Category Archives: Apple

All things Apple

Apple seem to have no regard for those who develop on their platforms

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Apple seem to have no regard for those who develop on their platforms

Discuss hmm they keep changing modifying and breaking all their API’s and HCI toolboxes interfaces etc etc, and if you’ve developed an app dependent on any of this stuff apple may stop supporting or completely kill the apples codebase your app rely’s on to function very rapidly over a short number of years.

An app I find essential and use every day means, I wont be upgrading my imac beyond 10.10 or my phone beyond ios 10 because of this, keychain2go is too valuable.

Apple cost their customers with future compatibility with USB3 delivery 2.5 years late

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Apple cost their customers dear with future compatibility with USB3 delivery, as they were 2.5 years late to put it on their computers,

    The USB Promoter Group announced the release of USB 3.0 in ‘November 2008’

, apple had from this moment the opportunity to begin the process of implementing it in its products, the first usb3 peripherals and products shipped in november 2009 and january 2010.

    But the first apple devices to have usb3, came out in June 2012 and the first imacs in october 2012!

    Effectively macs were late to the usb3 party, by 2 and half years by any measure, if not 4 years late from the promotor groups announcement.

USB3 may not be the worlds greatest standard, but it is very cost affective per port compared to apple thunderbolt, which apple pushed in advance of USB3, what do I use my thunderbolt ports for today you might ask ? As little more than fancy DVI outputs ! for two monitors, thunderbolt is overpriced and under-delivering in terms of utility or fruitfulness, except for a high end market that is not representative of many a general ordinary apple consumer, which apple seems to have forgotten.

Add still today in 2017 apple are offering only USB2 on nearly all of their iOS devices! apples lighting port has not been upgraded to USB 3 speeds except I believe for the pro line of ipads!

On USB2 imacs like my mid 2011 you are limited to a maximum of (480 MBps protocol speed) ie around 48 megabytes as second transfers speeds to an iphone via lightning, alternatively over wireless AC regardless of acclaimed headline maximums speeds like 1100 MBps per second from a two foot apart with direct air line of sight best case scenario between devices and router, most people might realistically get around 400Mbps from a wireless AC router, so really still just around 40 Megabytes a second via iTunes wifi syncing might be expected, where as the the storage internal to an iphone 6s plus 128gb can write at over 279 megabytes a second, transferring data from macs to ios devices(except the pro ipad) is therefore inordinately and antiquated-ly slow compared to most android phones.

I feel that much of this is deliberate in that apple don’t really want you transferring data at acceptable speeds between your computer and your iphone, they want you to use it as a media consumption device and to pay for and download everything on your devices from their – cashtill stores. Also their single chip storage designs means that although read speeds with nvme express maybe good on their phones since the 128gb models onwards upto say 1.8 gigabytes a second, until their chips are multi channel or more chips and address lanes are used – write speeds on 128gb models around 270 Megabytes a second- wont match read speeds pace. as single chips designs will always have limited performance unless bespoke designed internally.

Apple Lightning connector a Load of crap – basically its a crappy proprietary USB2 variant – FUCK APPLE

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putting chips in the cable whose only purpose is to detect if they are genuine or not is immoral behaviour on apples part, non magnetic latching is also rubbish, considering they make the magsafe connector, if were stuck with the lightning connector for the next 5 years thats a disappointment, especially since ‘currently’ its effectively just another adulterated proprietary variation on usb2 ‘Fuck Apple’ as far I’m concerned, hope the EU force them to use the same standards agreed – micro USB connector, Lightning my Arse, obsessed they are with making slimmer everything, including difficult to manufacture overpriced usb2 variants.

Mac pro thermal limitations ?

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The new cooling design is is radical and looks great, and might be a real revolution that only apple can use patents

but something on the spec of the machine tells my that either the machine is thermally limited by its own cooling capability or the ivybridge cpu non contact soldered IHS is causing issues thermally, how do I know this when I theyre not even out yet well look at the spec for the two models on apples site >

