naravara

I always thought the ideal version of that technology would have been as an overlay on top of the trackpad that can be invoked by pressing or holding a button. They’d have even been able to fake button presses with the haptics in there so you could do things like fake a num pad, set up a macro pad, or use it like a stream deck.

If you can special plead away the unavoidable materials science and engineering downsides there’s lots of ideas that can sound great. Alas that’s not the world we live in.

The only touchscreen laptop I ever understood the appeal of was that one Lenovo one where you can fold the bottom back to make it a literal tablet or prop up as a kickstand.

The value of “tablet mode” would mainly be if I want to do content consumption, like watch video or read a book, while on the couch or in bed since it allows a wider range of postures you can sit or lay in when you don’t have to rest it on a flat surface.

If you can’t fold it back I just don’t get the appeal.

It’s the storage prices that tend to give people sticker shock. Though for just being a media server you can get away with a spinning disc rather than an SSD. But they’re still kind of insane right now.

The copy on this page doesn’t feel “Apple” to me.

“Apple HomeView is designed to bring more joy and convenience to everyone in your household. Siri AI comes built in for personalized AI assistance that’s truly useful in your everyday life. And with a vibrant display and powerful acoustics, your music, videos, and calls look and sound amazing. Meet the new heart of your home.”

Is “designed to” lacks confidence. Does it do it or not? I don’t care what your intention was. And the Siri AI sentence is vacuous, including the pointless modifiers (truly useful in your everyday life). You can’t convince me you care or put effort into the little things when your ad copy is slop. Apple used to put more thought into this sort of thing.

My original mortgage lender has a very functioning web portal to set up autopay and check my account.

They sold my mortgage to a big bank whose web portal and app are pure garbage. Constantly crashing, the autopay frequently just doesn’t autopay, and getting a statement history requires delving through a bunch of random menus.

It’s really obnoxious that I just get no say unless I refinance.

I’d argue the fact that the hardware is still big and clunky means the tech isn’t workable. If it was about as light and easy to get on and off as a chunky pair of ski-goggles I think they’d have been onto something, but big and heavy with no “killer app” or feature makes it a tough sell.

VR gaming is a niche even among hardcore gamers. There’s some value in spatial computing for just being a more ergonomic way to do computer stuff (i.e. not being in a fixed position all day, being able to walk around while you work) but it’d need to be able to hit everything a Mac can do with no compromises to be worth it at that price (and at the cost of making you look goofy). So far it seems like it’s only found real utility in some very specific industrial and scientific research contexts, which is very cool but probably isn’t the lane a mass market consumer products manufacturer wants as their play long-term.

NICE! You should buy a lottery ticket!

These things have usable lifespans of about 2-4 years before the batteries start to go (depending on how low a capacity you can tolerate). It’s more like you buy the one available at the time when your old ones wear out.

I really miss the BeatsX headphones where it’s 2 earbuds attached to each other with a flexible cable that drapes over the back of your neck. It was nice to be able to take my headphones out without needing to hold them and they just fall over my shoulders like a necklace. Also means not having to keep track of a third item since there’s no charging case. And the whole thing is soft and flexible so you can put it more easily in your pocket without it bulging like the AirPods in a case do.

I find the “true wireless” form factor finnicky and comically easy to lose and easy to drop. I don’t really see much utility in it either aside from the cool technology flex. If they’d put the modern audio quality and noise cancelling on the BeatsX (and the more neutral AirPods response curve) I’d be first in line.

This was a style thing that tended to ebb and flow. The trend in the 2000s was to have really big watch faces but by the 2010s people were calling them “dinner plates” and it started to be viewed as kind of tacky and ostentatious. Smart watches ended up recalibrating people’s expectations but, if they hadn’t shaken things up, I think we’d be leaning towards smaller faces by now.

In fact, fashionable youths these days are wearing those vintage Casios which come in at 35mm to 39mm.

The Vision Pro (and the folding iPhone Duo) involve developing a lot of underlying technologies that will be useful in currently popular or potential future product lines, even if the market they serve themselves is niche.

If you went back in time to 2006 and showed a cellular Apple Watch and an iPhone (with no apps for either) side by side I think a lot of people would assume the former would be the ubiquitous consumer product and the latter would be a niche product for wealthy executives.

The cellular Apple Watch would be a great cell phone if all you want is to use your phone as a phone + iPod. But it’s hamstrung by its software and being forced to be anchored to an iPhone to be activated just makes it unsuitable as a primary device. We’d probably all be healthier as a society if we didn’t have the black rectangle of doom in our pockets all the time.

I’d love a cellular Apple Watch that’s elongated enough to have a headphone jack (lol) and all day battery life. It’d be fine even if it was meant to stay in my pocket instead of on the wrist.

Regulations do prevent murder, you just put consequences on doing murder to deter people from doing it.

A slot machine that rolls sentences based on statistical weights isn’t a “messenger” and it’s output isn’t a “message.”