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Apple M1X and M2 Rumors


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I've been considering a Mac Mini M1 but I see there could be some upgrading in the foreseeable future. That could mean two different things - One, the new chip will be so good it's worth waiting for and paying for and Two, the current Mac Mini M1 will go on sale and I can save a few bucks.

 

I want 16gb RAM and would prefer 1TB ssd but I could do fine with the 512 gig. This would be dedicated to recording and disconnected from the internet unless I need to update stuff. I'd keep my 2014 MacBook Pro and run it as far as it will go.

 

https://www.tomsguide.com/news/apple-m1x-vs-m2-chip-what-we-know-so-far-and-what-it-means-for-new-macbooks

 

https://medium.com/macoclock/apples-2022-new-m1x-and-m2-chips-b829e38a22a8

 

Has anybody heard anything else interesting? :)

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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Current rumours are 14" and 16" MacBooks Pro introduced at an Apple Event in October and shipping November, M1X being 8 full-speed cores and 2 energy-efficient cores, 8 graphics cores, and support for 32 GB RAM (possibly 64).

 

MagSafe charging and SD card slot (the reintroduction of SD slots after five years makes no sense to me, but others seem to be giddy about this).

 

No idea about the mini, though. Haven't read anything on that. Though it stands to reason that they could update it at the same time, fabbing constraints might force them to put it off.

"The Angels of Libra are in the European vanguard of the [retro soul] movement" (Bill Buckley, Soul and Jazz and Funk)

The Drawbars | off jazz organ trio

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I got an M1 Air and like you chose a 16/512 configuration. Got a nice external SSD and used velcro tape to attach it to the back of the monitor. I"m happy with the setup but the Apple OS drives me crazy with the restrictions on installing programs to a secondary drive. As a sometimes photographer I am happy about the SSD and wish they would release a 'connected' line of computers, phones and Ipads with all the ports and headphone jack.

 

All of the speculations seem to focus on the new phone. Not much being said about the computers other that the projected MacBook Pro size.

This post edited for speling.

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Current rumours are 14" and 16" MacBooks Pro introduced at an Apple Event in October and shipping November, M1X being 8 full-speed cores and 2 energy-efficient cores, 8 graphics cores, and support for 32 GB RAM (possibly 64).

 

MagSafe charging and SD card slot (the reintroduction of SD slots after five years makes no sense to me, but others seem to be giddy about this).

 

No idea about the mini, though. Haven't read anything on that. Though it stands to reason that they could update it at the same time, fabbing constraints might force them to put it off.

 

Both the articles I linked stated that the MX1 would come out this year. That is a premium chip so they would focus on putting it in their premium products, with pricing to match no doubt.

I'm thinking they may put the M2 in the Mac Mini and hoping it can take up to 32 gigs RAM. I think that would be plenty for my humble needs. Thanks for your response!

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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I got an M1 Air and like you chose a 16/512 configuration. Got a nice external SSD and used velcro tape to attach it to the back of the monitor. I"m happy with the setup but the Apple OS drives me crazy with the restrictions on installing programs to a secondary drive. As a sometimes photographer I am happy about the SSD and wish they would release a 'connected' line of computers, phones and Ipads with all the ports and headphone jack.

 

All of the speculations seem to focus on the new phone. Not much being said about the computers other that the projected MacBook Pro size.

 

Both the articles mention the M2 coming out fairly early next year. If they upgrade the Mini, that will be the chip they use. More of an incremental improvement over the M1, the M1X is another chip entirely.

 

As mentioned, I am considering a 1TB drive as well. Mac OS is familiar to me, I've used both Mac and Windows at work and always a Mac at home. I understand your frustration regarding not being able to load programs on an external drive. I would suggest creating an external boot drive, If you open from that you can install whatever you want on it. I have an external 2TB HDD for my Mac Book Pro and I can install whatever I want on it, boot from it and run those programs.

 

I could write a few pages at a small point size about the ways Windows causes me to feel profound frustration but I will spare the world that indignity.

