General Apple Megathread

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Yeah it sucks but you can't blame Apple, Samsung, etc for making big profits when there are so many people addicted to their phones and having the latest and greatest. I know people that get new phones every single year (sometimes tow or three phones in a year) just because they have to have the newest. I usually like to change up at the expiry of my plans so I guess I'm part of the problem but I feel once I upgrade from my 5S to a larger screen phone I may hang on to it for a while as the industry is kind of stagnated as the only thing new phones are offering is marginal improvements in performance and camera operation. It's already starting to happen as Samsung is missing sales targets and after a few years of larger screens Apple's gains will stagnate as well.

I blame the historically subsidized phone model, where people don't realize what they're really paying. If all cellphones were sold on the open market not tied to contracts or carriers, then I'd guess flagship phones would be under $300 by now.

[The Big Chill]

How do you guys consume music? I currently use an iPod classic and purchase most of my music through iTunes. Apple music is really intriguing, but I'm struggling to fully take advantage of it. I can't stream or download the apple music content to an iPod classic, so my options are to either buy an iPod touch, or upgrade my iPhone to one with more memory. Both of those options are very expensive. It also worries me that if I go the iPhone route that I'll destroy my battery by listening to music. What do you guys do?

[MickMcGeough]

Originally Posted by nfotiu

So Apple can make money selling basically an iphone 6 without a cell chip for $199, but adding the cell chip makes it $649?!

I hate the cellphone industry.

Are you sure they make money (on the hardware) at $199?

[Igottago]

Originally Posted by The Big Chill

How do you guys consume music? I currently use an iPod classic and purchase most of my music through iTunes. Apple music is really intriguing, but I'm struggling to fully take advantage of it. I can't stream or download the apple music content to an iPod classic, so my options are to either buy an iPod touch, or upgrade my iPhone to one with more memory. Both of those options are very expensive. It also worries me that if I go the iPhone route that I'll destroy my battery by listening to music. What do you guys do?

I still use iTunes to buy music and then drop the files to my phone (Samsung Note 4). I also use an Ipod Classic with a speaker dock at home.

I really wish there was still Ipod classics being made. The battery on mine doesn't work. As you said, the highest capacity Ipod Touch is laughably expensive ($500 CDN).

I'm old school but I still like having a dedicated music player -- no camera, no web browsers, no games, no interruptions by calls or texts -- just my music library and playlists.

I don't mind streaming services as a discovery tool but still feel obliged to buy music that I really like and have access to the files on any device I own, and be able to use them offline.

[DownhillGoat]

Originally Posted by Igottago

I'm old school but I still like having a dedicated music player -- no camera, no web browsers, no games, no interruptions by calls or texts -- just my music library and playlists.

I'm the exact same. Actually picked up a spare classic the day they announced they were discontinuing them.

However it'd be really nice if I could still sync up my downloaded rdio playlists to a classic.

[Mazrim]

Originally Posted by The Big Chill

How do you guys consume music? I currently use an iPod classic and purchase most of my music through iTunes. Apple music is really intriguing, but I'm struggling to fully take advantage of it. I can't stream or download the apple music content to an iPod classic, so my options are to either buy an iPod touch, or upgrade my iPhone to one with more memory. Both of those options are very expensive. It also worries me that if I go the iPhone route that I'll destroy my battery by listening to music. What do you guys do?

I'm still solely on an iPod Classic. Can't stream at work, and don't want to pay for an expensive data plan on my phone, so I have 100 out of 120 GB on my Classic filled with my music library and a ton of podcasts. I don't feel like I'm missing much. I just buy new albums on iTunes/Beatport/Amazon and load them up. I load up new podcasts once a week or so.

I also looked at iPod Touches recently as my car keeps locking up the hard drive on the Classic, and there's no way I can justify that cost right now. It's just not worth the money they're asking for at a much smaller storage.

[FCAV]

Anyone know if/how/when iTunes/Apple Radio will be available via AppleTV in Canada? I've been hoping I could just jump to it via the ATV, but haven't seen an icon/link for it.

Any news, or am I going about this the completely wrong way?

[woob]

Hoping you Apple gurus can chime in here. Looking to pick up a lightly used MacBook Pro 13 for my SO. She's on an old white MacBook and is sorely in need of an upgrade.

Ideally would like a retina screen. I'd like to get it setup with Parallels to run some Windows apps she'll need, so I'm thinking at least a 500gb HD. Any model years to stay away from? Is there a retina version which still allows memory/HD upgrades, or is that a thing of the past?

[DownhillGoat]

Originally Posted by woob

I'd like to get it setup with Parallels to run some Windows apps she'll need,

I'd use bootcamp over Parallels, personally.

[Russic]

Originally Posted by FCAV

Anyone know if/how/when iTunes/Apple Radio will be available via AppleTV in Canada? I've been hoping I could just jump to it via the ATV, but haven't seen an icon/link for it.

