Something that I ended up loving about iOS was the relative simplicity it had compared to Android at the time I started using the iPhone in 2017. iOS 10 and 11 were great. People complained about things like all apps needing to be on the homescreen or not being able to place apps arbitrarily, but at the same time that "lack" of function is part of what made iOS easy to use and understand.
I find nowadays iOS is as complex as the Android I remember. I can navigate it just fine because I'm used to it but even my parents who've been using iPhones longer than me have found themselves getting lost in the OS with iOS 26 in particular.
I knew Blizzard was abandoning macOS when Overwatch didn't ship for it. I assume there must be a decent amount of Mac users playing WoW seeing as it still works on macOS and transitioned to ARM. Diablo 3 only ever got an ARM build because, apparently, Blizzard they replaced the 2010(?) Mac Pro that they were using to test Mac builds of the game with a Studio.
I hear what you're saying, but keep in mind that Bethesda shipped Skyrim as 32-bit in 2011. It wasn't until the Special Edition release in 2016 that it was updated to 64. Now, obviously, we could chalk that up to it just being Bethesda.
I ordered the X4 this past Christmas and received it sometime in January. I have it running Crosspoint. I like it a lot but I do wish it was a bit larger, like a 7-8" display so more text could fit on the screen. The thing I love about the X4 is that I can flash different firmware on it and it's dead simple. It's not an Android tablet with an e-ink screen, it doesn't download ads from Amazon servers, it's just an e-reader.
It being a Switch emulator certainly didn't help. However, the primary reason Nintendo went after Yuzu was that Yuzu devs were openly accepting payment for special updates to run Tears of the Kingdom. TOTK was, at the time, only available because of a leak and had not officially released.
Oracle cut their Always Free ARM offering in half CPU & memory-wise, Hetzner is increasing prices by up to 300%. I think that this is going to push even more people to pick up a mini PC and forward ports to it on their LAN.
This drives me crazy. Even looking at these old screenshots you just know that these systems we outputting a display resolution lower than 1024x768.
When I was checking out the MacBook Neo a while back I was disappointed that the resolution is not natively x2 scaled. It uses fractional scaling when macOS handles fractional scaling quite poorly. I've set the resolution on my M1 MBP to 1280x800 so it was x2 scaled and clarity improved significantly. But I also sacrificed usable space because apps don't adjust, everything is just made larger.
> Operating systems of that era were designed based on UX research to help people use the unfamiliar operating system.
I have a lot of thoughts on things like PC usability today. You're right that UX research would have heavily contributed to the design on these older systems. As computers moved from the warehouse to the living room they had to be easier to use and understand for people without CS degrees. I think it is fair to assume *some* things about what people these days are familiar with when it comes to the desktop GUI, but usability should receive more focus now even if it slightly hinders aesthetic. A friend of mine has been teaching a college program for video editing and she has students who needed her to explain what files and folders are. This is not the first time I've heard of things like this.
Smartphones and tablets have obfuscated so many basic functions and features that it is actively harming people's understanding of how to use a computer. Things like window sizing, executables, how apps know where things are, and how programs are installed. Android does allow users to peek behind the curtain more than iOS but Google has been going down the path of locking down Android. I haven't been in an elementary school classroom for like 17 years but I remember having computer lab time where we would learn how to use Windows 95/98. I think what has benefited my friends and others my age (~30) is that we grew up when computers were in the home and were usable enough for us to log in and intuit our way around but there was enough friction that made it so we would have to figure things out on our own.
Whenever I see a Starlabs release I think about picking it up then I look at the price. When you're getting to the point where a MacBook is a better deal it's a tough sell, especially when your lower end CPU options are so weak.
If it wasn't for GitHub self-hosting and open-source development would be much more difficult. Like the article says open-source development was obviously still happening but it was a smaller space. I appreciate how many apps I've interacted with because of GitHub like OpenGOAL, IINA, and Ghostty along with the services running on my servers at home like Immich, Glance, Filebrowser, and audiobookshelf. I even used GitHub myself for some private repos, but I've since migrated them to a self-hosted Forgejo container.
I'll need to give this a shot. I have Localsend installed for sending thing between my iPhone and Linux desktop, but it doesn't always play nice. Even with the Localsend port open in Firewalld it can take upwards of 10 minutes for the devices to see each other. A browser solution should at least have faster discovery.
I’ve been a MacBook guy for almost a decade now, but I’ve been watching Framework since their first announcement. This is the most appealing Framework device I’ve seen.
The new display, battery life, the new Intel chips, and LPCAM2 memory all look great. I love my M1 MBP but Apple’s software quality has been rough the past year especially. I think this is also the first time the Framework 13 has officially supported Thunderbolt? Depending on how macOS 27 turns out I may seriously consider the 13 Pro as my next laptop. I’d slap Fedora Workstation on it and call it a day.
I see a lot of people treat the dock like the Windows taskbar. They have it filled with as many apps as they can fit in it and leave it on-screen. I used to use the dock like that when I first started using macOS. Now it lives off the left edge of the screen and spends most of the time hidden. I can open any app I need with Spotlight and Mission Control, CMD+Tab, and moving between virtual desktops lets me move around my currently open apps.
Personally, I like the macOS dock so this wouldn't be for me. $10/year for a dock replacement is a bit much to ask for too, especially since this is a price per seat model. Maybe $15-20 as a one-time purchase per license? One of my favourite apps in the past few years is antinote and that is a one time fee of $5.
I do think the glass effects do look great in certain areas, like pulling down Notification Center. But I find LG for the most part to be change for the sake of it. Small things like replacing the Cancel & Confirm/Done prompts with larger X or checkmark icons bother me. They take up more space on screen, and honestly they don't always translate well. There are some cases where a checkmark has taken the place of "Done" and I have felt genuine confusion on how to get out of the editing mode or options screen.
Is there any details on from whom Apple is sourcing the panel from? LG and MSI have both shown off 5K monitors at 165hz and 2304 dimming zones recently.
I said about two years back I’d wait to upgrade my 1080p monitor until Apple shipped a high refresh rate one. I knew the monkey’s paw would curl but at nearly $5000 CAD that’s a hard no.
I remember battery life on my Late 2015 MBA was great for the time. It easily got through my post-secondary classes, 3-8 hours depending on the day, with leftovers. IIRC Apple claimed 12 hours of battery life. That was a significant improvement over the suggested 5 hours of my previous laptops.
I’m hopeful for this product both becoming real and being good. No word on what Mediatek SOC they’re using on the spec sheet, plus what memory capacity we’ll be working with.
The people in my life I’ve shown this to so far have all shared my hopefulness. It seems to me that everyone who had a keyboarded Blackberry misses it for the utility of the device. I think Apple and the rest of the smartphone industry were correct on the direction mobile phones were heading. A big screen is great for viewing content but is not so great at doing things besides social media. This has become increasingly obvious as the iOS keyboard keeps on getting worse while more people use their iPhone as their only, or at least primary, computing device. I can’t speak to the Android space so I’m not sure if Samsung, Huawei, or Google devices are having similar on-screen keyboard issues.
One thing that is immediately disappointing about the product specs at this moment is the timeframe for updates. Two years of Android system updates plus 5 years of security updates is paltry compared to Samsung & Google’s recent change of tune on that front. It is pretty pathetic compared to Apple’s long-standing precedent of providing full OS updates for several years, even for phones that probably shouldn’t be on the latest version of iOS.
I find nowadays iOS is as complex as the Android I remember. I can navigate it just fine because I'm used to it but even my parents who've been using iPhones longer than me have found themselves getting lost in the OS with iOS 26 in particular.