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Apple’s Latest Macs Have a Serious Audio Glitching Bug

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Re: Apple’s Latest Macs Have a Serious Audio Glitching Bug

#131

Post by rbanffy »

mastazi wrote: post #21
komali2 wrote: post #7

That's a weird glitch, and generally I'm not a fan of apple hardware (I think it's overpriced, that their keyboards suck, that they don't have enough ports, and I don't enjoy working in osx), but this article comes off as almost biblically haughty. Apple should have tests around clock updates affecting external audio quality? I mean, maybe after this bug being discovered, sure, but before, was that a connection that…

The article comes from CDM which is a music production website, MacBooks are very popular in that field, and basically all audio producers use external audio interfaces, it's not an uncommon use case. This is not the first time that this type of issues happens (from memory, last year an OSX update broke compatibility with Native Instruments Maschine, a very popular music software). So I think the point that the artic…

> Last year an OSX update broke compatibility with Native Instruments Maschine

When you sell packaged software you'd better make sure it runs with the next version of the OS. All registered Apple software developers have access to beta software, including OSs, for a very long time before launch, precisely to prevent things like this.

Re: Apple’s Latest Macs Have a Serious Audio Glitching Bug

#132

Post by dwaite »

wyclif wrote: post #127
tobylane wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China has people no longer willing to pay for iPhones. Everywhere else it's not changed much year on year. There was great demand for stock buybacks, Apple resisted for a while. I'm surprised to hear a need for 512GB storage, I'd be interested to know how that's used. The upgrade to XS is only minor from the X according to the reviews I've seen/seen summarised. A yearly upgrade isn't common, isn't their target.

And India. And the Philippines. And loads of other developing countries. Meanwhile, Apple killed the best price/value iPhone they offered, the SE. I just don't understand Apple's current product direction.

People are buying phones less often, so Apple is trying to increase the value (and subsequent price) of new phone models to encourage upgrades and to capture more money when people do upgrade (either because third party apps now run slow on the older hardware, or their old phone broke).

People don't stop buying gas when the price of gas goes up. They just conserve and figure out how to make it fit into their budget.

Also, Apple isn't (and has never) been trying to target the highest end phones at developing markets. They'll target those markets with the iPhone 6 and 6s.

Re: Apple’s Latest Macs Have a Serious Audio Glitching Bug

#133

Post by rsynnott »

hrktb wrote: post #102
jamesb93 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand what people are talking about when they say they get gouged by phones. Mine cost 180 USD in 2016. I still use it everyday and I get over 10 hours screen time. The issue is people conflate everyday devices of utility with fashion products (Apple, Google Pixel).

To give another angle, my iPad Pro cost around 1000€. The iPhone X is about the same price. Event taking into account miniaturization, waterproofing and just “luxury” tax, it’s insane that both products cost the same when their capabilities are so wildly different. I know there are reasons (like paying licensing and cetification for the cellular stack, and pure greed), I just feel they are wrong reasons.

I doubt the margins on them are that different. Similar CPU, the XS has a smaller but more expensive-tech screen.

Re: Apple’s Latest Macs Have a Serious Audio Glitching Bug

#134

Post by dwaite »

jedberg wrote: post #69
threeseed wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You definitely ticked all the cliches. Complains about: 1) Apple products being expensive but buys the most expensive one. 2) Being forced to use iTunes even though it hasn't been needed for any reason for quite some time. 3) Quality getting progressively worse based purely on anecdotes. And of course the "I own Apple products and shares therefore my opinion is important" line. Always a classic.

I just had to use ITunes the other day. It’s the only way to load an ipsw onto an iPhone.

You can do it with Xcode by opening the devices and simulators window.

Re: Apple’s Latest Macs Have a Serious Audio Glitching Bug

#135

Post by rsynnott »

satysin wrote: post #99

Interesting as I don't seem to have this issue on the two 2018 MBP I've had. Originally I had a release day i7/32GB/1TB/560X model but it had a power/charging issue so Apple replaced it with an i9 model which has been perfect. I have worried a lot about the keyboard breaking but so far it has been fine. I actually really like working on it now with the exception of the TouchBar which is the most useless change to key…

> I had a Surface Book 2 with a whole host of issues as well.

I mean, to an extent you expect that from Microsoft (certainly their whole Surface line has been pretty buggy). People are more annoyed at similar issues with Macs because historically they haven't had them (or at least have had them less than other vendors).

To be honest, I suspect the 2018 MBPs _still_ have fewer weird issues than most of the competition (imagine how Apple users would react if it routinely shipped with coil whine, or the sort of screen quality issues that are common on the Surface line...) but it definitely feels like Apple have slipped a bit, and given that their whole thing was always "it just works", that's not great.

Re: Apple’s Latest Macs Have a Serious Audio Glitching Bug

#136

Post by rbanffy »

MattBearman wrote: post #104
adrianhel wrote: post #73

What is happening with Macs? My butterfly keyboard repeats keys. This easily halves my typing speed. (Or rather "Itt easily halves my ttyping speed") Yesterday my machine got stuck booting with a black screen after running out of battery with the backlight turned off. Also, the keyboards have gone from making virtually no sound to making loud clicking sounds. I have also had a glitch where the sound gets distorted.

