In Praise of iMac

iOS 18.2 adds some of the long-promised generative features, including Chat GPT integration.

This is only available on iPhone 15 Pro and 16. Presumably there will be iPad OS and Mac OS updates with the same features.

Apple announced today its replacement for the iPhone SE, with the iPhone 16e. Itā€™s got the same chip as the big boy 16s - the A18 - and it is the first phone to come with the new Apple-made cell chip. Itā€™s a fraction smaller, has a single-lens camera system but otherwise seems to have all the capabilities of its siblings, notably including Apple Intelligence. Itā€™s $600.

This modelā€™s placement in the iPhone family is confusing a lot of commentators, and I donā€™t disagree. But if you just want an iPhone and donā€™t care too much about the minutae, then this is your Black Huckleberry.

Still WAY too fucking big.

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Iā€™d gladly pay for one that excluded Apple Intelligence.

Me and my 12 mini with a replacement battery agree with you.

I finally had to get a second phone. My work phone is an iPhone 13 mini and is glorious. This new personal iPhone 15 is a monstrosity. Itā€™s easy for my old eyes, for sure, but who wants to carry around a dinnerplate sized phone everywhere?

Everyone at my gym, apparently.

You can turn it off. Iā€™m thinking about doing the same. Apple Intelligence has been a joke so far.

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Appleā€™s roll out of its AI has been its biggest faceplant since the Newton.

Iā€™m still trying to figure out what was ā€œintelligentā€ about what they did to my email.

I mean, technically itā€™s still in beta but at this rate it will be for several years like Gmail was. The notification summaries are marginally useful (albeit occasionally completely wrong), but even after integrating with my ChatGPT account I havenā€™t noticed anything that saves me time or effort. Also, Siri actually got measurably worse with this version of iOS as it now thinks ā€œMelissaā€ (my daughterā€™s name) has three potential pronunciations and cycles through them at random.

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Yeah, they rushed the roll out because the iPhone 16 was built to run the AI that didnā€™t exist, and the entire marketing campaign for the 16 was that it could run the AI service. Now that service is being drip fed to us and it still isnā€™t ready. It might not even be workable before the iPhone 17 is announced.

As to Siri, it is mostly functional for me, but part of that is because it has trained me not to bother with certain requests. I have three HomePod minis around the house, and one is considerably worse than the others when it comes to voice commands. It probably needs a factory reset, but I am reluctant to do that because it also happens to have the best taste in music of the three.

Like Freddie Mercury not getting his teeth fixed for fear of it changing his voice.

I have a medium-sized apple phone, and I pretty much use it like a 15-year old girl, constantly, for every purpose. I have keyboards in English, Spanish, Italian, and German that I frequently switch between. I even use Siri some, though itā€™s mostly to set cooking timers. I check moon phases, tides, and the kinds of clouds in the sky. I get texted photos of my new grandson. Iā€™ve been streaming the same song that Iā€™m trying to learn on the guitar for three days solid. I get routes in maps, and take photos of meals at restaurants and of fish, and check whether stores are open. Sometimes I even make phone calls. That said, I have no idea what Apple AI is supposed to do, and havenā€™t noticed it doing anything at all.

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Apologies for polluting your happy Apple thread:

Should I upgrade from a Samsung S22 to S24? new one? It costs me nothing. Are they gonna put some sort of AI bullshit in it?

Theyā€™re too busy pecking at letters one at a time with their thumbs rather than using the swype thingy to notice.

(Iā€™m on a G21+ so I donā€™t know if the new one is a significant step up or not)

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I donā€™t think going from any flagship phone to any flagship phone of the same brand is worth it unless youā€™re jumping at least three generations. Smartphone innovation has slowed down quite a bit. But if it costs nothing, why not?

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If itā€™s not at least 2 models up, itā€™s definitely not worth it.

So Iā€™m in the market for a new iPad. My old iPad Pro (from 2016, I think) is having a hard time. After some cursory thought, Iā€™m thinking just a regular old cheap iPad is my best bet. I just do iPad stuff on itā€¦mostly predicting the future of Astros games for you guys, watching YouTube, general web surfing, and FaceTime with my dad because he fancies himself hi tech, what with access to the interwebs and all that voodoo. I have no use for super fancy cameras (donā€™t think Iā€™ve ever taken a photograph with my iPad), Apple Intelligence, or the blackest black possible. My concern is storage space. The max the regular iPad has is 256MB. My current iPad Pro has 512MB, and Iā€™ve used 155 MB, so in theory, 256 MB should be plenty for what I do. But what about software update, fancy app updates, blah, blah, blah. Is that going to eat through my storage at a faster rate? I hate the idea of having to pay an extra $500 just to get the storage that I probably wonā€™t even need.

One thing about their various OSs is that Apple is very good at keeping them lean. Apps are generally pretty skinny too. If, after however many years youā€™ve had your old iPad, youā€™ve not come close to needing more than 256GB, then itā€™s hard to see how youā€™re going to breach that limit in the timeline of the next model.

So unless youā€™re going to absolutely pummel it with video content or console-level video games, you should be just fine with the base iPad.

Agreed. Get the 256GB base iPad and call it a day.

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