• 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.

Saw an article by David Frost in the Torygraph earlier. I genuinely can’t imagine having the energy to get so irate for money about such inane shit.

The Tories.

I saw my wife playing this years ago, and always fancied having a go, but never got around to it.

So a few months back we got it going so it could stream to our Apple TV and off I went. Spent a few weeks playing it in the evenings and having a nice time.

Then Ubisoft put out an ‘update’ to it, that broke it completely. A massive update for a ten year old game. Cunts.

So I guess I’ll never finish it, because fuck Ubisoft.

Can it run Doom?

This is by far and away my favourite of The Cure’s, so I was absolutely made up when they started playing it that night.

Thanks for posting!

I picked up a 13 Mini back in March, and will ride this bad boy for as long as I can, in the hope that Apple eventually release another Mini model.

So perhaps it’s true that we hold onto our little phones for longer, primarily because we’re waiting for another little phone to come along.

Kinda the other way around; but when I was 27 I got divorced and decided to go to uni to study radio production with a view to changing my career.

Three years later, I’d graduated with a 2:1 and almost £20k of student debt.

…and all I have to show for it is a podcast that I used to do, because I couldn’t find a job in radio.

“We’ve got a fucking bassoon. Do Bad Religion have a fucking bassoon‽”

God, I love Mike.

I’ve been on a Rise Against kick lately. Can’t listen to one of their songs without taking a deep breath and diving right into everything. Recently discovered their acoustic album which sounds wonderful on my Good Headphones.

Thank you x

Yeah, my reaction to losing them is a good chunk of why my wife suggested not getting any more. I don’t deal with it very well. I go to pieces, quite frankly. When I took Feegle for his last trip a few months ago, the vet’s receptionist asked if I wanted to wait in a quiet room, no doubt because my sniffling and dribbling was putting off the other customers.

But Feegle was adorable.

Of the five we had, Wilbur was by far and away the pointiest of nose, and the most questionable of parentage, but I still loved him. He could yoink a Cheerio like nobody’s business.

This was Nac, Mac, and Feegle, at about eight months old, I think.

It was really hard to take good photos of them…

You’re wrong.

No, it hasn’t.

Well ain’t this place a geographical oddity.

A good number of iPods can have Rockbox loaded on to them. I did it on my 4th gen, but ultimately preferred the original firmware.

The Mini is one of the easier, cheaper ones to mod, because the hard drive uses a Compact Flash connector. So you can either replace the drive with a standard CF card, or you can buy a CF>SD adapter and get more bang for your buck.

The 1st gens can only go to 128gb, but the 2nd gens can take 256gb.

However, they are slightly more awkward to take apart than a regular classic iPod.