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Topic: Are Apple products really worth it?

Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 01-14-2014 03:11 AM

I can understand the appeal of a portable computer for you and most others. But me it's kind of hard. I work with video and I need fast drives and those fast drives can't be the same drive that the OS is on. I also need lots and lots of storage. With a single project taking anywhere from 100 to 600 GB a laptop just won't cut it. Maybe when external hard drives get really small, really fast and don't require any other power than what they get via Thunderbolt, etc this problem will be solved. That way I can just move the HD from computer to computer and all of the projects follow the drive (Final Cut Pro does not use save files). Still got a ways to go before that stuff isn't crazy expensive.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 01-14-2014 09:30 AM

I don't know how useful USB 3.0 connected external hard discs are for editing a substantial HD video project. Single USB 3.0 external hard discs work fine as scratch discs for Photoshop and After Effects.

The USB 3.0 spec claims up to 5 gigabits per second, but the best performance is going to come from an externally powered disc rather than something running off bus power (plus you don't want to risk burning up the port). The best I/O performance is going to come from an external unit with multiple discs in RAID configuration. Thunderbolt is another leap above USB 3.0. IIRC, Thunderbolt can support up to 10 gigabits per second.

Notebook computer screens still have their issues, particularly the cheap ones. My Dell XPS notebook has a great looking RGB LED backlit screen, but a 15" screen is a little small. The notebook does have HDMI and Display Port for connecting to larger external monitors or HDTV sets. Connecting to too many external devices (big monitor, one or more external hard discs, a Wacom tablet, etc.) will push one right back into a computer desk.

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Terry Lynn-Stevens
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1081
From: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Registered: Dec 2012

posted 09-18-2014 02:26 PM

I saw the new IOS 8 update today, what is the big deal? Looks like the same inferior operating system as IOS 7. I understand with the new OS 8 Apple has forced new apps onto the device. I also understand that the the update to IOS 8 adds the U2 album to your phone, its this true?

And why would anyone want to buy the new iPhone 6 or plus? They are behind in specs and are missing some important features. I read somewhere that basically the iPhone 6 has the same specs at the Nexus 4. Is that true?

How can people be so stupid to buy this shit?

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 09-18-2014 04:17 PM

quote: Terry Lynn-Stevens
I saw the new IOS 8 update today, what is the big deal?

It's not a big deal. Only marketing would have you believe otherwise.

quote: Terry Lynn-Stevens
I understand with the new OS 8 Apple has forced new apps onto the device.

All versions of iOS has apps that you can't delete. You can shove them into a folder so they're out of view, however.

quote: Terry Lynn-Stevens
I also understand that the the update to IOS 8 adds the U2 album to your phone, its this true?

Yes, this is true. I have already heard a song by U2. Since all of their songs are nigh identical, there's no need to hear these. The internet is rife with tutorials on how to remove U2 from your iPhone and your life.

quote: Terry Lynn-Stevens
And why would anyone want to buy the new iPhone 6 or plus?

Because it has stuff that appeals to them. I personally don't care about smart phones but I imagine that a lot of people prefer the iOS over the Android OS. I remember Jen complaining that Android is always downloading updates all the time, even when you turn that feature off. Always downloading, always updating. It's almost as bad as a Playstation 3 which itself is almost as bad as an Adobe product. Plus some people prefer the walled garden. They prefer having only several hundred thousand choices of apps that do the same thing rather than several billion to sift through. They find the OS easier to deal with, etc. I can see that. From what I've used of Android I wasn't impressed. I have an iPod Touch that uses iOS and it's OK. I'm in no hurry to "upgrade" to 8.0 however My 7.x works fine and dandy for now. 8 doesn't have any features that I know of which are desirable for me.

quote: Terry Lynn-Stevens
How can people be so stupid to buy this shit?

Because they're not you. You've got it all figured out.

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 09-18-2014 04:22 PM

Joe, I know exactly what you mean about the apps. I have 2.3 million apps installed on my eye pad where as I could only have 780,000 installed on my droid tablet. That's a huge difference in usability for sure.

Mark

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 09-18-2014 04:43 PM

Terry is obviously trolling (and making himself look like a complete idiot at the same time).

Sales are slowing down in the smart phones segment and especially in tablets. Each new product is less impressive an upgrade as the previous one because no one can think of any killer new features that aren't already there.

More customers are skipping product cycles, waiting at least one or two product generations before before buying something new, that way when they finally do buy they'll get a more substantial upgrade. There's also growth in the lower cost segment. Some people are getting tired of paying $100-$150 per month on a typical smart phone plan. They're going with older model phones to get on lower cost plans like Walmart's "Straight Talk" thing.

