Mac update

An interesting read.
www.wired.com/story/apple-vision-pro-doomed/

Had these goggles been invented to help Neil Armstrong land on the lunar surface, I would applaud them. If they assisted a doctor with remote surgery, then bravo. But $3500 for a fancy set of goggles to watch a movie or play a game?

You have to be one Kool-aid drinking Apple butt-licker to pay the Apple tax for the privilege. $250.00, tops, would be about right to have one for the occasional movie or game.

I think eventually something like this could become popular. But there is the aspect of it where it just looks dumb. That article noted that there are no photos of the Apple executives wearing the goggles. That's telling. They won't eat their own dog food, so to speak.

Once you're talking smaller, lighter, and cheaper, then that might be something to explore. Right now, it's a very expensive proof-of-concept. And most who have used it say the concept has worked very well technically.

But there is that concern about whether people, even in this age of relative isolation, want to isolate themselves further with VR goggles. For gaming? Sure. But I can't be the only one who hates the idea even of 3D movies and having to wear glasses to watch them. It's just so intrusive.

Although Apple shows technical prowess with the production of these goggles, one wonders if DEI isn't starting to creep into their marketing department.

I read last night that they are pulling the ad. The tone-deafness of it is astonishing.

And it coincides, apparently and appropriately, with a number of artists suing ChatGPT for basically gobbling up their artistic content (as part of the "training" process). I hope they win, although this is an internecine battle. So a pox on all of their houses.

It's completely true that these electronic devices and apps are specifically designed to get people unhealthily hooked on them. Oh, they have the shtick of the "Screen Time" feature on the iPhone which supposedly can be set up to warn you that you've been viewing too long. But it's just CYA stuff, completely for show. Good god, the Apple tech titans would condemn you all to hell as long as they could sell phones.

And such phony disclaimers and warnings are directly akin to the "Gambling hotline" (Do you have a problem with a gambling addiction?) numbers they put in small print underneath the ads promoting gambling, which even go so far as offering you $150.00 in real cash credit to get you started. That's absolutely trying to get you hooked. And the disclaimers are little better than CYA stuff, if not (to my mind) a direct way of mocking the corruptness of it all.

The NHL broadcasts are full of these, gambling having become tightly integrated into the money-making aspect of the sport. It's actually unseemly, to the extent that anything can be unseemly these days.

Tim Cook is a corrupt individual, and not just because he's a homosexual. But that certainly doesn't help.

I think Nolte made an ass out of himself with this opinion.



I disagree. The optics on this are terrible. The fact is, this tech crap is indeed replacing more hands-on physical technology. Do I want to watch Itzhak Perlman rubbing his fingers across an iPad or do I want to watch him playing a Stradivarius? It matters that these tech titans are spoiling and helping to destroy so much that is good.

Nolte is hysterical and I guess believes that everyone who doesn't like this ad is a big baby. Well, no doubt many big babies are included in those who object. But if this asshole could see past his nose, he would see there was a principle involved here that exists whether or not supported by big babies. What an asshole.

We'll add that to your book of analogies.



I'll see if I can hunt that down. Always love a good Apple-bashing.



Exactly. And the evidence is in: Smart phones (the iPad being a larger version of one) are not conducive to one's mental health. I read books and articles on mine. That's about it, although I have tried to make use of it as a graphic device, using the iPad versions of the Affinity apps.



There's another Asimovian principle there (not that he would have stated it). And it was mentioned in one of the articles I read about this: Virtual reality inherently disconnects you from the world.

Apple's own use-case ads show a father with the VR goggles on, supposedly all in a happy-family setting while the kids are doing one thing, and the wife another, all in the same room. And it just seems and looks goofy. We see that situation now with phones where families don't even talk to each other at the dinner table. They're all staring into the magical glass.

But perhaps that's an instance of the more things change, the more they stay the same. I read recently that during an English breakfast in Victorian times, it was normal for everyone to read his or her own choice of newspaper or book. This was the upper crust, supposedly. I don't remember if it mentioned what the lower classes were doing.

