getting hooked on apple

[JackBurton]

Fingerprint scanner has a major flaw. It loses accuracy after couple of days and needs to be recalibrated.

Don't find that to be the case at all with both of my iPhone 5s's.

 

[ponyo]

Don't find that to be the case at all with both of my iPhone 5s's.

It's like that with both mine and my wife's 5s.

 

[JackBurton]

It's like that with both mine and my wife's 5s.

Weird. I set mine once when I got it and never had to recalibrate them again. Had them for about a couple of months too.

 

[HeXen]

I think Itunes could be made a lot easier to use UI, I find it to be a pain but I guess it depends on what you are trying to do but I have trouble finding certain things without having to go to the toolbar and muckle about.

I'm considering an Apple laptop but not sure how well I'll like the OS. Love the ipad though.

 

[JackBurton]

I think Itunes could be made a lot easier to use UI, I find it to be a pain but I guess it depends on what you are trying to do but I have trouble finding certain things without having to go to the toolbar and muckle about.

I'm considering an Apple laptop but not sure how well I'll like the OS. Love the ipad though.

I really don't get how iTunes is hard to use, I really don't. It is the most intuitive and easy to use media manager out there.

 

[slackerinabox]

Ditto - was such a hater that I got the awful Palm Pre! Droid up until Galaxy Nexus then had to use an apple for video editing, fell in love. Then got an iPhone, ipad, and apple tv, and my now broken macbook air - love that beauty so much but replaced it with a lenovo touchscreen windows 8 laptop that i loatch (was $400 cheaper)... I miss osx, I miss the mouse just working perfectly, and I miss the attention to detail. There's a difference!

 

[tamm]

itunes is the simplest transfer software for those with an iPhone. However its a resource hog and I could do without that on my computer. Apple is nice, in that most things just work. No thinking and etc. However after trying a couple droids out, I like the customization available on droids. But with that comes its own set of problems.

 

[sportage]

Nice thing about all those apple products are they all work together. One iTunes account shares everything including purchased video.
My problem with android is the lack of user friendly integration.
Or integration at all.
Another thing with apple, one really doesn't necessarily ever need to upgrade hardware.
I use an iMac purchased in 2010 and while apple has released newer version iMacs since, there is no real need to upgrade. The old does everything as well as the new.
Same with phones. Off all the iPhones I still miss my 4s the most of past phones.
If I had it to do all over, I'd just stayed with my 4s, and saved a bundle since.

But what apple users and more so apple Mac users really understand, and just take for granted as time goes by, is how nice it is to sit down at the Mac and just do something, anything, without first needing to screw with the PC to get it up to par for the project.

No outdated codes to install, no flakey incomparability issues, no blue screens because the PC went brain dead trying to process your home made youtube video.
Things just work. And that makes using apple computers a pure pleasure.
Unlike that "other" company. Where by the time you jump thru all the hoops concerning the PC just to finally get around to your project, most likely you forget what it was you wanted to do in the first place.

 

[Tegeril]

I really don't get how iTunes is hard to use, I really don't. It is the most intuitive and easy to use media manager out there.

Yup, everything else is really not even close. And the tired "iTunes is a resource hog" argument is a bit out of date. When streaming music with iTunes Radio, it has a very low energy impact on the system and the RAM it does use seems entirely justified.

I actually manage all my music from my PC in Windows iTunes and while that's less ideal (as far as performance), it's still just fine at handling a gargantuan library.

 

[Tegeril]

Weird. I set mine once when I got it and never had to recalibrate them again. Had them for about a couple of months too.

Same for me on this, too.

 

[Joe1987]

There are several tricks to getting it to work well, first, scan your fingerprint in the orientation you use to open the phone, second is to scan the same finger for all 5 fingerprints.

There does seem to be something up with the scanner, I suspect an OS update will make it better for some people eventually.

I'm awed by the tech, I use several different scanners at work, they're about 70% accurate, my 5s is 100% so far.

 

[tamm]

Yup, everything else is really not even close. And the tired "iTunes is a resource hog" argument is a bit out of date. When streaming music with iTunes Radio, it has a very low energy impact on the system and the RAM it does use seems entirely justified.