If someone is walking around with an iPhone 3 or 4 model, moving up to the iPhone 6 or 6 Plus might be a worthwhile upgrade. I hear the camera is quite a bit better. It boasts optical image stabilization and some other improvements & new features (like capturing video at high frame rates for slow motion stuff). I'm surprised the standard iPhone 6 doesn't have a full 1080p resolution display, but the 6 Plus model does. Some of the Android phones have moved up to 2560 X 1440 resolution displays.

If I had to buy a new phone right now I'd probably get a Galaxy S5. Aside from the glut of features two things I like about the phone is it has a MicroSD card slot for removable memory and a removable/replaceable battery. Since the battery can be replaced the phone could potentially last several years, unlike all the other phones with glued in batteries that will hold a charge for only so long.

quote: Terry Lynn-Stevens
I read somewhere that basically the iPhone 6 has the same specs at the Nexus 4. Is that true?

No. It's going to have the same specifications as the Nexus 6. That means it will be able to scoop and toss eggs out of boiling water and kill someone by gouging their eyes and crushing their head.

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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today

Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99

posted 09-18-2014 10:09 PM

I think the Galaxy 5S is what Jen had. It was giant. She took some 4K video with her phone that she wanted to transfer to me but it was a huge pain in the ass. You can't just put the card in there and have the phone copy to the card. I don't think USB worked, either. In the end she had to upload it to some site for me to download it even though she was only inches away from me.

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Randy Stankey
Film God

Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99

posted 09-18-2014 10:48 PM

^^^ That! ^^^

Stuff just works the way I expect it to.

My iPad is set up to sync via Wi-Fi and I don't need iCloud to do it if I don't want to. I just drop a picture, a movie or a song into a folder on my computer and open up iTunes. Bam! It's there.

I don't need or want 4G/cellular for my iPad. I don't want it. I don't want to pay for it. 90% of the time, I am at home, work, at Micky D's or Starbucks where I can get Wi-Fi. If I'm not near one of those places, I can wait until I am.

While there is nothing wrong with following standards or using certain methods to get things done, I don't want my computer telling me what I can do, when I can do it or how I have to do it.

Apple products aren't perfect and I'll be the first one to bitch when I think they don't behave the way I want but I find that they are much better for getting things done, the way I want, without a lot of extra fussing around.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 09-18-2014 11:12 PM

quote: Joe Redifer
I think the Galaxy 5S is what Jen had. It was giant. She took some 4K video with her phone that she wanted to transfer to me but it was a huge pain in the ass. You can't just put the card in there and have the phone copy to the card. I don't think USB worked, either. In the end she had to upload it to some site for me to download it even though she was only inches away from me.

Some Android phones don't make it very easy to connect via USB and Samsung has been guilty of this with some of their phones. You probably have to drag down the top notification bar and click on a few things for its USB port to let the phone act like an attached disc drive. It could be some device driver thing too.

Was Jen connecting the phone to a Mac or PC? I wonder how well or not some Android phones show up in OSX' Finder when connected via the USB cable.

I've been using an HTC phone (the EVO 4G LTE) for a couple years. It connects automatically without me having to fart with anything. I can open Windows' file explorer and the Evo shows up as a connected device, showing a root folder for the MicroSD card and another root folder for the phone's internal memory. That's pretty handy because some apps will want to try to save shit to the internal memory when they should have been saving to the MicroSD card. My phone even connects to the USB ports on my new TV set and my Playstation 3.

Another app I strongly recommend for any Android phone users: ES File Explorer. If an app in the phone wants to try to play any games about where a music, image or video file is going to be stored you can use ES File Explorer within the phone to move whatever file you want where you want it.

There are things I don't like about my phone, the battery being glued in for one thing (my first Evo had a removable battery, but the battery life was not good). But overall I have no intention of getting rid of it until it breaks.

quote: Randy Stankey
My iPad is set up to sync via Wi-Fi and I don't need iCloud to do it if I don't want to. I just drop a picture, a movie or a song into a folder on my computer and open up iTunes. Bam! It's there.

I just wish the iPhone and iPad didn't require someone to use iTunes to move anything on/off the device. I'd like some choice in the matter. Some people love iTunes and other third party utilities that move files off phones, digital cameras, music players, etc. I don't. I prefer to launch a simple file manager to do all that stuff.

When I attach an iPhone to my computer via USB cable and look it under Windows' file explorer the only thing the iPhone will let me see is the "DCIM" folder where the digital camera files are stored. It only lets me move photos off the phone and nothing onto the phone. I found that out messing with my Aunt's iPhone. I pulled a ton of photos off her phone and organized them into a few different folders. She wanted a bunch of the photos put back on the phone. I couldn't simply move them back in File Explorer. Gotta launch iTunes to do that.
[Roll Eyes]

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Monte L Fullmer
Film God

Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004

posted 09-18-2014 11:19 PM

A more fancier eye-phone is going to be that much more of a current hog from the battery.