Where connectivity is concerned I plan on using a hub. Since the Mac Mini has an HDMI out I'm covered there. The Ankar 7 port USB hub I've been using should do the trick with an adapter. My Presonus Quantum Thunderbolt 2 interface will need adapted but it has a daisy chain port on the back with another drive connected there to store recordings. Good thoughts, thanks for posting!

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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All of the speculations seem to focus on the new phone. Not much being said about the computers...

 

Cool! So Apple's making computers now? That's a great move...once you've sold a phone to every man, woman, and child on earth, you need new markets. :)

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I could write a few pages at a small point size about the ways Windows causes me to feel profound frustration but I will spare the world that indignity.

 

Bear in mind that I use Windows do all my heavy lifting, and Windows 10 has been great. So when I say Windows 11 is perhaps the most botched and ineffective product rollout ever, it's not coming from a position of being anti-Windows. Somehow, Microsoft has managed to introduce a next-generation operating system, and scare people off from using it, at the same time. And now, word is starting to get out that maybe the whole TMP thing isn't as foolproof a guard against hacks, ransomware, etc. as they'd like to think.

 

I'll be taking a long, hard look at the next Mac generation. Most of the programs I use are cross-platform, so no real issue there. I do find crazy limitations (MacBook with no way to hook up a second monitor? Really?!?), and I don't like how the operating system has "evolved" into something that seems to have forgotten that the elegant power of System 7 ever existed. Of course I won't ditch Windows, my PC Audio Labs computer is a thing of beauty and a flawless performer. I'm sure it can meet the compatibility guidelines for Windows 11, and the Windows ecosystem continues to improve...ish. (But why, oh why, did they decide to deprecate the timeline instead of educating people on how to use it?) Still, I suspect that before too long, my Studio B computer - which was always a Mac until Apple lost the recipe - may very well return to macOS.

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I too use both Mac and Windows though my Windows needs and use fell off greatly since I retired. The M1 Air that I bought gave me increased confidence in Apple as they finally released a laptop that could financially complete with Windows. I had been buying a $3000+ MacBookPro every 5 years. The Air works great though I wish it had a bigger screen. I also wish it had a touch screen like the $700 Windows computer I bought at Costco.

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All MacBooks run external monitors. The current M1 machines are limited to two monitors, total.

 

The fact that these machines outperform virtually any Intel laptop on the market at any price tends to let you forget that these are the lowest-end consumer Apple Silicon Macs Apple is ever going to offer, and they haven"t even got around to the real âpro' machines yet.

 

So those limitations (two monitors, 16 GB RAM) seem real head-scratchers if you look at the performance of the machines, but they"re perfectly adequate for the intended market.

"The Angels of Libra are in the European vanguard of the [retro soul] movement" (Bill Buckley, Soul and Jazz and Funk)

The Drawbars | off jazz organ trio

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Current rumours are 14" and 16" MacBooks Pro introduced at an Apple Event in October and shipping November, M1X being 8 full-speed cores and 2 energy-efficient cores, 8 graphics cores, and support for 32 GB RAM (possibly 64).

 

MagSafe charging and SD card slot (the reintroduction of SD slots after five years makes no sense to me, but others seem to be giddy about this).

 

No idea about the mini, though. Haven't read anything on that. Though it stands to reason that they could update it at the same time, fabbing constraints might force them to put it off.

 

Both the articles I linked stated that the MX1 would come out this year. That is a premium chip so they would focus on putting it in their premium products, with pricing to match no doubt.

I'm thinking they may put the M2 in the Mac Mini and hoping it can take up to 32 gigs RAM. I think that would be plenty for my humble needs. Thanks for your response!

I doubt we"ll see the M2 before next spring.

"The Angels of Libra are in the European vanguard of the [retro soul] movement" (Bill Buckley, Soul and Jazz and Funk)

The Drawbars | off jazz organ trio

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All MacBooks run external monitors. The current M1 machines are limited to two monitors, total.

