So all browsers except some forks of Firefox are cooked now/soon?

Why does it require a phone number to use?!

Clothing (or other things, clothing was just an example) does get you excluded from a group. The only reason a bully would want to “include” the bullied person in their group is so they can bully them more.

I agree that they could open up iMessage to competitors with relative ease and that this would be a good move. Not because it would seriously stop bullying, but because it would make it a little bit easier to find a common messenger to use (we don’t really have that problem in my home country, as most people use WhatsApp, which is multi platform).

What I’d hate is if Apple removed all indicators that what I’m sending or what I already sent is an SMS/RCS message instead of an iMessage. It shows me what features work for that particular conversation, and if I’m roaming in a region where sending SMS is not free, I want to know when I’m about to send one.

I doubt the bullying would be any different if it was a beautiful red (or whatever is considered a pretty chat bubble) instead.

And even if it was a blue bubble, the bullies would find another reason to bully someone.

I get the peer pressure part and sure Apple might be exploiting that in America, but in the past it was clothing brands or whatever it is now. Making the bubbles the same color (or even bringing iMessage over to Android completely) would get rid of a single symptom, not of the root cause.

Funny how many people wanted RCS on iOS in order to be compatible with Android, while large parts of Google’s implementation of RCS in Android is proprietary as well.

I do, and I couldn’t care less. I think a visual indicator that tells me “hey, this is an iMessage” or “hey, this is an SMS/RCS message” is a very good thing to have.

I wouldn’t be so sure. I feel like many people would not buy another MacBook if it were to feel a lot slower after just a few years.

This feels like short term gains vs. long term reputation.

Google Maps was a great app and service, it had decent navigation and always a lot of information on a lot of places. Nowadays it’s cluttered with features including a “news feed” with social network-like posts made by people on places in the area.

On iOS devices I can highly recommend Apple Maps nowadays. They completely overhauled their maps a few years ago and I got great results navigating with it. The app isn’t bloated, it’s fast, the map material looks great and their version of Street View is a lot more sophisticated.

For strictly navigating you can also check out TomTom AmiGO. It’s a free variant of TomTom’s navigational system. I wouldn’t really use it outside of car navigation though.

I used to use Sygic a few years back, but they switched to a subscription model and keep nagging existing “lifetime” buyers to subscribe.

May as well call it “Google Drive Storage Plans” again then? Aside from some dysfunctional AI features that’s pretty much the only thing you get, no?

Most people will use whatever the default on their device is. Most phones that aren’t iPhones come with Google apps and services set as default.

The only Google services I still use are YouTube and in rare cases Google Maps. But if YouTube continues to enshittify I’ll stop using that. I’ve been using Google Maps mainly to get information about places to eat/sleep in cities, not really for navigation.

It was always going to be mainly a software issue, wasn’t it?

I had the 15 Pro for a few days now and aside from initial setup, stress tests and fast charging, it doesn’t get noticeably warm. I don’t use Instagram or the other apps mentioned though, so of course these might be problematic. I feel like previous iPhones warmed up to similar temperatures when under these “stress” conditions.

I feel like this was one of these cases where some outlet reports about these “overheating” (a term widely misused) issues, then people reading that article start getting hypersensitive about it on their phones, so more articles get written and it goes on and on. In reality, things like fast charging (and MagSafe charging) always heated iPhones up a bit, and that only makes sense.

I’m not saying this is a non-issue entirely, but articles blaming the SoC (A17), the titanium frame or whatever without anything to back their claims up (because it’s just an article copied from some other “journalist”, who copied it themselves from somewhere else) instead of trying to figure out what the issue is need to stop. There should be articles written about how the quality control of big iOS releases has declined over the years instead.

USB-C and Thunderbolt docks/hubs are a huge mess.

Around a year ago I was searching for a solid single-cable solution for my M1 Max MacBook Pro to hook up to an external monitor, ethernet and peripherals - and best case a decent audio jack.

The MacBook supports Thunderbolt 4 so I thought I might as well go for a Thunderbolt 4 dock (as opposed to a “normal” USB-C dock), but oh boy.

First, there was the problem of display outputs. I thought I’d just get a dock with two DisplayPort ports. But there are a lot of differences. Some are DisplayPort 1.4, some only 1.2. And some use MST (multi stream transport) to support both ports; which macOS does not support. Thunderbolt 4 does support two distinct streams of DisplayPort though, so in theory docks could exist with two DisplayPort ports, each with their own dedicated stream/signal.

Long story short, there were basically no docks with these specifications. So it became clear to me early in the selection process that would need to act as a hub that has multiple Thunderbolt outputs, so I can simply use USB-C to DisplayPort cables. This seems to be the best solution anyways, as the dock doesn’t limit you in DisplayPort version or feature set this way.

So I looked for a Dock with 2-3 Thunderbolt outputs, Power Delivery, USB-A, gigabit ethernet and an audio jack.

There’s the Razer Thunderbolt 4 dock for example. Has all required ports, provides 90 watts of power to the computer and (at least in color “Mercury”), looks the part. Bought it, plugged it in, connected a display via USB-C to DisplayPort cable. So far, so good. USB-A seems to be working.

So, what are the problems? Well. Firstly, the ethernet controller is connected to the internal USB controller. This also means it shares bandwidth and when hammering the USB controller, doesn’t only mean bandwidth is throttled, but also that latency can be affected and spike seemingly randomly (like you’re on wifi). There are also reportedly some issues with USB ethernet when waking up from sleep, but this might be related to macOS. Anyways, use f* PCIe based ethernet in your 300,-€ dock!

Next problem was something I couldn’t believe got through QA. When audio starts playing via the audio jack, the right channel starts playing immediately, but the left channel starts after I’d say around a 200-300ms delay. This is VERY irritating, especially with headphones. As I said I couldn’t believe it so I tried other devices including Windows 10 and 11 notebooks, and they all showed the exact same issue with this dock.

I found out that the problem goes away or is at least reduced when you set audio output to 24-bit in Windows. That’s not how it works in macOS though (I know you can set something in some MIDI audio setting app, but that didn’t help). So you’re basically stuck. It’s so insane to me that this glaring and obvious issue went through QA.

Then I thought okay, it’s just Razer being Razer and ordered alternative docks. Turns out THEY ARE ALL THE SAME CRAP INSIDE. Sonnet Echo 11, i-tec whatever, Kensington. If it has a similar port layout to the Razer dock, it’s likely that it’s the exact same crap with the only difference being the odd USB-A port more or less and slightly different PD wattage.

There’s a highly praised 400,-€ dock from CalDigit, but availability was bad at the time.

I ended up getting an Anker dock for around 170,-€, which simply has 3 Thunderbolt 4 outputs and a single USB-A output. I connected a simple USB-A hub so I can connect keyboard, mouse and USB DAC and mic for audio. I use the Thunderbolt outputs for DisplayPort via USB-C and the Apple Thunderbolt (1) Gigabit Ethernet adapter plugged into an Apple Thunderbolt 2 to Thunderbolt 3 adapter, and that’s plugged into the dock. You wouldn’t believe that this abomination of adapter chaos works a million times better than this USB ethernet crap.

Now, this setup works but it’s super ugly and messy on the desk.

Nowadays I’m using some HP monitor with USB-C which has built-in ethernet and USB-A ports. It’s honestly not a great solution (and functionally worse than my solution above), but it’s simple and doesn’t clutter your desk with 3-4 different boxes and 10 cables.

Unbelievable.