tadd

eightzero said:

OK, can anyone recommend a 5k, 27" thunderbolt 3 monitor to hook this (and maybe a new MBA) to? 

Apple TV with the TV app is NOT up to the standards of Tivo and Cable TV, or Dish Network, or even starting in the Playstation Vue app in the first place.  I've bought at least 3 iterations of the Apple TV now over an 11 year period.  Apple has a long way to go to be at parity in TV entertainment space.  They are barely holding their own in the set-top-box for 3rd party app space.  

I went into TV and selected a football game that was currently running.  I get into a menu that looks like iTunes Movies.  There is a new menu which says "Open With".   Ok.  I use Open With and that got me into Playstation Vue watching the football game.  Very good.  All menu options from then on are in Playstation Vue.  That's not very great integration with the TV app.  

Ok.  Let's try this again.   I go out back to the Apple TV main icon screen using the Menu button and then I go into TV app again.  Now I go find another show that is available on Playstation Vue.  Again I go back to the Open With and open with Playstation Vue.  That gets me back into the football game.  I selected several other things in the TV app and always when I say open it with Playstation Vue I immediately get back to the football game.  It seems that once PlaystationVue has started something and you are down into it's menus, any further calls from the TV app just get you back where you were in Playstation Vue.  This is not great.  This is not even useful.  I guess I have to terminate the Playstation Vue app in order to get the TV app to work with it for a 2nd time?  How about if after showing me a show when I hit the up/menu button it takes me back to the TV app or give me a choice to go back to the TV app?  That would be proper integration.  

What I want is for the TV App to show me the sources I've already paid for first (instead of offering to charge me more to see the TV show first) and then getting me right to a recording of the TV show or free/prepayed copy if one is available, or directly to the TV show if it is currently on (and there is no recording or on-demaind free copy), or get me to Playstation Vue's Add to watch list thing so you'll get a DVR copy of it when it does come on, or get me to Plastation Vue if it was previously recorded by Playstation Vue.  The TV app does work better with CBS All Access.  You still get stuck in the CBS All Access app however.  

The TV app is interesting as a list of things which you could conceivably be watching some-day but when it shows you a list of things, you can't tell whether those items (movies, TVshows) are for sale, are for rent, are free (to me) but coming soon, are free (to me) and halfway over, or for which one needs to do some other complex menu options in another app to arrange to see in the future.  

As it is, the TV app is not something I'd ever use if I already knew which other app had the show I wanted to watch.    

There are some rules of thumb that you and I can use to guess whether a news story is likely to be BS or not.  Generally if the story names some sources, or gets a confession from the target (or one or more of the targets), it's more likely to be true than one which does not.  You have to know by now that at least some of the news stories are crap.  It's not necessary that they be faked at all levels.   If a story says researcher interviewed an employee and got bad news, there are many people in that chain that can be full of crap.  The editor, story-author, researcher, employee, or maybe what the employee mis-understood?  It's possible that the story was well intentioned, but still full of crap.  Be suspicious of all of this.  And be willing to re-adjust what you know as time goes on.  The more named sources that are likely to be pinned to the wall if a mistake was made, the more likely the story is going to be true (ish).   A complicated story alleging a history of bad things, should probably be substantiate-able.  For instance, there should be hundreds of photographable brand-named PCboards having this interesting chip on it.  Show me the reverse engineered schematics, X-rays of the brand-named boards taken by named researchers.

One thing I am sure about and that is some of the media outlets are far too willing to print something to be first, and not interested in being best or most correct.  The best way to know that a story is fully baked is wait until there are other media outlets telling you it is wrong wrong wrong.  And then you'll likely have enough information available to figure out if the story was actually right or wrong.  I'm not saying the newcomers with "wrong" are correct.  Just that by then you'll have enough information to hazard a better guess than you did when the first hint of the story broke. 

Beware of stories that perfectly fit the mold you are expecting.  That just means somebody could be getting lazy.    


Does that make sense?  

Soli said:

tadd said:

perhaps you should consider a car with roadside assistance built in. .

Nope Nope Nope. Very bad solution. Nope.

Do you have anything resembling a reason why it's a "very bad solution" for my parents to have AAA?

AAA is not very bad.  Maybe they are even good.  Though I thought "built-in" meant "hardware is in place to provide this".    AAA has been around much longer than 20 years.  I've had several good cost-saving experiences with AAA.  My wife had one bad experience with AAA when AAA said they wouldn't support the area that she was stuck in.  That was not cool.  It was someplace near Yonkers NY, by the way, and that was 1992 I think.  

But that's besides the point.  

I was typing about the cellular/wireless Internet solutions offered in cars since 1998 or so, GM OnStar, Chrysler EVTS, Ford Sync, BMW Assist, etc.  Basically voice calling and automatic telemetry of car status.  I'm a little spooked by data about the vehicle's operations showing up in a database in the cloud, and specified, integrated, and sold by people who are only vaguely aware of security, much less good at it.  There is a time in one's life where sending telemetry about one's life and doings to a 3rd party is a good idea.  Having that done as a not-so-well-exposed-to-the-user by a built in feature of something so basic as transportation does NOT seem like a good idea.  Furthermore, the systems usually allow silent monitoring of the occupants under the control of people who are not responsible to the courts.  This is also not a good idea.  Though it may not come to harm for almost everybody, it seems like a bad precedent to yield to when the desired feature of the system could be done by a separate consumer-controlled apparatus.  

The built in cellphone features often come with a monthly cost as well and sometimes that cost is even higher than $10/month we're talking about for Verizon and ATT connection to the Apple Watch.  

Also, the built in cellphone features have, in the past, been expensive to upgrade as cell networks obsolete old protocols and support.  That means the built in services don't necessarily work anymore after 10 years or so.  The OnStar upgrade kit and install process was neither cheap nor easy.    

perhaps you should consider a car with roadside assistance built in. .

Nope Nope Nope. Very bad solution. Nope.