 

Correct, I should have said second external monitor. I also know that with a Mini you can run a monitor with HDMI and another with Thunderbolt, but still, that's two monitors and three is my default for just about anything these days. I know there are workarounds, but they're pretty convoluted at the moment.

 

The fact that these machines outperform virtually any Intel laptop on the market at any price tends to let you forget that these are the lowest-end consumer Apple Silicon Macs Apple is ever going to offer, and they haven"t even got around to the real âpro' machines yet.

 

That's what I'm waiting for, their current "power user" desktop is way out of my price range, and I'm not down with the all-in-one iMac approach, especially since I use touch screens a lot. Meanwhile, Intel has (of course) their own side to the story. But I'm still in desktop-land, so everything for me has to be judged on that basis. Given what I do, as long as a laptop can run Office and boot up a music program to complement seminars, that's all I need for now....which is why I'm still using a 2012 MacBook Pro as my main laptop. Yes, I know I should upgrade :) But if it ain't broke...I even get good battery life from it.

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I could write a few pages at a small point size about the ways Windows causes me to feel profound frustration but I will spare the world that indignity.

 

Bear in mind that I use Windows do all my heavy lifting, and Windows 10 has been great. So when I say Windows 11 is perhaps the most botched and ineffective product rollout ever, it's not coming from a position of being anti-Windows. Somehow, Microsoft has managed to introduce a next-generation operating system, and scare people off from using it, at the same time. And now, word is starting to get out that maybe the whole TMP thing isn't as foolproof a guard against hacks, ransomware, etc. as they'd like to think.

 

I'll be taking a long, hard look at the next Mac generation. Most of the programs I use are cross-platform, so no real issue there. I do find crazy limitations (MacBook with no way to hook up a second monitor? Really?!?), and I don't like how the operating system has "evolved" into something that seems to have forgotten that the elegant power of System 7 ever existed. Of course I won't ditch Windows, my PC Audio Labs computer is a thing of beauty and a flawless performer. I'm sure it can meet the compatibility guidelines for Windows 11, and the Windows ecosystem continues to improve...ish. (But why, oh why, did they decide to deprecate the timeline instead of educating people on how to use it?) Still, I suspect that before too long, my Studio B computer - which was always a Mac until Apple lost the recipe - may very well return to macOS.

 

 

I'll be the first to admit that the circumstances/situations where I've used Windows machines do not compare favorably with having a machine at home running the software I've chosen and doing the things I want to do.

Using Windows in corporate world means that somebody else decided what my needs were in terms of RAM, hard drive space, which system, monitor and software I could have, etc.

It also meant I had an IT department riding herd on their machines so fiddling about was frowned on, especially by those who were IT by default and not particularly good at their jobs.

 

And I'm not s system deep diver so I am mostly speaking to the software that was part of my job and the requirements for pleasing customers who used things I would never have opened once given my own choices.

 

Most of my experience is in using underpowered machines (both PC and Mac) to create graphics or print jobs customers brought in. That brought it's own form of fatigue. I had to know a fair bit about Quark, Pagemaker, InDesign, Illustrator, Freehand, CorelDraw, Photoshop, Publisher, Word, Powerpoint, Word Perfect and I could probably think of some other ones. After a while, you don't want to learn anymore, you just want to do stuff and keep it simple.

 

Often, you don't get enough of the same type of files to develop a technique. I'll never forget the poster that a customer created in Excel. It must have been the only program they knew how to use, it would certainly be a last choice for any graphic designer. Spreadsheets, colorful and meaningful charts and graphs? Excel is your puppy. I managed to "break" that file and get a good print but I never had another one come in to work on efficiency and improvements.

 

So I maybe hate more how I had to use Windows than what I might feel if I had a decent machine at home and did fun stuff because I felt like it.

