Increasingly Familiar Apple Lust Objects for 2016 and onwards

New Apple Lust Objects for 2010 and onward

Old thread 14k posts so why not

WWDC is Monday, nobody seems to be expecting anything much. Maybe the Keynote will focus on Swift 3. OS X seems likely to get rebranded as macOS. Music on iPhone and iTunes will both change completely once again, infuriating everyone. New watch bands? Jokes about The Car? Does anyone even want a new Apple product at this point? Will Jimmy Iovine be allowed onstage?

when do they announce the new iPhone? i care about that

presumably September like all recent years

Nervous that the next MacBook Pro is going to max out at 1TB with non-replaceable storage. They wouldn't do that to us, right? Because when this thing ships in 2017 I'm going to need more than that.

"1 TB should be enough for anyone." -Apple, probably

As usual, my phone is kind of fucked up just in time for the announcement and I'm just trying to make it last. Screen cracked a couple weeks ago, and it's really hard to make it charge.

My partner picked up a new 2018 model 13" MacBook Pro and I'm jealous at a level I haven't dealt with since the Wall Street iteration of the PowerBook G3 finally got it right. My 15" is a goddamn barge and I'm finding that no model of iPad is an adequate travel substitute.

i got a 3400c just before that. jealous years.

I always thought the Kanga / 3500 / G3 PowerBook was the ultimate in heartbreak. I had a 5300 though, so I know the worst a PowerBook can be.

2018 seems like a good vintage of MacBooks to skip. I'm ready to order a 2019 model now, though.

*silently pours one out for my old 1400cs*

Apple announcement day. *self-flagellates*

https://www.famousmonsters.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Logans-run-red_result.jpg

RENEW! RENEW!

Just tell me what the new Mac mini is...

excited for the redesigned spatial finder

I like my new MacBook Pro but am alternately cursing Apple for cutting HD space / not taking the +$400 hit and getting 1TB like my old laptop (a 2012 MacBook Pro).

Keyboard is fine but the trackpad sucks.

Touchscreen = I can summon emojis.

I took my '17 MBP in to get the left speaker fixed (apparently this is a thing) and got one of the new keyboards. I missed the press release on this: https://www.wired.com/story/apple-will-fix-broken-macbook-keyboards/

yeah glad I got one after that. the SSD is not replaceable?

Nope on the replaceable SSD.

I guess I'm probably going to pull the trigger on a fancy new Xs phone but can't make much of a compelling case when my 7 just keeps on going.

psyched for some extremely incremental improvements

Creepy new iPhone X scans your face to unlock, has built-in AI, thinks humans are obsolete:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYIo2Lj9xek

https://theporouscity.com/media/timtweet.png

It was already gone by the time I opened it.

ECG thing for the watch is pretty great

a little off topic but does anyone else use f.lux? it doesn't work on my new MacBook Pro and my eyes hurt

your new laptop should have that functionality built in!

yeah it's not nearly as good though, fluctuates too much, way too much blue at night. maybe i can monkey with the settings and/or just get used to it. apparently f.lux is working on a fix.

liquid retina huh.... maybe just call it plasma

Haptic Touch = long press

They're never going to do a watch with an always-visible time, are they? Fuck.

All I know is if they ever make an iOS release incompatible with the SE, and don’t update the SE, I’m outie.

this might be worth sending a CEO email about, what’s Tim’s handle again

Ugh you can’t buy an SE direct from Apple anymore, fuckin whatever dude.

no new macbook air?!?

:_(

sounds like they discontinued the SE

Macs TK

I honestly feel nothing for any products Apple makes these days, I’m not mad or anything it’s all just at a stable equilibrium and design differentiators are basically impossible, since all anyone wants is things built on the same lines as the products Apple introduced 2003-2007. They are still dragging their heels on a MacBook based on an Apple-designed ARM SoC and that irritates me a bit.