thermal limitations between models on new mac pro

thermal limitations between models on new mac pro

notice how the hex core model has to drop 200 megahertz per core in speed from the quad core machines so effectively your loosing 1.2ghz of power over all the cores, compared to the quad core ? this to me implies its been clocked down so as to prevent high temps and high fan speeds when at the same clock speed ? ie thermally the system cant handle running 6 cores at the same clock speed as the 4 core, it just cant dissipate that heat fast enough from 6 cores at 3.7ghz without becoming noisy ? this is usual with apple in the sense, they limit fan speeds and clock speeds whilst having higher acceptable temp envelopes for more quietness, versus performance on systems with limited cooling, even then my suspicion would be that they as per usual they will prefer to run the SMC BGA CPU and GPU cores at higher temps for quietnesses sake. Compared to say a person who watercooled their PC whos looking for idle temps from 30 to 40 degrees on most components for longevity and overclock-ability headrooms sake, but since sandy bridge intel have screwed us over on getting close to 5ghz with bad IHS soldering methods. on their CPU’s in general even though the silicon sufficiently cooled can do it.

Admittedly its harder to remove heat from more cores on the same die but still … it aint great. On a PC you can upgrade the cooling since this design is centered round the cooling from a design perspective theres little you can do to upgrade it.

Keychain2Go – The best keychain syncing software – bar none

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Ok after having purchased and tested this app for some time, I feel if safe to now say If you want to synchronise a keychain between your computers and iOS devices, then keychain2Go is really the best program I’ve found to do the job. I am now able to successfully add to my private keychain on os x and it is synced successfully to iOS when you have the iOS app open on the iPhone and it syncs in the reverse meaning any edit or additional items I make on the iOS keychain2go app then get synced back to my iMac via the background OS x keychain2go os x app which is purchasable direct from the jinx.de website or the os x app store.

I’ll be honest I initially had a few issues in setting this up, but some of that might have been down to a dodgy router that didn’t handle bonjour very well, My best advice is to read the FAQ in detail and remember that any personal and private keychain i.e. not login etc you want synced must be placed in the ~library/keychains folder and follow the advice under help>faq>misc section for a terminal command that will make it recognise other keychains placed there. and if it first you don’t succeed try a clear out of the program bits and reinstall and try again, because when you’ve got it working this is just dynamite and saves me so much time plugging and unplugging usb sticks where I kept my private keychain until Keychain2go but now its all editable available and synced on my iPhone – absolutely marvellous! Ive bought other password management apps 1password for instance but that could not work with my pre-existing existing keychain notes and I wasn’t going to re-enter over 500 keychain notes each crammed with information, 1password also worked out more trouble than it was worth, when it came to its auto entry feature and required way to many clicks to work, and it only does half what Keychain2go manages to and that seamlessly and cleanly, i much prefer keychain2go’s feature set, the syncing is awesome especially to an iOS app that works well.

don’t mind the few reviews here, the app has recently been so healthily updated, that each new version requires new rating and reviews every time, this a good app, and when you have it working, if you need keychain syncing, this will rock your world ;)

Apple forums pointless, way too heavily censored for the slightest apple criticism.

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at discussions.apple.com below is written what I attempted to post in response to this forum post titled “Unexpected Shut down when moving macbook pro on my ‘lap'”, which apple for reasons of censoring ego seem not to allow >
”
Ignore the volunteer extremely cookie cut response high post count forum trolls, that seem only to exist to hand out the same obvious reflex responses on apples censored forums, to annoy and negatively instantly recommend the usual rubbish of … user error / back up everything / try a wipe re-install or go to an apple store and pay them money. The only valid advice given by such trolls is to make sure you have a backup. Theyre the equivalent of the people whose stock response to everything is “google it”, which is not actually bespoke advice, and at its core the statement fails to recognise that anything fruitfully “googled” on the web was contributed by somebody actually adding hopefully useful information to the internet, and such useful information is not magically created through the act of just googling alone, its put their by someone often in a discussion with others.

Some of us low post count but expert users understand your here in the forum, because your seeking pro-active positive advice from users who’ve experienced such issues before themselves, not seeking stock trite responses, every industry of technical understanding has the same parade of characters, some less useful than others.

    OK actual Advice :

What Linc fails to highlight is SMS stands for Sudden Motion Sensor, “Sudden” being the operative word, ie it supposed to protect the hard drive from a traumatic movement like how an airbag is actuated in a car, and should not be going off when a laptop is being carried to a new location table to sofa etc. I have noted some apple laptops in which problems as you describe occur. and it often comes downs to one of four things>

1 There has been issue with SMS going wrong on certain hard drives and being overactive, this has been noted especially after upgrades. Some drives are not compatible with apples system and falsely mis-report sometimes apples system is too sensitive : read > http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1935. you can thankfully disable SMS if you want. if this resolves your problems your good to go. just don’t swing your laptop about after disabling it, as Linc1 is in fact correct in stating that sudden repeated terminations of disk activity can cumulatively damage data on the drive and impair and damage the hard drive long term.