 

For all that, here I am using a Windows 10 laptop for work that reminds me of the speed I used to get from a Mac in 1996, running 180 megs of RAM. Outlook crashes every day, sometimes twice. I can log into my iPhone and get more done but the screen is tiny so that sucks.

 

I don't doubt that others get great stuff done using their Windows machines. I'll probably never be one of them.

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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...

Bear in mind that I use Windows do all my heavy lifting, and Windows 10 has been great. So when I say Windows 11 is perhaps the most botched and ineffective product rollout ever, it's not coming from a position of being anti-Windows. Somehow, Microsoft has managed to introduce a next-generation operating system, and scare people off from using it, at the same time. And now, word is starting to get out that maybe the whole TMP thing isn't as foolproof a guard against hacks, ransomware, etc. as they'd like to think.

...

 

Ease that troubled mind - Fresh from the Windows Experience Blog

 

"1. The new design and sounds are modern, fresh, clean and beautiful, bringing you a sense of calm and ease."

 

If only it was a short hop from beautiful sounds to sophisticated audio drivers. I suppose that we will find out on October 5.

2303.thumb.png.3cd1cdabb20da2982821b31f793cad0e.png

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...

I'll be the first to admit that the circumstances/situations where I've used Windows machines do not compare favorably with having a machine at home running the software I've chosen and doing the things I want to do.

Using Windows in corporate world means that somebody else decided what my needs were in terms of RAM, hard drive space, which system, monitor and software I could have, etc.

It also meant I had an IT department riding herd on their machines so fiddling about was frowned on, especially by those who were IT by default and not particularly good at their jobs.

 

And I'm not s system deep diver so I am mostly speaking to the software that was part of my job and the requirements for pleasing customers who used things I would never have opened once given my own choices.

 

Most of my experience is in using underpowered machines (both PC and Mac) to create graphics or print jobs customers brought in. That brought it's own form of fatigue. I had to know a fair bit about Quark, Pagemaker, InDesign, Illustrator, Freehand, CorelDraw, Photoshop, Publisher, Word, Powerpoint, Word Perfect and I could probably think of some other ones. After a while, you don't want to learn anymore, you just want to do stuff and keep it simple.

 

...

 

LOL, same experience but on Mac instead of Windows. My first job after college was a combination of systems manager and supervisor of the pre-press department in a large print shop that specialized in automobile forums. Right after they hired me the president spent $250,000 on a film printer and $5000 on a Mac that connected to it. We used PageMaker and Quark Express to design the forums. When sending a printout it would take 25 minutes because the Mac came with minimum memory and would totally bog down. I desperately needed $500 for a memory expansion but the president of the company refused to spend another dollar after having put out $250,000 on the system. I ended up telling the salesman that sold me $80,000 a month of printers plates "Don't send me a clock radio. Don't send me a restaurant gift card. If you want to make me happy send me a memory chip of the Mac we use in the office, and never mention it to the president." The next week I installed a new memory chip in the Mac and the world was good again. 2 1/2 years later I left for another job and became that dictator CIO that determined what computers and software everyone could have. And I have to say, when you are managing 400 users on a really tight budget and no support, the best thing you can do it ignore requests and prevent people from installing programs on their work computers. My biggest issues were people installing games on work computers, or getting viruses from downloading music, or bringing their kids to work and sitting them down at the computer to keep them occupied. And EVERYONE wanted a bigger monitor, or speakers, or internet, etc... IT people get overwhelmed by things that are not needed and are not in the budget. It is enough to drive us crazy. ... ... ... Hey, that could explain my ... :)

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...

Bear in mind that I use Windows do all my heavy lifting, and Windows 10 has been great. So when I say Windows 11 is perhaps the most botched and ineffective product rollout ever, it's not coming from a position of being anti-Windows. Somehow, Microsoft has managed to introduce a next-generation operating system, and scare people off from using it, at the same time. And now, word is starting to get out that maybe the whole TMP thing isn't as foolproof a guard against hacks, ransomware, etc. as they'd like to think.

...

