Ye Macce Threade

[blessingx]

Any chance you can just change to an Office alternative? 

[morphsci]

29 minutes ago, blessingx said:

Any chance you can just change to an Office alternative? 

Is there really an alternative?

[TMoney]

The problem with office is that it is a gigantic amalgamation of features.

Most office users use, say 15-20% of the total features. The problem is that the 20% I use and the 20% you use aren’t the same. 

As far as I can tell the only way to make sure the mobile app has all the features each office user needs is to use the full desktop level apps. 

Edited May 22, 2021 by TMoney

[n_maher]

7 hours ago, TMoney said:

Picked up the new hotness today. Holy moly this thing is big coming off the 2018 11”.

The keyboard case was expensive but it feels great. HDR on the new screen is stunning. Nearly LG-OLED-like blacks and eye-searing brightness.

All that is missing is Apple letting us run full desktop-Mac apps on this thing!

I'm jealous, but for me having just bought the 2018 11" cousin to what you cast aside, it's a nice step up from any ipad I've used previously and for once, actually impresses with it's ability to function rather than simply waste time.

[gepardcv]

@TMoney: Your battlestation photo is disturbingly lacking in headphones and a slick amplifier 😁

But I’m with you on this. I’ve been low-key trying to replace my Mac laptop with my iPad (and I don’t have one of the new ones, just an OG Pro from 2015) and an external keyboard. It’s close. I personally could probably jump ship if an upcoming version of iPadOS has (1) a Unix shell and (2) background processes. It seems like something Apple could bless us with. I’d also love external storage slots, but they’re not strictly necessary.

[dsavitsk]

4 hours ago, TMoney said:

Having a monitor, mouse, keyboard, DAC, ethernet, and power all connected via a single cable to a thunderbolt dock feels like the fucking future.

I've had that setup, with a Thinkpad, for 3 years.

[Dusty Chalk]

https://www.macworld.com/article/229528/lgs-5k-monitor-doesnt-work-near-wi-fi-routers.html

[Grahame]

Meanwhile WWDC ...

https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/7/22465927/apple-wwdc-keynote-2021-live-blog-updates-news

 

 

Edited June 7, 2021 by Grahame

[TMoney]

AirPlay to Mac is a pretty cool feature. Leave the Mac plugged in to a DAC and cast music to it from the phone/tablet. I like it.

Lots of cool little features like that today. Nothing really mind-blowing, but some decent quality of life stuff.

Getting rid of tracking pixels on emails is long overdue. Et tu, Google/GMail?

[TMoney]

What knavery is this?

I don’t know if this sounds better or worse, but it does sound different. Reminds me of listening to a binaural recording.

[TMoney]

Now Apple just needs to add a way to let the Music app take exclusive control of a DAC and switch bitrates as needed.

Edited June 8, 2021 by TMoney

[Grahame]

Verge take

https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/7/22523228/apple-music-lossless-spatial-audio-dolby-atmos-features

Apples FAQ

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212183

Don't forget your Apple TV 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 8, 2021 by Grahame

[blessingx]

Fake Spatial Audio https://9to5mac.com/2021/06/08/ios-15-and-macos-monterey-simulate-spatial-audio-for-non-dolby-content-with-new-spatialize-stereo-option/ 

[gepardcv]

Audirvana switches bit rate without necessarily taking exclusive control of a DAC. Is there any advantage to exclusive control? I find it annoying — you can’t just pause music playback to l, e.g. watch a video in-browser, you have to fully stop and lose your place in a track or playlist. 
 

Oh, and Apple’s jukebox software still not switching rates automatically is just silly. C’mon.

[Hopstretch]

https://www.macstories.net/news/eddy-cue-on-why-spatial-audio-is-a-game-changer/

The view from Apple HQ.

[TMoney]

Exclusive is mostly to not get beeped and booped at as emails and chats roll in.

I'm mixed on spatial audio. With the APM and HD800 the stereo tracks sound correct, natch. Atmos spatial sounds like a good binaural filter at best, and a bad one at worst. Is that a game changer? I dunno.

[blessingx]

There's always the macOS sidebar Do Not Disturb is a quick way to get temporarily get rid of notifications. 

[Grahame]

"

APPLE MUSIC’S SPATIAL AUDIO IS SOMETIMES AMAZING BUT MOSTLY INCONSISTENT
At launch, it’s a very hit or miss experience

"

https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/9/22525028/apple-music-spatial-audio-dolby-atmos-hands-on

[TMoney]

For anyone who knows, is there any reason not to leave the Audio Midi Setup app set to 24-96 if the DAC can handle it even when playing lower bit-rate/sample rate content?

[gepardcv]

In my understanding, setting a higher sample rate will cause the OS to digitally upsample or downsample the source material to match. I don’t know if it’s audible from an ABX test perspective, but it mucks with the signal. I suspect it doesn’t matter for upsamples of multiples of the original (like 44kHz to 88kHz or 48 to 96), but interpolation (44 to 96) might introduce artifacts. (I might be wrong about this.)

A higher output bit depth than the source material should be fine: the extra bits will be set to 0, and that’s that. No information added, removed, or changed. 

[ironbut]

AMS (audio midi studio) switches sample rates up and down to match the audio. It doesn't have the ability to upsample or anything that complicated.

It's just a Utility for setting preferences for audio devices.

Set your devices format to the max it can handle and AMS will switch the output to the appropriate settings.

I believe Core Audio can up/downsample file outputs.

[blessingx]

The 15-second Dolby Atmos bug
https://9to5mac.com/2021/06/16/15-second-bug-dolby-atmos-spatial-audio-apple-music/ 

[blessingx]

These settings were in earlier links, but just in case…

“Enjoy” Apple Music Spatial Audio on third-party headphones https://9to5mac.com/2021/06/21/spatial-audio-apple-music-headphones/ 

[Grahame]

Meanwhile ...

https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/21/wifi_ssid_flaw/

"Hope no one's created guest networks called '%Free %Coffee at %Starbucks'"

 

[HiWire]

For dinosaur technicians like me – I just found out that macOS stopped supporting reading of HFS-formatted disks after macOS Mojave. Apparently Mac OS X 10.6 was the last OS that supported writing HFS-formatted optical disks.

Fortunately, I still have some old installs that will let me finish this long-delayed archiving project (old CDs/DVDs/Zip disks/floppy disks).

Edited June 23, 2021 by HiWire