Shit, maybe I better grab one before it's too late. My 5s will be 5 years old in December. xp

Price drop on “obsolete “ phones always welcome after an announcement

Ok, so there's no longer going to be any retail model available with a headphone jack? I guess this really will be my last iphone.

either that or I invest in a good lightning DAC and just deal with the annoying bulk, I guesss

lol Apple now offering 7 different models at the same time

https://pbs.twimg.com/card_img/1039962912805330944/sYRoV1Zg?format=jpg&name=600x314

hell yeah steve jobs would be proud

What customer is targeted by having a larger iphone 8 at $699 vs a same-size iPhone XR at $50 more?

They’re basically admitting nobody gives a shit about the phone hardware anymore. It’s just a collection of price points

I keep thinking "this is finally the release where people sour on Apple" and then their stock price doubles again.

xxp people who can't deal w/o a home button or hate the notch

Imagine what Steve Jobs would say about the "I Phone Ten XS Max."

http://blog.consumerguide.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2012/11/Screen-Shot-2018-04-11-at-10.39.01-AM.png

love how they used the planet image on the newer and pricier options so it's juuuuuust out of the way of the notch, attempting to fool us into believing maybe it's not there.

getting the max tho obv. my 6+ did it's job for four years.

Literally bought an 8 yesterday fuck

512 gb Max is $1449
LOLOLOL

increments increments increments

I think if throttling is even a question, then you get the Pro. Otherwise, I'd consider bumping the screen size up on the Air. The price comes in lower than the Pro and the day-to-day difference coming from a 13" is huge.

...and look at a refurbished 15" M3 Air, which at those specs is less than 1300.

Air Air Air. It is no longer some kind of halfway machine

My wife has an M1 Pro with a big screen and it is really surprisingly heavy!

would come down to size and weight for me, the 15" air is actually slightly lighter than the 14" pro, 15" screen is perfect for me, that'd be my choice

thanks all, leaning towards 13" air in that case. May look into refurb but prob go new. She used to have (and love) one of those tiny 11" airs, so the smaller the better.

Air Air Air. It is no longer some kind of halfway machine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaqLrw8sp78

thats right

air is the answer. wait for the m4 air due this month.

ymmv, but i give presentations all the time and i don't think i've given one by connecting a hdmi cable to a laptop since covid started.

as mentioned, that m4 air is here now.

and it's blue!

I want the new Mac Studio with 96GB RAM by default (only $4k)

xp apologies I am out of the loop, get the blue m4 air then!

i was really hoping the 16e would be 50 or 100 bucks less. i do need to buy something to replace my se2 and its decrepit battery

I ended up getting a regular 15. idk, i take enough nature pictures that extra camera versatility is nice, and some of the dynamic island stuff is genuinely useful. my case hasn’t arrived yet, so I am still handling it very gingerly

probably the M5 Air is going to be faster at everything than my M1 Pro (currently M1 still has a GPU edge)

at that point it's gonna be tempting

New M4 air with 32GB Ram just arrived this week it’s glorious. My first Apple silicon Mac and I’m coming from the dreaded butterfly keyboard pro so it’s great to be actually able to type properly on it.

I had a brief moment of madness and tried to use Nix as the package manger and then decided it was too daft and went back to brew - for some reason I wasn’t going to waste time finding out they have some philosophical aversion to you using pip and won’t install it with python.

Once I work out what in the ESP32 toolchain is stopping me from compiling anyone I’m all set for the next 8-10 years.

I’m surprised by how much Rosetta stuff is still knocking around.

Sweet!
I am running a 16” M1 Pro
Feels weird but great to be able to crank music a bit and actually have it sound dece

FYI if you live near a Micro Center they’ve got the base model Mac Mini M4 on sale for $450, in-store only. My 2019 iMac has been showing signs of imminent death so I was exploring my options this weekend and jumped on that deal.

moving unknown sender texts out of the main text feed is much appreciated.