 

Ease that troubled mind - Fresh from the Windows Experience Blog

 

"1. The new design and sounds are modern, fresh, clean and beautiful, bringing you a sense of calm and ease."

 

Don't they have Xanax for that? :)

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Using Windows in corporate world...

 

You didn't need to go past that. I can guarantee there isn't enough memory, the machine hasn't been optimized, there's all kinds of intrusive weirdass software slowing things down, and the original machines were purchased for the lowest possible price at the time, consistent with the computer being able to wake up in the morning. There are still plenty of corporate systems with 4 GB of RAM and sometimes even 2 GB. In that case, you've off on a wild goose chase of endless page swaps, crashes, and other issues.

 

And IT probably thinks that if one anti-virus program is good, then two must be better. I bought my mother a computer years ago, and technically speaking, the performance should have been great. But it was unuseably slow. What fixed it was finding out how to uninstall the trial version of Norton that had been installed - which required finding an obscure page on the Norton web site with detailed instructions on the hacks you had to do to get rid of it. Apparently they didn't use the Windows uninstall routine. Why would they want to make it easy to uninstall?

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... My biggest issues were people installing games on work computers ...

I used to work in IT for a large call center One day, we got an order from up high that all games were to be removed from the 3500+ Windows machines (most notably Minesweeper!). So we dutifully disabled it, but of course people came in with floppies and installed their own games. Initially, we had a schedule that would automatically re-install/reset the OS over the network, but for a call center that large, it was almost always better to have the drop in productivity from games than it was to have bored call center workers coming up with shenanigans to beat the boredom! Eventually, we instituted a secret policy for workers who went out of their way to ask us and we would re-install the games for them.

 

Nowadays the nicer call centers have gaming rooms, sleep pods, food kitchens etc.

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Using Windows in corporate world...

 

You didn't need to go past that.

 

I didn't go nearly as far as my thoughts lead me. The primary point of Mac OS and Windows is to be visually intuitive. Jobs and Wozniak understood that, I am not so sure about Bill Gates.

To get coders to code visually intuitive code, the coders have to be visually intuitive as well.

 

As my list above indicates, I've spent some time learning different softwares. There is no question that some are very easy to learn and others which do more or less the same thing are not as easy.

I am an artist first and I work best when things are easy to "see". Logic puzzles can be parsed but it is a different way of thinking, something I am not as good at doing.

 

I'm just guessing but I haven't found Word or Outlook to be particularly visually intuitive.

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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The problem with coders and "intuition" is that intiotion is entirely learned, and coders rarely have the slightest clue what the hangups or disconnects might be for a user with zero technical background.

 

I guess it's like this in most areas of expertise â I've been teaching for fifteen years, and I *still* occasionally run into students who manage to misunderstand exercises or ideas in new and unexpected ways, despite my best efforts at breaking things down.

 

Logic comes from a way of thinking that is completely alien to the way Apple's interfaces work: You used to have to know exactly how to build a studio to your requirements â the size of the patchbay, the fixed number of aux sends, of busses, of input channels and mults, etc. â and then meticulously transfer that entire structure into the digital realm within the Logic environment, before you could even start working.

Thankfully, that has drastically changed since Apple bought Emagic.

"The Angels of Libra are in the European vanguard of the [retro soul] movement" (Bill Buckley, Soul and Jazz and Funk)

The Drawbars | off jazz organ trio

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The problem with coders and "intuition" is that intiotion is entirely learned, and coders rarely have the slightest clue what the hangups or disconnects might be for a user with zero technical background.

 

I guess it's like this in most areas of expertise â I've been teaching for fifteen years, and I *still* occasionally run into students who manage to misunderstand exercises or ideas in new and unexpected ways, despite my best efforts at breaking things down.

 

Logic comes from a way of thinking that is completely alien to the way Apple's interfaces work: You used to have to know exactly how to build a studio to your requirements â the size of the patchbay, the fixed number of aux sends, of busses, of input channels and mults, etc. â and then meticulously transfer that entire structure into the digital realm within the Logic environment, before you could even start working.