2 loose connections in the laptop disturbed by movement, its worth carefully reseating most easily accessible internal connectors and memory

3 Since the final conclusion of logic board failure is so expensive it can sometimes be worth replacing the cheaper PMU board in case there is some operative heat based component failure or flexing issue there, causing it.

4 Or … there is sadly and most devastatingly a dry joint on the logic board, which when flexed by carrying movement ( never carry a laptop by one corner, always use two hands on the sides) causes the laptop to instantly shutoff, in this case a new logic board will be required, solder reflow of dodgy boards can work temporarily but rarely in the long term. apple not providing parts to end users, means we have to rely on the unreliable 2nd hand market, and purchasing a replacement logic board on ebay is usually a lottery.(no lead in solder any more (military got an exemption on that … note) and endless surface mount ball grid array manufacture, for board and chip sandwiches that get too hot … doesn’t help)

I would rule out … points 1, 2 and 3 in the order above before concluding 4

NB> temp based shutdown

its also always worth getting marcel bresinks genius and free “temperature monitor” software and making sure your not experiencng thermal shutdown due to high cpu temperature. apple ‘lap’ tops are not brilliantly ventilated and should always rest on a hard surface when on your ‘lap’ to allow sufficient airflow under and around the laptop, placing them on a duvet is a recipe for disaster, cpus have diferent thermal shutoffs around 100deg c, the lower temperature the components operate in your laptop generally the longer they live, you cpu should preferably never be exceeding 80deg in general use, the cooler the better also there is various fan control software to aid this heat scenario SMCfancontrol, fan control etc, listen for fans ramping all the time.

ifixit is a much better place for discussion as concerns out of warranty repair of apple products.

Why you may ask yourself is the premium priced & branded computer you bought going wrong and you finding yourself seeking help on these forums, a small number of years after you purchased your computer, It’s because chinese standard manufacture quality which can rarely offer premium build quality, is generally the same standard across mainstream brands for all chinese manufactured goods, Reliability and build quality whether a £400 or £1000 laptop is roughly equal, mainly the cost of major component parts used is what creates the price difference, eg CPU / display / graphics / Disk parts cost etc.
”

    In the end i went on to make the following post … just to see whether it would get through ?

wierdly a post that contains no useful information does ? typical …

“Had some relevant points to add to this discussion, but apples endless usual ego based, forum censorship stasi – prevent my post from appearing, I bet even this wont appear either, apples forums are basically a marketing excercise, I’d look elsewhere help, its time the users left apple to themselves on these forums.”

the post above was also eventually removed … by the apple forum stasi …

App Store based software update crapping out again … waiting etc

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For some reason my software update seems to think it’s “waiting” for my brother printer 2.10 update forever, I also note that this brother 2.10 update is probably stalled, most likely because the driver updates software update is trying to install, are probably not as up-to-date as the mountain lion brother printer drivers that I quite recently installed manually from the brother website itself? and it cant quite deal in the background with the, the drivers already installed are more up to date etc ?

These App Store software update issues are a problem with Apple trying to simplify things too much and bind the software update system unnaturally into the App Store, when it doesn’t really run as smoothly as the old software update system, Which was far superior when it comes to updating the operating system, you once had the ability to store and download and retain installers permanently useful for very large, combo installers that you need to install on multiple machines, negating the necessity of re-downloading on every machine you needed to update, wasting both bandwidth and commercial time, obviously you can trawl the Apple website to find an update and downloaded and retain it, so you can install on many machines etc, but that used to be something that was easy to do do through the software update system without having to bother to trawl the Apple website which is better. You could do a specific noncontiguous selection of updates which were to be installed and which could be installed all in one hit, without much messing around or supernumerary restarts. Also there was a great deal more feedback as to what was going on, the word “waiting” and no petrol gauge doesn’t inform the users of much.