Apple have decided to formally drop the awe from their increasingly familiar events

Apple is expected to unveil iPhone 17 and more at the 'Awe Dropping' event on Tuesday: Here's everything we know

It dawned on me a day later that it's a pun on jaw-dropping. Awe-dropping. Jaw-dropping. Jaw.

I'm in a quandry. I'm a PC person. I built my PC from parts back in 2011 and upgraded it periodically - it's still very capable but the motherboard is now fourteen years old, so it can't run Windows 11. It doesn't have the built-in security chips that Windows 11 requires. And I mostly use my Mac Mini for everyday tasks such as typing messages to Ilxor and reading the replies. You people are good. But it's nice to have access to a library of Steam games and also Microsoft Flight Simulator.

In fact I'm using my Mac Mini right now! It's a 2012 model, the last with Firewire. I've squeezed every last drop of juice from it and in a year or so it will also be obsolete, because it has an Intel CPU. The quandry is this. For just £150 I could replace my PC with one of those generic mini-PCs that are on Amazon. They're slightly less powerful than my 2011-era supercomputer, and there's no way they'll run Microsoft Flight Simulator, and they're basically disposable in the long run, but they use one-tenth the power. And £150 for an actual functioning PC is appealing.

Or alternatively I could buy a new M4 Mac Mini, which is around £600, but Amazon has a 0% interest pay-by-instalment deal. An M4 Mini is vastly superior to my existing Mac Mini albeit that it's completely useless for all but half a dozen or so of my Steam games library. But I can imagine still using it a decade from now, perhaps intermittently connected to a communal solar power generator in one of the few uncontaminated parts of the English countryside. There will be no internet then, no outside world, but I will still have a huge archive of point-and-click adventure walkthroughs to read.

But there's another quandry. Another layer of the onion. For just a little bit more money I could buy a MacBook Air, for around £1,000. It's a legitimately good laptop. Competitively priced. Unusually for an Apple product it's better-built, faster, and cheaper than an equivalent PC laptop. But I have absolutely no need for a laptop. None whatsoever. I would never take it with me anywhere. And yet I have a mental fantasy in which I have coffee in the cafe on the top floor of Foyle's in London while chatting with people about Mach-Hommmy and Jpeg Mafia, with a MacBook Air casually sitting on the table. And in theory I could use it as a desktop computer. The traditional argument in favour of desktop machines is expandability, but that doesn't apply any more because the Mac Mini is just as un-expandable as the Air. The only thing it has over the laptop is more ports.

But I have no need for a laptop. But what if I suddenly did. And it's so beautiful. The little keys. The metal case. The smooth, hairless case. The sweet little ports. The sensitive Apple logo. The luscious, bee-stung lips. The way it says "Jeremy" with a French accent. The panniers. The soft burble of its engine as it idles. The Louise Brooks-style bobbed hair. How did Apple know my sexual fetishes. How did Tim Cook know. We have very little in common. But perhaps some things are universal. Louise Brooks is universally attractive. All human beings regardless of their tribe adore her.

So, that is the dilemma one-two. The dilemma one-two. Every night I sit in front of my Mac Mini, and I think "should I buy a mini-PC for a little bit of money, or a new Mac Mini for slightly more money, or a MacBook Air for slightly more money still, or should I just not do that and save the money in case something bad happens". In a way I envy alcoholics because their hobby is relatively cheap. And it's all just a first world problem, and yet this is the first world, right here. I am in it.

Apple screwed up my last trade in and applied the trade in as a gift card to my account rather than going to my debit card, the chat agent couldn't help so I'm debating getting a 17 Pro for the stronger antenna (I get a terrible signal in a lot of places) or saving it for the future.

the magic eye effect you can apply to photos now is pretty fun ngl

Ashley, you could buy a Macbook Air that isn't as current for less than $1000. I use my M1 air every day mostly for undemanding stuff, but it's more than capable of running Adobe suite and Logic and other fairly demanding stuff. It could be and was my only computer for a couple years- I now also have a Mac Studio but it's the Air that I use every day. Battery life is still 87% after 3 years.