Thankfully, that has drastically changed since Apple bought Emagic.

 

 

Both logic and intuition are needed for computing, or for that matter - playing music. I disagree that intuition is "entirely learned", coding is entirely learned beyond any doubt. My brother wrote code for decades, made a good living at it. He and I are brothers by birth but could not be more different. It is an observation of mine that keyboardists tend to favor the logical aspect and guitarists favor the intuitive. I've seen many examples of this through the years. A balance would be ideal but few have it. I don't, my natural instincts favor the intuitive. Born left-handed and to a degree autistic, I play the cards I am dealt.

 

Nobody taught me intuition, rather the opposite. Worlds collide. Academia is sternly ruled by logic, allowing an occasional artist to teach painting or other non-logical things.

 

I cannot explain this but here is an example. Forgive any "vague" descriptions, it happened many years ago for one and things do happen that cannot be literally described.

I had a college math course (now THAT'S literal AND taught), and we had an in class assignment that was worth a decent percentage of our grade - a flash quiz. The question was along these lines (my memory fails me in the particulars). "The Earth has a circumference of (number) and there is a band around the earth that is exactly the circumference of the earth. (A specific length) is added to the band and the band is evenly spaced away from the Earth around the entire circumference. What is the exact distance of the band from the Earth at all points after the additional length is added?

 

There were about 20 of us, we were given a time constraint and told to dive in. While I considered how to go about solving the problem, I began drawing tiny cartoon demons with large human teeth on my scratch paper. I was carried off into that place creativity takes us and continued to draw. At a certain point, the answer came to me and I wrote it down on another piece of paper, signed it and submitted it. Then I went back to drawing more demons, waiting for the allotted time to be over. Others submitted their answers.

 

Time up, the instructor tallied the answers and announced "This gentleman over here is the only person in class to have submitted the correct answer." He pointed at me, then walked over to see my work. I handed him the scratch paper filled with tiny demons. He said "No, I want to see your work." I said "I was drawing and the answer came to me, it is correct, no?" This did not sit well with him. I had come to class with very few possessions, I had nothing on my person that provided the answer and his test question was randomly chosen out of several that he used. In the end, he had to concede that I was not cheating and that I was the only student who answered the question correctly.

 

He probably still wonders about that. I was not logical but I was correct. If he had any grasp of intuition he would have understood that it is non-verbal which makes it impossible to resolve in a logical mind.

 

I'm sure you'll read this and not believe it. That does not matter it happened.

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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Why would I not believe this? But that answer didn't come to you out of nowhere. It came to you from a background of having understood the math it was based on. Would you have been able to come up with the answer without attending that course, or the courses that preceded it?

 

The point is this: What works for a programmer is a *completely* different world from what works for an end user. The expectations from somebody who knows where to find a function are *very* different from those of somebody who's looking for them.

 

Putting crucial account functionality in a submenu under Options â> Extras â> Settings â> Accounts fulfills the engineering requirements of functionality, but it utterly fails as interface, and while it was MY intuition in a computer support situation that I might find this information there, this was entirely based on my experience knowing that Microsoft would choose the dumbest, most convoluted place possible. My client didn't stand a chance.

"The Angels of Libra are in the European vanguard of the [retro soul] movement" (Bill Buckley, Soul and Jazz and Funk)

The Drawbars | off jazz organ trio

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Why would I not believe this? But that answer didn't come to you out of nowhere. It came to you from a background of having understood the math it was based on. Would you have been able to come up with the answer without attending that course, or the courses that preceded it?

 

The point is this: What works for a programmer is a *completely* different world from what works for an end user. The expectations from somebody who knows where to find a function are *very* different from those of somebody who's looking for them.

