iPhone to the operating room

Since a couple of months the iPhone had an issue, the earpiece speaker was too low, no matter that I had all the volume up it was pretty hard to listen to the one talking on the other side. I started to use the phone with the speaker in order to have conversations but I don’t like that way, mostly because sometimes I can’t properly listen and there is no noise cancelation meaning that if there is plenty of noise is quite probably the other person won’t listen to me right.

“Designed by Apple in California” chronicles 20 years of Apple design

What’s that.. Apple is known by many as a company that sells overpriced computers (watches, phones, tablets, desktops and laptops) they are becoming then #1 company in the “overpriced dongles” branch too, but also trying to get a place in the overpriced books? give me a break!.

First of all, this book should be free in iBooks, of course, you can download all the pictures in the book, but not the book. Then, the book should be in a price near to $15 USD at much, I mean less than 10% of the current price ($199 the cheapest), do you really want to waste money on a book with pictures (that you can actually download) of Apple products? are you such a fanboy?

 

Apple today announced the release of a new hardbound book chronicling 20 years of Apple’s design, expressed through 450 photographs of Apple products.

Source: “Designed by Apple in California” chronicles 20 years of Apple design

WTF! is wrong with Apple?

Okay, this post took to long to be written, but a week ago, Apple presented the new line of MacBook Pro’s and deprecated the old superduper-no-retina display model, something that I believe is a complete mistake from the user point of view.

I use a Mac not because of its processing power, but because of the operating system, I want to use a Unix OS that have a consisten interface and that behaves great 99.9% of the time and I just don’t mean freezing, Linux have issues with apps that don’t behave well, but more importantly, the hardware+software combination. So, don’t get me wrong, I do love Linux and I believe there is a place for each operating system (Windows is doing great too, but I need a Unix OS) and Linux on the desktop… well, not this time.

Back to the Macs. The reason of why I use a MacBook Pro is that I want the OS which is restrictive to Apple products, If I had the chance to run OS on a Dell XPS/Lenovo Thinkpad computer I’ll have such computers, but meh. Raise your hand If you like me uses an Apple computer just by the OS.

The hardware quality is Great, I have no complaint, My older apple computer lasted 5 years and I broke because of a high voltage peak, if not I would be writing this lines with that computer, but do I need to pay almost $20,000 MXN (Mexican Peso) for a computer?. The “new” MacBook Pro that I have (non-retina) was $15,000 MXN, and was kind of hard for me to get it, so, having a cheaper computer would be awesome, you need a functional computer, a machine that allows you to do work on the environment you love.

Now, Apple released a couple of computers that completely break the “functional” part of that computer, they are Super-Duper-Looking-Great computers with limited functionality. You can do your texts as you usually do, you can watch videos/movies, listen to music, you can do programming, edit videos/music and all that stuff, but you’ll have a hard time to get data to that computer other than wirelessly. The new MacBook Pro have 0 (zero) standard USB ports, it have 0 (zero) thunderbold ports, it have 0 (zero) HDMI ports, 0 Ethernet ports, there is no magsafe connector, there are only 4 USB Type-C ports. Each of them allows you to charge your computer, but you don’t need that!!.

Then, how am I supposed to pass the file to my friend?,You either send it in some form or wireless way (email, Instant Messenger, Dropbox/iCloud, etc..) or you get an adapter to connect a USB drive to the USB Type-C connector (adapter that you need to buy).

What if you want to connect you computer to your big screen so you can put your movie there and enjoy?. You need either a wireless way (Apple TV) or… an adapter!

What if you need to connect your MIDI device?, adapter, SD Card? Adapter, CD/DVD/BR Drive? Adapter, anything that is usually connected via USB or any other port will need an adapter! WTF!! why would you want to have such limited computer ??

When I got my last computer I choose the functionality over the Retina display, I wanted to be able to increase my laptop RAM (with came with 4 GB now is 8GB), to be able to switch from the standard HDD to an SSD, and to be able to repair it with a lower budget. The Retina display looks great, but gives nothing better than the old non-retina one.

The new MacBook Pro have a touch bar with allows apps to have another “bar” with actions shortcuts, is that really needed? NO! . We solved that part decades ago with keyboard shortcuts and a mouse, there is no need of a fucking touch bar.  And without that there no other great advantage of the new MBP. So, is a reduced in functionality  laptop, with a bar that isn not worth, with a super price, because you need to know, is overpriced!.

What’s the future of Apple?. I don’t know but they have lost the floor. their computer doesn’t help to solve more than the basic problems, and they are overpriced, the only reason to get a Mac now is because of macOS, and guess what?, others are doing it great, Microsoft for example, Windows 10 from an average user perspective is awesome. Linux is growing in the desktop and it’s getting better as long as the developers don’t fight each other. So in the future there will be no reason to have a Mac and Apple will fall.

Do you have any comment on why have or don’t have a MacBook Pro? leave a comment!.

I understand people wants to do things on their own way

But when you had prove that your way is the wrong way, when you have prove that there’s a more efficient, more effective way. When your way in some form disrespect others… why would you keep it?

To me, there’s no reason and I must change as soon as I realize that my way is the wrong way. 

How to deal with someone that does not realize this ? I just don’t know . 

I think it is a matter of patience, trying to understand what the hell they are trying to achieve and why they are doing it, but if you can’t I think the best you can do is just let it go.  Just leave. 

Pictures? From where?

I have no pictures in my iPhone, I removed all of them but storage says there are half GB if pictures there… where?

Are the images .of every app taking in count? buttons, icons, not pictures taken by an app, those go to camera roll. It’s pretty annoying 

So, I put the firmware password in my Mac and the I forgot it ?

Well, not really forgotten, the thing is that I was unable to access to recovery or boot to another disk (like the recovery in time machine disks) because the Mac have the firmware password.

Why a firmware password?. Well, to protect your machine in case of being stolen/lost. The password will stop the boot process if the boot disk is not the one that was present when the password was set. Also stop booting to recovery/USB/Super Drive.

This firmware plus FileVault (disk encryption) will prevent getting your data or use your mac without permission. 

There is also a second firmware password set when you use “Find my Mac” which locks your computer and asks for a 4 digit password at boot as soon as you report your mac as lost/stolen in iCloud.

If you loose your firmware password then you’ll have to go to an Apple authorized specialist with proof of ownership, then they can remove the password, but in my case that means 6 hours driving to the nearest apple support specialist ?.

I used all the passwords that I remember, none seemed to work… until I realized that the password was entered with a Spanish keyboard layout and the password entry have no choice over the layout, English only. So the special (nonascii) characters didn’t match.

I had to discover the keys to write the password in English layout and taraaaa!!

I didn’t removed the password, but now I know why it wasn’t working.

The layout thing.. I hope it helps you if you are in the same situation as I was.