The other problem is ports. The MacBook Air has two (2) ports in total, but one of them is power. So it has one port. I'd have to buy a base station of some kind if I want to run it as a desktop replacement. I would add an larger keyboard, an mouse, an external monitor, an audio interface, an MIDI keyboard, so that's at least five ports, not including power. But from what I've read almost every base station, docking station, USB hub or whatever has the same cheap componentry on the inside with a slightly different case.

The other desktop options are the Mac Pro (ludicrously expensive and pointless) the Mac Studio (good but pricey) and the iMac ("fasted to a dying animal"). Alternatively I could buy a second-hand Mac Mini and also a second-hand MacBook Air. But if I had a brand-new Mac Mini I could do a blog post about the three different case designs of the Mac Mini thus adding one more blog post to my blog. I already have a 2008 Mini with the G4-era metal/white plastic case, and a 2012 Mini that is my daily machine that I am using right now.

To complicate matters Windows 10 ends mainstream support next month, so I'll have to replace my PC, which will cost money. I'm still annoyed about that. My PC will easily run Windows 11, but the motherboard is too old. And on the other hand by not buying anything I am saving money, which is potentially useful. Tomorrow I'm going to Geneva for a holiday. I'm going to visit CERN. I'm going to visit the birthplace of the World Wide Web, and hopefully I'll see CERN's sanctuary for rescued computer mice.

What if nuclear war breaks out while I'm there? I will survive, because Switzerland is neutral, but I will need money to continue to survive, and the more money I have in my bank account the longer I will be able to survive. Because in the wake of nuclear war British Pounds Sterling will be very rare, and thus very valuable.

The M4 mini is widely regarded as Apple’s best value proposition, absurdly powerful for the price in its entry configuration. If you someday need a laptop for that cafe there are any number of used machines which would look good on the table and would handle writing and browsing with ease. Anything heavier you’d be doing on the M4 mini with its plethora of connected devices.

I would add an larger keyboard, an mouse, an external monitor,

I have a keyboard and mouse but they're both Bluetooth. And an external monitor that passes power to the MacBook at the same time. So a lot of the time I have one port free. When I need more I have a dongle rather than any big docking station, which I've never quite grasped the advantage of.

Sorry, meant to quote not hide.

it sounds like you’re the sort of person who doesn’t change their computer very often so get the m4 mini. it will last a long time. for those foyle’s afternoons a notebook and a nice pen will be cheaper and i would expect lead to more exciting encounters

Absolutely love my Mac Mini M4 purchased in July. Best Mac desktop I’ve owned.

first gut thought about the Neo is couldn't they have done 16gig? I get the chromebook argument but as a starter computer/gateway computer I can imagine high school students wanting to play with some real apps and feeling the pain of 8 gig of ram.

have you seen what RAM costs these days?

yeah but apparently that's less an issue with apple, they have the supply chain so locked down it's one of the reasons their computers cost hasn't been rising as much as others.

idk, not really

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/samsung-100-ram-price-hike-121322295.html

The RAM crisis has now come for Apple, as the Cupertino tech giant has reportedly agreed to a massive 100% price hike on LPDDR5X memory from Samsung, and that only means costs may rise for your next iPhone or Mac purchase.

During negotiations with Samsung, one of the leading memory manufacturers, Apple secured a deal for LPDDR5X memory for its iPhone 17 and beyond for double the price it would normally pay, according to a report from Korean outlet DealSite. This was to ensure a stable supply for the first half of the year, but interestingly, it apparently could have been for a much lower price.

