagging in albums seems to be ordered more hierarchically by works rather than just a list of tracks. No option to download for offline listening on iOS. 

charlesn said:

Sometimes I really don't understand Apple decisions. WiFi 7 is just around the corner, with the draft standard having been written two years ago, but the 2023 Home Pod takes us back to WiFi 4 (or "n") that debuted in 2009? I get that it doesn't need the speed of WiFi 6, but there are far fewer routers and devices currently using 6, which becomes a helpful factor when you live in an apartment building and 40-something networks other than your own come up under wifi. How much extra could wifi 6 support have cost Apple? Similarly, why not support the latest Bluetooth standard, 5.3, in a newly released speaker, instead of 5.0 from 7 years ago? 

I was surprised to learn that all Apple Watches only support 802.11b/g/n - https://www.theiphonewiki.com/wiki/List_of_Apple_Watches - I guess because they're using the same S7 SoC as the Apple Watch, they inherited this limitation. Was also surprised how many devices on my home network are connected at WiFi 4 (or "n").

The pacing of a show is part of its tone and I like that there is enough experimentation going on in TV that directors can try different styles and find a big enough audience to make it worthwhile.

Was 2001 too slow and uneventful? Is Better Call Saul? Objectively, not that much is happening a lot of the time - but the impact is still profound.