retrogusto

As a shareholder, I guess I should be glad they got rid of the headphone jack, but it sure was annoying last week when I got on the subway and realized that I didn’t have my dongle with me, so I was carrying the earbuds around all day and unable to use them except as earplugs. Apart from a way to push people towards a more costly solution, I haven’t heard any reasonable justification—if they can make a waterproof Lightning jack, they can do the same with stereo mini, and even the “saves space” argument seems a little weak given that the slimmest and most compact iPhone had a jack, and they have only been getting bulkier since the jack was removed. And I know there are people who will say they are glad about the omission, but honestly, just the fact that people are still discussing and arguing about it shows that it’s contentious. I doubt we’ll still be discussing the merits of, say, the Touch Bar seven years down the road, even though it has its fans too. 

“iPhone 14 Pro models may be more expensive than iPhone 13, Kuo says”

In other news, iPhone 13 Pro models may be more expensive than iPhone 13. 

They may still be using the theater for large internal presentations, and I can’t blame them too much for playing it safe when almost 500 Americans are still dying of Covid every day, with a Californian dying of it on average about every half hour, 24/7. I miss the live presentations too, and hope they’ll get back to them, but the pre-recorded ones are good for what they are, and seem like a reasonable substitute under the circumstances. And I bet the employees like the option of doing multiple takes, which seems a lot less stressful. 

If you want to do photographers a favor, Instagram, include an option to minimize content from people you don’t follow. When I signed up, it was to see photos from my friends and to share mine with them, but now I have to wade through so much “recommended” content, ads and videos from random strangers, that it’s not worth the bother. Given that even photos from the people I follow are not always masterpieces, the stuff I really want to see ends up being such a tiny percentage.  If I wanted Tik Tok, I would have signed up for Tik Tok. 

Those rounded edges might be aging, but they feel better on the hands and make the device look sleeker. It’s a case of form following function, so you sacrifice some desirable qualities for that “contemporary” look. I’m hoping the flat sides start to look old soon, so they phase them out before I need to replace my devices.