Samsung initially had a goal of raising costs by 60%, but first proposed a 100% raise. As it so happens, Apple immediately settled with the doubled cost, and the deal was made.

maybe it's changed, or maybe whatever youtuber apple fanboy made a long video about that got it wrong.

it's definitely changed, tim apple even had to comment about it. https://www.macrumors.com/2026/01/29/apple-responds-to-rising-memory-chip-prices/

8GB of RAM is plenty for half of one browser tab.

fun fact: the new studio displays have better chips (A19) than the neo (A18)

price sure reflects it

it makes some sense in that monitors generally have a longer use lifespan than laptops or even desktops. just swap out the machine and keep using the monitor until there's a huge leap in some way

re: ram shortage

https://www.macrumors.com/2026/03/05/mac-studio-no-512gb-ram-upgrade/

sad news!

booo

I can't remember if I saw a Mac Studio in person prior to a few weeks ago but for some reason, in my head, I thought of it as slightly wider and taller than a Mac Mini but found its actual size kind of funny? Chuckling at the size of the lad

https://9to5mac.com/2026/04/11/mac-mini-mac-studio-configs-completely-out-of-stock/

RIP macs with bigly ram

I’ve got an m4 air with 24GB RAM. I’m surprised about how memory efficient it, I’ve been running some local
Models (Gemma 4 and qwen3vl) and doing some ML stuff, often multiple instances at the same time and it barely touches the sides.

Google chrome is a memory leak with tabs and can fill it up no problems if you visit the wrong website.

Disappointing though as I was hoping that something like an upcoming M5 mini with 64GB would be a killer openclaw/claude code with local models box.

I do wonder if Chinese demand feed the lobster has hovered up all the mini M4s with bigly RAM. The M4 is great synthetic agency chip.

Fuck it. Deficit spent on a space black M4Max 14” MBP today and am not looking back.

― Elvis Telecom, Monday, December 9, 2024 7:41 PM (one year ago)

I really did deficit spent an obscene amount back then: 128GB RAM and 8TB. Sometime last month I finally paid it off with enough work.

It has to be an everything computer: I have a side-gig where I'm doing Final Cut Pro stuff, and another where I'm running around with it as a network monitor, wi-fi scanner, and virtual machine for Windows 7 because I still need to talk to 2004. Using Mathematica and QGIS there is not uncommon.

At home I'm using it for basically run my life and keep myself alive as an one-guy shop freelancer (please hire me!). When I'm not billing hours, it's a recording studio and a movie projector. My list of hobbies includes things like software-defined radio, font creation, vintage synthesizer modeling and underground internet data piracy. The 14" is ideal because I'm travelling around everywhere with it and oh yeah, it has my entire record collection.

^^ people who seem to have figured out how to live

I need some hobbies.

ET, snap, at least on some of those.

I’m do a lot of QGIS work right now and the MCP is making it very fast. I also now have a docker container running with a database containing a lot of the public data I’m working with because it’s all the APIs are frustratingly rare limited. For fun I built an iOS app to take to sites and bring up my maps and make notes.

Lots of energy modelling as well and dealing with the incredibly badly architected historical data stores of the national electricity market (this is a theme in Australian public data). Lots of python and Julia (10years of energy data broke python but Julia seems to handle it).

Then for fun I’m trying to offload a lot more tasks onto local models; so to build my skills on this I’m trying to build an agentic/ML pipeline to turn engineering drawings into 3D models. This is a legit hard task but I’m having a lot of fun trying to work it out.

It’s also the sort of thing i can work on whilst lying on the floor next to my son as he drifts off to sleep.

The M4 is such an insanely capable chip. I only have the Air with 32GB but it’s a thing of wonder.

Just setting myself as a contractor developer after 10 years being a permanent employee… the temptation to get someting else other than my M1 Pro is very compelling even though I know it is well up to the task at hand.

Congratulations to Elvis Telecom on being the new Apple CEO. (I may have the reports wrong.)

Elvis Apple to Trump

my theory that Tim Apple was sticking around so that he could be the one they throw under the bus as "guy that has to talk to Trump" when we get through all this shit seems to be right because as chairman he will "assist with certain aspects of the company, including engaging with policymakers around the world."