Also I note that you don’t get the ability to select individual updates to be done unless you click on the word “more” which isn’t used in such a way within gui’s or interfaces, except to refer to “more…” as in for extra textual description which has been truncated click here to see the whole text, rather than individual software install functionality etc, but in fact the individual update selection update buttons are hidden behind this “more” in non obvious manner. Additionally if you don’t want to install an update it will sit there for ever more in the list dangerously hidden behind the always reduced “more” text every time you launch software update within the App Store, leaving the potential danger of it being installed when you don’t want it to be, iTunes 11 anyone ? no thanks, or brother printer update I don’t need ? that will always fail to install, even if I accidentally set it to install, when I don’t want to, because it’s hidden behind the “more” text and I just clicked the main update button. It should be possible to remove printer updates if one doesn’t want them in the list.

I recommend the following article in order to sort these issues out, again allot of pissing about with websites and complicated things, in order to sort out the supposedly easy to use Apple software, sometimes it’s better to give the users more control rather than ask them to find out about how to resolve the problem, and find out what the real complexity looks like, behind the failing veneer of simplicity, this will usually involves lots and lots of forum searching, this guy has a really good article about how to resolve problems with software update on the App Store so I recommend you to have a look at his great post, rather than groping around in forums yourself.

app store stuck stopped waiting ? use this guide to sort it out

New Apple Mac Pro – My Take

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lap It up morons, weve made some especially custom super compact designer apple crap for you, hmm let me see >
Non Standards Adherent – bespoke custom apple nightmare
Surface Mount BGA city – heat death ? 1 chip dies your whole computer is f*d, thats another £1500 logic board please mr customer
Still Using Xeons, the least price efficient form of CPU power clocked at half their 5ghz potential.
BGA twin mobile graphics :( or single X2 desktop card ?
not upgradeable ?
airflow not filtered ?
why is every company trying to kill concept of an open standards based PC ?

looks like their going down a kind of SGI iris style compact designer wastebasket route, what would be revolutionary power wise ? 16 cores at as close to 5ghz as possible, which is the maximal potential of intel’s platform ? but in that thermal envelope its unlikely to get anywhere near it, the only benefit would be if being surface mount everything made it allot cheaper to manufacture, but no doubt since its so custom, it will be vastly more expensive per core than a powerful pc ?

if it is ATI in some form of crossfire, then they will have performance issues with crossfire mode and runt frames no doubt that mac ati driver will have this issue sorted way behind the PC driver.

your PS4 will have faster DDR5 memory

the top spec version wil be £6000 ?

upto 128gb memory

yet the truth is I will probably still be buying one ! hypocrit that I am, as there will be little choice, why ? because dual processor macs aren’t purchasable any other ways, this machines is going to be as usual perversely expensive to fix if anything goes wrong as it looks apple bespoke proprietary custom parts all the way ? each processor board including surface mount CPU ? £800 ? want to open it up into an open hardware standard apple ? … no I didn’t think so.

looks like all mechanical storage will be external if used. doubt it will be overclockable since the thermal solution is fixed.

looks like their custom dual gpu boards with the CPU on the other side of the triangle ? looks like a darth vader r2d2 space heater that will warm a room nicely.

They’ve shaken up PC design perhaps, but since its no doubt all patented up the wazoo and not an open standard it will just be, bleed through the posterior custom expensive.

apple will no doubt come out with a custom thunderbolt raid array to match it ?

upgradeable elements after purchase ? memory and custom design pcie ssd ?

Apple feedback and notes export

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I want apple feedback contextually accessible in every interface element in every app, so that you can get the best improvements to make in your os and software as feedback appears not to be working, very time you release an os you seem to make things worse, start listening to the largest HCI base you have your users worldwide.

Notes app needs and export all notes function in one hit to plaintext documents

I don’t want to waste my time copying and pasting notes out of the notes app ? which is an appalling waste of human time when multiplied by the number of users,
if you have lots of notes each containing multi thousand word bits of information, and exporting my data for backup from the programs I use is an essential thing, why would i trust that a company or a service or software would be there indefinately ? data is portable and should remain portable and use open source agreed formats and standards, exportable by the user into data formats relevant for them, notes should export ino a series of plaintext documents at minimum in one hit, so that we are covered if something bad happens. in a future war data centers might be a prime target at that point, just as television and radio stations were in the past.

album only tracks in itunes

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a little too much “Album Only” on songs in some places were being driven to buy whole albums, ie padded albums like we suffered in the physical era.

if necessary up the price for longer track parts of concept albums, but don’t bind people into buying whole albums ? as per usual apple learn the lesson of “Giving the User control and choice” ?