All this may be good or bad. VR may be completely harmless for playing a game or something. But this is pretty much the road we are heading down. So many people are right now substantially disconnected from reality via various means, especially their political and social beliefs. I can't imagine that VR will do much more than turn them into certifiable kooks. We'll see, though. This stuff is coming fast.

The following is a true story. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.

I was out biking/hiking/trail-clearing about a week ago. My Apple Watch, which I take on the hikes just to record basic data, has slowly been getting flakier and flakier. But I put up with it.

Well, on this day, it started doing something odd. It would set a timer itself (like an egg timer), and once it reached zero, it would beep. And the way this timer works, it beeps and beeps until you manually shut it off.

Okay, so I'm out on the trail doing work and my timer goes off. I thought, that's strange. But I take off my work gloves and fiddle with the timer app by hitting the really tiny button to turn off the alarm. No harm done.

But then 10 minutes later it does it again. I stop, take off my gloves, fiddle with the button, and turn it off again. I put back on my gloves and proceed with my work. Five minutes later, and for the third time, the timer goes off again. What keeps setting it? I don't know. But this time I've had enough. I simply power down the watch which requires more fiddling but it powers down and off.

And then maybe 10 minutes later the timers starts beeping again. What the heck? How can it do that when the watch itself is turned off? Well, somehow this Apple Watch from hell turned itself on again. I tore the watch off my wrist, flung it to the ground, and reached for a large rock to smash it. One wasn't immediately at hand and that's just how close this Apple Watch came to buying it right then and there. I kid you not.

My younger brother understands. His girlfriend at the time (now his wife) bought him an Apple Watch for his birthday a year ago. He almost never wears it. He says it's simply a "nagging device." And, of course, he's right. As I've used the watch over the years, and as they've "updated" the software, it got more and more naggy, the software flakier and flakier.

So on Saturday I'm out biking, hiking, and trail-clearing on a fairly remote trail. My watch band often comes loose (the Velcro fastener gets weaker when gunked up with gunk). I'll have to often cinch up the band. But because I'm wearing rather large work gloves, there no danger of it slipping completely off my wrist.

Or so I thought. I lost the watch on a specific fairly remote trail that day. I think it simply escaped. How it got off my wrist, I don't know. I searched the trail twice. I tried the "Find My" app on the phone. But it couldn't find it. I suspect this is because this watch will often turn off Bluetooth all on its own. And without Bluetooth, there's no way for the iPhone and the Watch to see each other.

Having declared defeat (which was sort of a victory in the long run), I then went through the procedure on my phone to report it as lost, which basically then locks it so no one else can do anything with it. You also enter your phone number and a message so that if anyone does find it, they can call you.

I had done my due diligence in trying to find it. But I was hardly disappointed. In some strange way, I felt free, free at last. And then to make things even stranger, a half hour after getting home, I get an automated message from Apple saying that the watch was found in Silverdale, ten miles away. I was on Green Mountain (miles from both Silverdale and home) when I lost it – on a fairly remote trail. Basically I've never seen anyone on that trail but the very occasional motorcycle, and no one on that particular day. In fact, there was no one out in the area when I was out there. I didn't pass a soul.

Suffice it to say, I will never, ever buy another Apple Watch.

My Apple Watch was a 4 model. I think I got it in 2019. And some Mac/Apple people do hold onto their computers for a few years. But without a doubt, these companies absolutely depend on the upgrade cycle. They offer improvements, for sure. But they depend on a large number of people wanting the latest and the greatest whether the improvements are large or small.

If you want a smart watch, Mr. Kung, check out this one. I will even buy it for you out of Apple-spite. But the reviews are generally pretty good. Certainly it's not likely to be as robust as more expensive watches. Buy for $35.00, few are going to be too concerned about that aspect. I'm half tempted to pick one up. But I ran that experiment already. Quite frankly, it was used mostly for keeping a grocery list, and I can do that easily enough (even easier) on my phone.