 

Putting crucial account functionality in a submenu under Options â> Extras â> Settings â> Accounts fulfills the engineering requirements of functionality, but it utterly fails as interface, and while it was MY intuition in a computer support situation that I might find this information there, this was entirely based on my experience knowing that Microsoft would choose the dumbest, most convoluted place possible. My client didn't stand a chance.

 

 

It is true that I could have solved the problem using math, I've been taught those skills. Comparing two very different states of being, with one of the two that never happened (not taking math courses), is impossible with regards to coming to any legitimate conclusion. We could add a third possibility, a savant that has not learned math and still solves the problem. Toss in a mnemomist and it's a party!!!!!

 

You are of course correct that a programer will create software for reasons that cannot be known by an end user. For all that, some software is very easy to learn and use and other software is cryptic. This certainly varies from person to person, some of us find using the Mac much simpler and easier to understand than using Windows and others prefer Windows. I've learned what I've had to learn to get work done, that's a fact of employment even if self employed (running my home studio is something I learned - results driven).

 

If a programmer is astute enough to include the concept of "ease of use" in creating their final code, that is valuable. If not, perhaps another coder uses that code in a shell designed for easy use.

 

Plugins are a great example. I have a couple of Eventide plugins - Micro-Pitch and Physion. They are a wonder, simply to use but a vast range of possibilities using a few mouse friendly sliders in an open, large texted interface. On the other hand, I have a synth plugin (whose name escapes me right now but there are many) that is not a reproduction of an existing synth, it has row after row of tiny knobs and minuscule lettering. If some of the presets weren't great I would have thrown it away a long time ago. It is not user friendly.

 

Customers are all users, no? Releasing software that causes struggle is not inviting. As above, people like Craig take that as a challenge and do the deep dive to understand and dominate their computer experience. We are all different, I simply want to get things done and would prefer to be able to ignore what's "under the hood".

 

Your final paragraph says it all, it seems we are in agreement with regards to making software that is dedicated to the purpose of supporting it's actual function in an efficient manner.

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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One of the most interesting interface cases to me is Ableton Live. There are people who simply cannot wrap their head around that kind of a paradigm for recording and editing music. It is totally alien to a linear, descended-from-tape paradigm like Pro Tools.

 

But what I find really interesting is that it seems no two people use it the same way. At the late, great Frankfurt Musikmesse, there was a booth with lots of laptops running Live. When I looked over peoples' shoulders, everyone was using it differently. Some switched between scenes, some did mostly loop selections, some worked in the Arrangement window, some played with effects more than selecting loops, etc. At one point I heard someone and it sounded like he was using Live the way I do, but when I looked over his shoulder, he had it set up completely differently.

 

Live does have its confusing moments, because it does everything in "the Ableton Way" that has nothing to do with traditional recording. But to me, the fact that users find it so easy to bend the interface to what they want to do is pretty impressive. How this relates to the above is I think it shows that everyone's intuition was able to be accommodated by the same interface, which is pretty cool.

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I bought Ableton Live Suite 8 a few years ago. I've been using Live as a glorified virtual multitrack tape recorder during all this time.

 

I bought the update to Live 11 this year, and bought Push 2 from a friend who wanted to get more into MIDI sequencing on hardware. Well, I enjoy sequencing on some hardware too but this is the year I figured I'd finally learn how to use Live 11 to assemble my ideas into finished songs.

 

Pat Metheny's usage of Live to drive Orchestrion (his robot orchestra project) was amazing, using multiple foot controllers spread around the stage to call up any of the reported 400 Scenes. Some fellow musos dogged him for not playing with live musicians on that tour, but i respect that this was an obsession of his since childhood, and when he finally had all the pieces in place to realize his childhood dream, why not have fun with it, because, he's Pat freaking Metheny.

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Your final paragraph says it all, it seems we are in agreement with regards to making software that is dedicated to the purpose of supporting it's actual function in an efficient manner.

 

Oh, absolutely. Basically, I think it comes down to that coders rarely seem to care (or have the ability) to figure out what their software looks like to a user who isn't an engineer.