Any news, or am I going about this the completely wrong way?

Interesting. I almost didn't believe you that it wasn't already there, so I tried it and it was weird.

If you recall, iTunes had iTunes Match a couple years back that let you send all your personal music to the cloud. While Match is still a thing, Apple Music borrows the idea and just expands upon it. If you have the album "Dookie" by Green Day, it recognizes it as available on the streaming service and just defaults to that. However, if you have an album called "Green Day (Calgary Bootleg 2005)" it won't recognize it and will upload it in the same way it did with iTunes Match. On the surface your library looks the same even though it's using a frankenstein hybrid of local music, iTunes Match, and streaming.

iTunes on the Apple TV can play your music, but only the parts of your library that were physically in your possession. It won't list or give you access to any part of the streaming service.

TL;DR: The only way to really do this at the moment is to airplay it from an iOS device or your computer.

[photon]

Originally Posted by woob

Hoping you Apple gurus can chime in here. Looking to pick up a lightly used MacBook Pro 13 for my SO.

If you find one at a pawn shop or kijiji for a suspiciously good price PM me the serial number, I gave mine to my dad and someone broke into his house and stole it like 2 weeks later

[woob]

Originally Posted by photon

If you find one at a pawn shop or kijiji for a suspiciously good price PM me the serial number, I gave mine to my dad and someone broke into his house and stole it like 2 weeks later

Ugh. Jerks.

[CubicleGeek]

Originally Posted by kunkstyle

I'd use bootcamp over Parallels, personally.

Yeah, but then she is stuck using Windows all the time... when most Mac users really only have a small handful of Windows-only apps they need to run.

@woob: VMware Fusion is worth a look too. Particularly if battery life matters. I found Parallels murdered my battery so I switched to Fusion last year and it was noticeable. Benchmarks would tell you Parallels runs faster, but in practice it feels about the same to me. I also don't game on my Mac (or at least the few games I do have on it are Mac native). The experience with Coherence and Unity are equivalent IMO.

[DownhillGoat]

Originally Posted by CubicleGeek

Yeah, but then she is stuck using Windows all the time... when most Mac users really only have a small handful of Windows-only apps they need to run.

What? You're only stuck using windows when you boot into windows.

[CubicleGeek]

Originally Posted by kunkstyle

What? You're only stuck using windows when you boot into windows.

Well what I meant is you can't run both at the same time when you boot camp - it is either Windows or Mac.

[DownhillGoat]

Originally Posted by CubicleGeek

Well what I meant is you can't run both at the same time when you boot camp - it is either Windows or Mac.

Ah.

Trade off I guess. I had parallels for years and it never worked half as well as bootcamp, and cost $100 vs nothing.

With an SSD it's not like rebooting/swapping OS'es takes much time.

[woob]

Originally Posted by CubicleGeek

Yeah, but then she is stuck using Windows all the time... when most Mac users really only have a small handful of Windows-only apps they need to run.

@woob: VMware Fusion is worth a look too. Particularly if battery life matters. I found Parallels murdered my battery so I switched to Fusion last year and it was noticeable. Benchmarks would tell you Parallels runs faster, but in practice it feels about the same to me. I also don't game on my Mac (or at least the few games I do have on it are Mac native). The experience with Coherence and Unity are equivalent IMO.

Does Fusion allow for running singular Windows apps via just an icon shortcut? Or does she have to run a separate Windows workstation within Mac?

Any thoughts on MacBook Pro model/year?

[CubicleGeek]

Originally Posted by woob

Does Fusion allow for running singular Windows apps via just an icon shortcut? Or does she have to run a separate Windows workstation within Mac?

Any thoughts on MacBook Pro model/year?

Yes, you can create an App shortcut on the dock or App folder to automatically launch the app. Additionally, you can create file associations to have the Windows app load that file - before Office 2016 Mac came out, I had all office files launch Office 2013 Windows by default because Office 2011 Mac was horrible. Also, a lot of files that were created in Office 2013, 2011 Mac would screw up the formatting.

You can run the VM in a separate window that has a Windows desktop or you can run in Unity mode which has the Windows apps appear like any other Mac app. Both allow you to cut n' paste from Windows apps to Mac apps and vice-versa. That is a little buggy tho - I've had cut n' paste stop working on occasion. But that is fixed with a quick restart of the VM.

If you want to upgrade your RAM/HDD you need to get a 2012 or older MacBook Pro.

[Bill Bumface]

So I signed up for iTunes match, it timed out every time it would try upload my library, so should I just nuke it and stick with Apple Music or whatever the new thing is called?

[MickMcGeough]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

So I signed up for iTunes match, it timed out every time it would try upload my library, so should I just nuke it and stick with Apple Music or whatever the new thing is called?

Entirely depends on what you're doing.

If you need your existing library in the cloud, use iTunes Match. This is necessary if you have any music that isn't available in Apple Music, like anything from Tool for example.