Depending on your Macbook's age and your location, you may be able to get the keyboard replaced due to sticking keys. I ended up getting a brand new MBP when they repeatedly fucked up repairing my sticking keyboard. Obviously it would be better if the keyboards didn't break so easily to begin with, but at least you may not have to put up with it :)

Once I entered an Apple store with a cracked case (white MacBook fell from the table). I left with a brand new lower part (hard disk excepted - they moved mine to the new machine) for free. There was a recall for the case, IIRC, one for the upper palm rest (something to do with magnets that made the plastic crack) and they replaced the keyboard for no reason.

I have to say Apple's support experience is stellar. I can't imagine having that with a Dell or Lenovo.

Re: Apple’s Latest Macs Have a Serious Audio Glitching Bug

#137

Post by blinkingled »

ajross wrote: post #25
komali2 wrote: post #7

That's a weird glitch, and generally I'm not a fan of apple hardware (I think it's overpriced, that their keyboards suck, that they don't have enough ports, and I don't enjoy working in osx), but this article comes off as almost biblically haughty. Apple should have tests around clock updates affecting external audio quality? I mean, maybe after this bug being discovered, sure, but before, was that a connection that…

To be fair, a MacBook pro is the highest end premium product in this space being used with official software for a well-defined industry use case. That's hardly the same thing as a bunch of developers installing an aftermarket OS on a midrange laptop. And even then, "you have to install a BIOS update" is just shorthand for Lenovo fixed the problem , right?

Not much different from having to install brew to get usably recent versions of basic developer utilities on macOS or installing WSL on Windows. Atleast with the Thinkpad I still have my arm and leg to get it done and I love the keyboard.

Re: Apple’s Latest Macs Have a Serious Audio Glitching Bug

#138

Post by richardwhiuk »

alxlaz wrote: post #67
komali2 wrote: post #7

That's a weird glitch, and generally I'm not a fan of apple hardware (I think it's overpriced, that their keyboards suck, that they don't have enough ports, and I don't enjoy working in osx), but this article comes off as almost biblically haughty. Apple should have tests around clock updates affecting external audio quality? I mean, maybe after this bug being discovered, sure, but before, was that a connection that…

> was that a connection that could have been made in a QA engineers mind? That's not a connection that should be made in a QA engineer's mind, it's a connection that should be made in an architect or team lead's mind, or better yet, one that should already exist as part of the internal documentation. You don't throw tarballs over the wall at the QA team yelling "you dudes, tell me if this breaks!". You know what's be…

> the pro audio industry is probably 1/3rd of the Macbook Pro market

Citation needed - I seriously doubt that the the professional audio market is large enough.

Re: Apple’s Latest Macs Have a Serious Audio Glitching Bug

#139

Post by rsynnott »

_asummers wrote: post #19

Semi-related: But does anyone know why unplugging headphones while audio is muted causes the audio to become unmuted? This is easily my least favorite bug and results in a 10 second shuffle of frantically finding the mute button again, sometimes with the laptop closed. It seems like something that would never pass QA in previous iterations of Apple, though I could be remembering the past more fondly than was true.

This is actually by design, I think, though it's arguably pretty surprising behaviour. Every audio output has an independent volume; it's just reverting to whatever the speaker volume happened to be.

Re: Apple’s Latest Macs Have a Serious Audio Glitching Bug

#140

Post by dwaite »

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #78
threeseed wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You definitely ticked all the cliches. Complains about: 1) Apple products being expensive but buys the most expensive one. 2) Being forced to use iTunes even though it hasn't been needed for any reason for quite some time. 3) Quality getting progressively worse based purely on anecdotes. And of course the "I own Apple products and shares therefore my opinion is important" line. Always a classic.

RE 2: iTunes is the only way to get a local iPhone backup. For those who don’t care how their phone is backed up, iTunes is the only way to fully backup their phone at all without paying for iCloud. iTunes is the only way I can listen to Apple Music on my Mac. iTunes is the only way I can create smart music playlists for my phone (Which is ridiculous, but I digress) I can’t wait until I’m not forced to use iTunes.

> For those who don’t care how their phone is backed up, iTunes is the only way to fully backup their phone at all without paying for iCloud.

I'm unclear by this statement. iTunes backups are technically a more 'full' backup than the iCloud ones, because iCloud will avoid caches, files marked as not-to-backup, and will not back up files which are part of app packages (and can just be downloaded again). But you can do an iCloud backup without paying a cent - you'll just hit a storage limit with sufficient data/devices and have to start paying for additional storage.

> iTunes is the only way I can listen to Apple Music on my Mac.

There was an article here the other day about http://musi.sh

> I can’t wait until I’m not forced to use iTunes.

I thought the hold-up was that it was cross platform between Mac and Windows - but the Win 10 version is still the same old crap.

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