 

Apple tend to grok this and work hard at making interface accessible and logical, and Ableton appears to have found a framework that allows a large variation of approaches, but this is not terribly common, I guessâ¦

"The Angels of Libra are in the European vanguard of the [retro soul] movement" (Bill Buckley, Soul and Jazz and Funk)

The Drawbars | off jazz organ trio

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Apple is now a company with an obvious split personality.

 

They create an interface that is easy and welcoming, but reserve the right to break any program at any time with a simple update that says "my way or no way."

They built a reputation as a green company, then pioneered disposable electronics. Sure they have a trade in system in place, but the pricing on it is an insult and makes the system totally useless.

They are campaigning about privacy as if protecting their clients, but they recommend games with strong pay to win tactics that play on addictive tendencies and lead players to spend $100's and sometimes thousands of dollars a month to stay on top of the leaderboard. But that is okay with Apple as long as they are getting their 40 percent. The more a game can skim extra money, the more Apple puts that game at the top of the recommended list. Yet, they advertise their new Apple One gaming section as "no micro transactions."

 

But the funny one for me is that they let Microsoft Windows make so many decisions on the Apple OS. Instead of trying to be consistent with other OS's and make it easier for the user to transition, Apple HAS to do the opposite of Microsoft any time they can. If Microsoft and other browsers puts the little x to close a tab on the right, Apple has to put it on the left. If Microsoft uses the scroll wheel to go one directions, Apple has to go the opposite. If Microsoft makes big use of right click, Apple puts out a mouse without the ability, or at least buries the ability. While I said it is funny, it is actually kind of sad.

This post edited for speling.

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Apple is now a company with an obvious split personality.

 

They create an interface that is easy and welcoming, but reserve the right to break any program at any time with a simple update that says "my way or no way."

They built a reputation as a green company, then pioneered disposable electronics. Sure they have a trade in system in place, but the pricing on it is an insult and makes the system totally useless.

They are campaigning about privacy as if protecting their clients, but they recommend games with strong pay to win tactics that play on addictive tendencies and lead players to spend $100's and sometimes thousands of dollars a month to stay on top of the leaderboard. But that is okay with Apple as long as they are getting their 40 percent. The more a game can skim extra money, the more Apple puts that game at the top of the recommended list. Yet, they advertise their new Apple One gaming section as "no micro transactions."

 

But the funny one for me is that they let Microsoft Windows make so many decisions on the Apple OS. Instead of trying to be consistent with other OS's and make it easier for the user to transition, Apple HAS to do the opposite of Microsoft any time they can. If Microsoft and other browsers puts the little x to close a tab on the right, Apple has to put it on the left. If Microsoft uses the scroll wheel to go one directions, Apple has to go the opposite. If Microsoft makes big use of right click, Apple puts out a mouse without the ability, or at least buries the ability. While I said it is funny, it is actually kind of sad.

 

While I usually just ignore these types of posts, this have to respond to this one. I'll be brief.

 

While Microsoft marketed their way to the top position in computer sales, the tail does not wag the dog.

Back when Microsoft desktop systems were entirely DOS and you had to type every command to get the computer to poke along, Apple designed (or borrowed from a now defunct enterprise) their current window with the "little x" on the upper left. When Microsoft "created" Windows, they put the "little x" over on the right to differentiate themselves from Apple - not the other way around.

 

The "value added features" like right clicking came years after Apple's mouse. I remember DOS computers that did not have a mouse at all. At that point in time, my mom was writing a novel on a "door stop mac" that had a mouse.

 

All computer companies make choices that contradict their previous tendencies. I shop thrift stores often. I see dozens of Billy G Boxes every week. Once in while I see a Mac, probably more like half a dozen a year. Disposable electronics? That is how computer companies make progress, if they do.

 

This is to say nothing of the $30 Android phones that never make it to the thrift store, people just toss them out by the buttload.

 

Perspective. Use whatever you like, I will continue to do the same. Cheers, Kuru

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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