Eternal shitposter who probably has something more important he should be doing.

Likes: Nice headphones, iPods, Apple stuff, music.

Dislikes: Nazis, Apple

He / Him

Mastodon: https://mendeddrum.org/@DJDarren

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  • 39 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: May 3rd, 2023

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    • I think I might hate iOS even more than Windows, though.

    This is why iPads frustrate me so much these days. The hardware is more than capable of running a decently powerful OS, but Apple are insistent on crippling them with a big version of iOS. iOS is fine on an iPhone where the limited screen size means I have no particular desire to do anything too complicated, but the same restrictions on an iPad feel like Apple don’t really know how to reconcile what the device can do with not wanting to pull customers away from Macs. I was unexpectedly gifted a 6th gen mini last week which is in front of me as I type and which I’m not entirely sure what to do with.


  • Yes, they really do. There were a few years of fuckups and questionable decisions, but by and large the devices they make are absolutely solid.

    I have a 2011 MacBook Pro at home that’s running Monterey via Opencore as well as if it was still supported. Until recently I was using a 2015 MBP that was absolutely faultless. I now have an M2 Air that may have some issues down the line that haven’t come to light yet, but it seems unlikely. I have two Mac minis at work, a 2011 and a 2014 that are still absolutely capable for the level of work I ask of them. I’m typing this on one of them.

    In terms of iPhones/iPads; I’ve had 7 iPhones and 5 iPads over the years, and the only hardware problems I’ve experienced with them have been of my own doing (broken screens, water damage, etc…).

    So yeah, the 2016-2019 MacBooks had shitty keyboards and questionable I/O decisions, but otherwise the hardware was absolutely top tier.

    And with Apple you can’t choose and pick like with PC. When they decide to try silly things like the touch bar you are stuck with them for years.

    This is kind of a weird argument. You can’t choose which keyboard you get with any laptop.


  • All of this stuff makes me sad. As a long(ish)-time Apple user, it’s been sad to see them go full throttle into hyper-capital mode. They’re literally the wealthiest company on the planet because they’ve spent the past twenty years figuring out how to nickel and dime their customers. Hell, even when I bought my first MacBook back in '07, the guy in the Apple Store suggested getting the RAM upgrade elsewhere because Apple prices were ridiculous even then. Everyone knows they didn’t go with soldered RAM and storage for the performance gains…

    But they make incredible hardware, so I tolerate all that shit, making me complicit in the fuckery.


  • In theory, any MP3 player / DAP that can have music loaded onto it by drag and drop could work with your iPad (assuming you have the means to connect it, of course).

    But there are a number of things to consider.

    Firstly; storage. Obviously, your iPad doesn’t have expandable storage, so depending on the size of your collection, you might run out of space. Using the same method you’ll need to connect the player to your iPad, you can hook up an external drive of some description. Files should be able to see it (as long as it’s formatted to exFAT or FAT). From there, using Files you can simply drag from one place to another.

    However, this doesn’t allow you to change metadata or anything. There are apps you can download that will allow you to do it, but it can be a pain in the ass if you’ve got quite a bit of music.

    Finally, there’s where you get the music from.

    If you buy from somewhere like Bandcamp, then you can download directly to your iPad, though they don’t make it easy. You can’t buy from iTunes because the app won’t let you open them in Files. Torrents are obviously out, so is CD ripping, as there are no CD drivers for iPad that I’m aware of.

    So while it’s entirely possible to run a DAP with just an iPad, it’s kind of a pain in the arse, unless you already have a ready supply of music and it’s either already tagged well, or you don’t really care about that sort of thing. As others have suggested, it might be just as easy for you to pick up a cheap PC. It doesn’t need to have any bells and whistles, just the ability to store music and have some way of managing the library.






  • I guess this makes sense to some extent.

    I mean, kids learn from copying their parents, so parents who distract their kids with an old iPad are less likely to spend as much time interacting with them. That’s no shade towards any parents, btw. I myself am a parent of a kid who had access to my phone from an early age to keep him quiet while I tried to get shit done. He had troubles with socialising at school, and ended up being kicked out of a couple. It’s entirely possible he has ADHD (as I do), but he’s 19 now, at university, far less likely to be spending his time looking at his phone, and is absolutely thriving.

    So I guess I fucked him up for quite a bit there…







  • I quite like the 30 pin, though that may be because I coveted iPods at the time but couldn’t afford one. I had a couple of Sony hard disc Walkman, which seemed to have a different connector every damn time, meaning you couldn’t buy one dock like you could with an iPod. On top of that, it was a solid connection that clicked nicely every time. But yeah, ya boy was wiiiiiide. I have a dozen of them knocking about now, as my little collection of iPods grows…

    Also, it’s hilarious that Samsung straight up copied the 30 pin for their original Tab, but flipped the pin position so the cables weren’t interchangeable.







  • It’s not just politicians, it’s so many of the older people running the companies and pulling the strings.

    My own boss is an absolute nightmare for not understanding that technology that could make our jobs here so, so much easier - and crucially much much more efficient. And yeah, I get that we could endlessly chase the promises of tech, but I’m forever being told to wind back my reliance on online tech because the boss won’t spend the money needed on some computers and would rather do things on paper. I just nod, agree, then carry on doing things my way, because it has proven results. There’s a bunch of us here who rely on Google Docs for collaboration software, because the boss refuses to spend any money on anything better suited. He didn’t need it back when he set up the company 20 years ago, so he doesn’t need it now!

    Drives me fucking mad.

    As to your point on experts; our government ministers actively reject experts who actually know about the issues, choosing instead to listen to people who’ll tell them what they want to hear.