Perpetual Random Apple Rants Thread

[crmarvin42]

I just set up my old iMac 5k as a Bootcamp device to play some older Windows games upstairs in my office, as opposed to my basement with the gaming tower.

For all the complaints we have about Apple, wheeeeeew was setting up a Windows machine a freshly terrible experience. Not saying Apple can't do better (they can, and they should), but if anyone is expecting to get an upgrade by jumping platforms... good luck to you.

I had to switch to IT managed windows machines for about 10 years. It. Was. Hell!!!!

I switched back to Mac for my daily driver when the MBPro M1 came out, but I helped my son build a windows PC at Xmas last year. That was similarly frustrating (it is damn near impossible to disable Ads, and CoPilot).

OS 26 is ugly as shit and laggy. Apple Intelligence is a drive hog. The CONSTANT notifications for updates or services I have made the conscious decision NOT to use is user hostile as fuck. That said, If I were to switch away from Mac OS, I’d probably try Linux before trying Windows. I can use windows, but it is a constant source of increased BP throughout a day of using it.

 

[crmarvin42]

Anti-rant, I guess: I bought some Air Pods Pro recently for a road trip, hoping they’d help with getting a good nights sleep. And they do help with noisy room fridges and air conditioners, but road noise or snoring? No help at all. Yesterday though, I thought to try them while running the chipper, and that was like magic. Even with ear plugs and headphone style muffs, there’s a low frequency drone that the chipper makes which gets exhausting after a while. APP just completely deals with it.

For the snoring, try loops. It’s a brand of reusable ear plugs. My wife swears by them for, among other things, being able to sleep next to me when I snore (which is almost every night).

 

[crmarvin42]

Siri is terrible at interpreting requests for phone calls, so I tend to use CarPlay GUI to make phone calls (that I avoid as much as possible). Why does it only allow you to dial a single number for a person? No matter what I did it would only let me call my wife "At Home". She's at work, I don't want to call home. I gave up and just used the phone directly.

My oldest child's name is "Lee" in my phone. My mother's middle name is also Lee (Not an accident). about 10% of the time when I tell siri to "call Lee" it will ask if I want to call my mother, instead of my child. Despite "Lee" being a middle name for the later, and the first name for the former. There is also a professor I worked with once about 20 years ago whose first name is Lee as well. And about 1% of the time it asks if I want to call him.

Similarly, My wife and a former co-worker have the same first name (slightly different spelling). When I ask Siri to text my wife by name, about 10% of the time the text will go to my former work colleague (whom outside of random situations like this, I've not spoken with directly in at least 3 years). Last time I was trying to deliver bad news about my father being hospitalized, and it went to the wrong person. NOT what anyone wants ever.

I would recommend removing the "home" phone number for your wife. Presumably you have the number in your own address card, so can ask Siri to call yourself at home, when that is the number you wish to dial. That is what I had to do to when it came to calling my parents. Siri insisted on their landline numbers, so I just deleted the land line entirely, bc I realized I never need to call that since they both have cell phones.

 

[crmarvin42]

The thing is, Music.app downsides are all UI. And when music is playing, the UI is almost completely irrelevant.

Yes, but when I want to stop/start/switch playing something, I need to use the UI.

My biggest gripe is the blurring of the line between things in my library, and things not in my library. I know why they do it (they prefer streaming revenue over sales of individual tracks), but it is annoying as shit in situation where internet is intermittent (I fly a lot for work).

 

[crmarvin42]

This is trivial AF, but the title of a note has to be the first line of the note.

That’s some 1970s COBOL-style bullshit.

*TNR in green, because that’s how we write complaints.

I've run into this before, and to the best of my knowledge, it cannot be changed later on. At least not for Hand-written notes using the iPad and an Apple Pencil.

I have a note I wrote about a week ago that has the wrong Title bc my handwriting is shit, and I cannot figure out how to correct it from my Mac.

 

[crmarvin42]

Updated to 26.5

• Do you want to upgrade to WiFi calling - well yes, did you go and DISABLE it?
• Ok, we'll upgrade you to WiFi calling
• Your location will be used for emergency services

OMG, 3 pop ups per device I have to deal with, not to mention every time I open a device I haven't used in a week, EVERY DAMN Apple device I have tells me a new device is using my account. At this point Apple, I'm ready to start breaking stuff. You're becoming actively user hostile.

There is a line between useful notifications, and a nuisance that makes security worse by training you to ignore security notifications. Apple has been spending more and more time on the wrong side of that line with just about every software update. Trying to set up a new device, or use a device for the first time in a while is a major pain in the ass.

 

[crmarvin42]

How is it that you can't select an artist from now playing in CarPlay? I was listening to an Angine du Poitrine album and wanted to listen to the other one. It's impossible to go to the artist. You can only go to the album, unless I'm missing something. So I used search, which was not a search but instead invoked Siri, so asked Siri for it, and the fucktard started playing Angie by the Rolling Stones. No confirmation or clarification, just confidently played the wrong fucking thing.



And, since it's CarPlay (and I was driving), there's no way to go back, you can't stop it because when you swear at it for being stupid it just ignores what you're saying (and honestly, how could you not swear at something so maddening), and you still can't fucking search without using voice, which isn't a search but an "I'm feeling lucky" type thing which is inordinately wrong.

I've been using the Apple Music app in my car lately (I usually listen to audiobooks, so this is new to me), and I cannot get it to play only music in my library. It may start with content from my personal library, but within 3 songs it is playing something I don't own. Frequently by an artist I've never heard of before.

I get that it wants to "help me" discover new music, but I don't want to discover new music in that moment. I want to listen to shit I already know I like, and can sing along to, because I've been listening to it for 30 years. The only time I can consistently get the desired behavior is when my phone is on airplane mode, and therefore cannot play anything I haven't downloaded to my device. Which is a work around of sorts, but considering that my whole library won't fit on my phone, and I want to be able to receive phone calls, it seems like a shitty work around.

 

[crmarvin42]

Good. It means the design is controversial – frequently an indicator of interesting art.

you are assuming a one-tailed distribution, where likely there are two tails.

• it is controversial because it makes people think
• it is controversial because it is bad

I have no opinion on this particular car, as I have no opinions on Ferrari's in general, beyond that they are a status symbol for people with more money than sense. But lots of things are controversial because they are bad, not because they are good.