polymnia

Back in the day I used and airport express optical output through a couple splitters to feed a few stereo receivers to build a poor msn’s multi-room audio system. It’s was pretty nice (though the rat’s nest of cables was something only a nerd could live). I could play music right from iTunes. And there was a remote app for earlier iPhones (maybe there still is?) so I could control it while sipping a cocktail on my patio. 

Then I cleaned up my house, bought into Sonos gear and resigned myself to streaming everything through the Sonos App. Which isn’t as bad as many around here say it is. I love that I can make a queue or playlist consisting of local iTunes tracks, Spotify, bandcamp, Amazon & Apple Music tracks. Sonos is completely agnostic about the source of your content. Still, I missed iTunes. And Sonos could never be driven by the iTunes UI. Content had to be streamed through the Sonos App’s UI. 

I have a Sonos Beam and a few Sonos One speakers with Airplay 2 on order for launch day.

I’m looking forward to DJing the music around the house using iTunes again. I loved how quickly I could traverse my music collection on the big screen with iTunes library windows and a mouse. 

I guess I’ll find out how terrible iTunes is (or isn’t) since it’s quite a different animal than it was 6 years ago. 

nunzy said:

If they think that a war chest of a hundred million dollars is enough to fight against Apple, they are crazy. Apple will spend five times as much as that to crush them.

Tim will see to it.

Just like Apple crushed all the WiFi router vendors?

i chose to reply to this comment, but I question the tone of AI’s coverage of Sonos and the commenters here.

Apppe and Sonos are continuously cast as enemies, with one needing to win and the other lose. I know people are fixated on winners and losers, I’m just not sure it applies on this case. 

foregoneconclusion said:

I wonder about multi-GB Photoshop documents with lots of layers, Smart Objects, effects, etc.

Probably eat that for a light snack. 2D editing in Photoshop is probably a low-end use for these machines.

I hope you are right. The kind of work I do has taxed every Mac I've ever used.

k2kw said:

This sounds like a pretty powerful computer and also a good value at the same time.
Apple may actually want to sell plenty of these.

the All-in-one has ling been one of Apple's greatest strengths. The 2017 iMacs are pretty sweet as-is. I just bought a top-spec BTO 2017 iMac earlier this month since I have client work piling up that begs for a faster machine. I couldn't wait for the iMac Pro.

I don't think I'm going to return this iMac to buy an iMac Pro.

But if timing had worked out differently, I would have gone for the iMac Pro in a heartbeat.

The way I look at it, by the time I need a new Mac, the New New MacPro will be on to its v2 and we will all know if the redesign is a success or not. Maybe my next Mac will be a MacPro?

Last time I bought in at that tier was the original PowerMac G5.

In the interest of following my own advice to complain less and create more:

i have have noticed that accurate close focus with the iPhone X telephoto lens is rather difficult. Not surprising, tele lenses are less forgiving of sloppy focus. What is strange is that I can see the lens hunting through the focus range, and it does move through a sharp appearance before settling in on a non-sharp focus lock. 

Ive also tried using some manual focus aids in Lightroom & Halide. The focus peaking aids don't work as well with the tele lens they do for the regular wide angle. 

Anyone else have focus problems with the tele lens?