sirozha

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sirozha
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  • Compared: 2018 MacBook Air versus 13-inch MacBook Pro and 2017 MacBook Air

    sirozhasirozha
    IMHO, Touch Bar is going away. I think there is plenty of evidence that it will happen soon. The new iMacs and iMac Pros came out without the touch-bar capability (there’s no external keyboard with the Touch Bar capability). Same is true with the newly released Mac Mini and soon-to-be released Mac Pro. Neither the MacBook not the newly released MacBook Air has the Touch Bar. 

    If Apple saw a future for the Touch Bar, we would have external keyboards with the Touch Bar capability by now, and there would be an option for the Touch Bar in the 2018 MacBook Air. 
    bb-15

  • MacBook Air 2018 Review: Apple's most popular Mac gets an impactful upgrade

    sirozhasirozha
    sflocal said:
    wozwoz said:
    My Macbook Air Retina arrived today. It is very elegant and beautifully designed, more compact, and noticeably faster than my previous 2014 Macbook Air. That is the upside. On the downside, I mention 3 down factors compared to the older Macbook Air:

    1. The new Retina model no longer has an illuminated Apple logo on the lid - I miss that.

    2. No more MagSafe connector: that is a minus:  MagSafe is wonderful, easy to connect, and I liked the the little green or orange light that showed you when it was charging or full. That is all gone.

    3. Crappy adaptors or no adaptors:  
    For the old Macbook Air, Apple sold an excellent Thunderbolt to Ethernet adaptor. That no longer works with the new Macbook Air, because the new MacBook Air does not accept Thunderbolt (unless you double dongle) ... and Apple does NOT make a Thunderbolt 3 to Ethernet adaptor (which is ridiculous). So, instead, I purchased from the Apple store the Belkin USB-C (not Thunderbolt 3) to Ethernet adaptor ... even though it gets an appalling rating on the Apple store (most users give it 1 out of 5 stars). I have measured the performance with the Belkin adaptor, and in every test, the Belkin USB-C adaptor has been slower on the new Mac than using Apple's old Thunderbolt to ethernet adaptor on the old Mac - an appalling outcome. That is going backwards ... not going forwards. 

    Apple needs to wake up and start making a Thunderbolt 3 to Ethernet adaptor (and a Thunderbolt 3 to HDMI adaptor). In the meantime, I will have to now go buy a Thunderbolt 3 dock.


    What does the TB3->Ethernet adapter get you that a USBc->Ethernet adapter will not?  I have that exact adapter for those rare times I need. a LAN connection and it works just fine for me.

    How often are you going to use this method of connection?  It's a laptop first, not a desktop.  If it's going to be seeing desktop duty, consider getting a TB3 dock and you'll have all the ports you'll ever wanted.  

    MagSafe was nice, but I got over that quickly.  I've quickly grown accustomed to having everything on one cable, versus having to deal with multiple cables.  

    The illuminated Apple logo?  Really?  
    Don’t discount the wired Ethernet connection. Some people need to be connected via wired Ethernet. All sorts of IT tasks require wired connections. USB-based Ethernet adapters are error-prone. The way to go is definitely Thunderbolt. I haven’t seen any Thunderbolt3  to Gigabit Ethernet adapters. You have to double dongle TB3 > TB2 <-> TB2 > GigabitEthernet. 
    wozwoz

  • Apple axes Back to My Mac in macOS Mojave

    sirozhasirozha
    VPN, DynamicDNS, and Screen Sharing can be used to access your Mac at home. 

    If you are advanced enough that you need access to more than one computer at home (i.e. to the entire home network), you can set up a VPN server at home. Basically any router comes with a VPN server nowadays. Once you have established a VPN tunnel to your router, you are able to communicate remotely with any IP host on your home network. 

    If you just need access to files stored on one Mac, use iCloud Drive or any other cloud file storage service.

    Back to My Mac was a poor-man’s VPN solution before real VPN became available on consumer-grade routers. This was also mostly for homes with one computer. At one point, a manual crank as a backup system for an electric starter became an outdated offering and got removed as an option from every modern car. Did it prevent someone from
    buying a new car I’m the past 40 years?

    fastasleeprandominternetperson

  • Verizon eyes Apple as partner for 5G TV rollout

    sirozhasirozha
    cgWerks said:
    I'm not sure whether to be excited about 5G or not yet. While the possibility of competition for the land-based ISPs is welcomed... how much competition will there really be? Will it drive prices down and services up?

    But, 5G also looks like a pretty flaky technology. I don't want to move an inch and have the signal drop or junk like that. And, I'd rather not have 5G 'towers' littered all over the place either.
    For a fixed location, this could be competitive with cable or fibre. There would be a 5G modem connected to a Wi-Fi router / AP. There will not be 5G chips in every device. Wi-Fi will continue to be used for Internet access. 
    Rayz2016cgWerks

  • Watch and hear HomePod's multi-room audio with stereo playback on iOS 11.4

    sirozhasirozha
    foggyhill said:
    sirozha said:
    If only Apple TV could take audio input from other devices via an optical audio cable and via its HDMI port (if it were ARC), the HomePod speakers would suddenly become much more usable for playing other sources (like a game console, cable TV box, etc.) 
    Optical is OUT, use a converter, they're cheap.
    You didn’t get what I meant. 
    williamlondon