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Randy Stankey
Film God

Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99

posted 09-19-2014 12:29 AM

iTunes does suffer from terminal bloat.

One thing that I hate is that, when iTunes syncs your folders and puts files onto the iPad but, unless you remove the files from iTunes, you can't remove it from the pad.

Yeah, a regular file browser or at least an intuitive gatekeeper app would be better than iTunes.

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Marcel Birgelen
Film God

Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012

posted 09-19-2014 05:19 AM

Regarding iTunes, I couldn't agree more. This thing is actually one of the reasons why I never went the iPhone route in the first place. Nowadays, most things can be done "over-the-air", so you don't need this dreaded thing so much anymore. But this iTunes thing really should be replaced by some more generic sync framework. I think Apple is keeping that thing the way it is, primarily as a means to generate traffic to the iTunes store...

quote: Joe Redifer
Yes, this is true. I have already heard a song by U2. Since all of their songs are nigh identical, there's no need to hear these. The internet is rife with tutorials on how to remove U2 from your iPhone and your life.

As far as I've read almost everywhere on-line, this has nothing to do with the iOS 8 upgrade, but this was pushed to all iTunes users that had the option to automatically download all purchases enabled. So, even those who did not upgrade their iDevice but regularly use iTunes and most probably had this feature enabled got the U2 album pushed down their throats. This caused quite a bit of controversy and might actually even be illegal.

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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!

Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 09-19-2014 06:50 AM

I have an Galaxy S4 and an iPad...I get along with both. I haven't had the issues Joe speaks of with getting stuff on/off the device. I store all photos and stuff on the SD card so it is transportable...it connects via Bluetooth to either a PC or Mac for moving things on/off as well. Via the USB port is another means so there are three ways...physically move the card, connect via cable, go wireless via Bluetooth (or use WiFi and bounce via dropbox, if desired but that seems a round about way). The S4 is the "right" size for me whereas the iPhone was too small. Naturally, the S4 can be too small if you are doing more "computing work rather than just phone stuff so I do have the iPad...which does have G4 on mine which is handy when I need to remote into a theatre while I'm at a ballpark.

I've owned a Macintosh since '87 (still have that one too) and work with PCs for most everything in cinema...likewise on the personal electronics front...I have an iPad and an Android...I go between them rather seamlessly. I buy what I find works best for me in each situation and in the case of phone/pad, which apps did what I want and how I thought they should work. I've been happy with my decisions in that respect.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 09-19-2014 09:42 AM

quote: Randy Stankey
Yeah, a regular file browser or at least an intuitive gatekeeper app would be better than iTunes.

Apple just needs to open up at least some of the iPhone and iPad so the more computer literate of us can manage files on the device in the OSX Finder or Windows File Explorer. They have things walled off, primarily as a sales ploy to force people to use iTunes even if they don't like iTunes.

I suppose most Android phones would have gone the iTunes style route already if not for so many Android users demanding straight forward connections between the portable device and a personal computer or other devices like TVs, car stereo systems, etc. When the device maker tries lock down things the customer just says "screw you" to that manufacturer and roots the phone, installing vanilla Android. Not to mention the phone model gets hit with a lot of negative feedback. A lot of people root Android phones anyway to get rid of phone company bloatware.

quote: Steve Guttag
I have an Galaxy S4 and an iPad...I get along with both. I haven't had the issues Joe speaks of with getting stuff on/off the device.

Some Galaxy S4 and S5 users are having connection issues when connecting via USB cable. I did some web searching through some phone user forums and YouTube about it. One problem is the MTP Driver fails to load on some systems. I saw one blog post about an upgrade to Windows 8.1 on one PC taking away the guy's ability to connect his Galaxy S4 phone to that PC or any other PC that successfully connected previously. When it's connecting correctly it should show up in Windows File Explorer as a connected portable device and show two root folders for the MicroSD card and phone's internal memory (just like it does with my HTC phone).

Bluetooth is an alternative, but it's not as fast and simple as connecting using a USB cable. AirDroid is another wireless alternative, but it has its own drawbacks as compared to connecting via USB.

If all else failed for me, I'd just use ES File Explorer within the phone to move whatever files I needed to transfer to the MicroSD card and then take the card out of the phone and put it in the computer.

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 09-19-2014 02:24 PM

quote: Bobby Henderson
Bluetooth is an alternative, but it's not as fast and simple as connecting using a USB cable.

It's also a battery killer. The battery on my Samsung S3 only lasts around two hours in the car when Bluetooth-connected to the radio and without being connected to USB power. With the Bluetooth off, the battery runs for 8-10 hours between charges.

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