I actually manage all my music from my PC in Windows iTunes and while that's less ideal (as far as performance), it's still just fine at handling a gargantuan library.

Well for laptops and computers with limited memory, it rears its ugly head. So yes it may be considered a statement that is old, but it doesn`t mean that statement is completely untrue.

 

[Rottie]

I got hooked when I had my first iPhone 3Gs then Apple PowerBook G4 to see if I like it or not but it doesn't do anything much for hearing impaired so I sold and bought a 2007 MacBook Pro..It was perfect machine I upgraded SSD and it is faster. Few months later I finally got a 2012 MacBook Pro with retina. I need two more thing - Apple TV and 27 inches iMac.

 

[Rottie]

OP, I am curious why do you need Mac Mini as media server when you have an Apple TV?

 

[boomhower]

OP, I am curious why do you need Mac Mini as media server when you have an Apple TV?

Local storage would be my guess.

 

[Joe1987]

Fingerprint scanner has a major flaw. It loses accuracy after couple of days and needs to be recalibrated.

Mine has been spot on, of course I used 3 fingers to program all 5 slots.

It seems to be sort of random, not everyone is having problems with Touch ID

I use fingerprint scanners at work, Touch ID is very accurate compared to what we use, the scanner at work is ~80%, Touch ID seems to be about 96-97% for me.

 

[ponyo]

Mine has been spot on, of course I used 3 fingers to program all 5 slots.

It seems to be sort of random, not everyone is having problems with Touch ID

I use fingerprint scanners at work, Touch ID is very accurate compared to what we use, the scanner at work is ~80%, Touch ID seems to be about 96-97% for me.

Well I took the advice and programmed the same thumb 3x. After a day it's still working fine which is encouraging. I'll update after a week.

 

[Blintok]

OP, I am curious why do you need Mac Mini as media server when you have an Apple TV?

mainly because as far as i can see i am disappointed that Apple TV cannot be used as a media server (like a WD Live). It cant cant play my media files from my hard drive.
I use DVDfab to copy my dvd to computer. Love that i can have all my movies ready to go "jukebox" style. Apple TV only seems to see movies on iTunes.

so to play these movies i have to use VLC on the mini (hooked up to a 32in Samsung tv)
its that or give up on the apple stuff for media and continue with my "worker" pc / WD Live setup for movies. But would rather not have to as i do like the mac and would love to convert over totally.

 

[slackerinabox]

mainly because as far as i can see i am disappointed that Apple TV cannot be used as a media server (like a WD Live). It cant cant play my media files from my hard drive.
I use DVDfab to copy my dvd to computer. Love that i can have all my movies ready to go "jukebox" style. Apple TV only seems to see movies on iTunes.

so to play these movies i have to use VLC on the mini (hooked up to a 32in Samsung tv)
its that or give up on the apple stuff for media and continue with my "worker" pc / WD Live setup for movies. But would rather not have to as i do like the mac and would love to convert over totally.

I 100% use itunes to serve media and the appletv for playback, works great even @ 1080p and wifi (my other streamers would choke on wifi). Just transcode to MP4. Since most stuff I have is in mkv it's just a few minutes per file, and the program I use pulls in meta data and art

 

[Blintok]

I 100% use itunes to serve media and the appletv for playback, works great even @ 1080p and wifi (my other streamers would choke on wifi). Just transcode to MP4. Since most stuff I have is in mkv it's just a few minutes per file, and the program I use pulls in meta data and art

ok that sounds workable. Mind sharing what you use to transcode?
is it same that pulls meta data? and if no what program you use for that?

 

[Ravynmagi]

Re: Apple TV.
I love how reliable this thing has been for me. I have a Roku 3 and I have to reboot my Roku every few days because the wifi stops working (from the Roku forums it's a complaint from quite a few others too). And AirPlay works so well. It's not the most feature rich, but the thing just works as expected everytime I use it.


Re: My iTunes hate.
Yeah, maybe technical people hate it because we'd rather just drag and drop content onto our phones. My problem seems to be when I try to sync content, I sometimes either sync extra stuff I didn't want to or loose some stuff I had before.

And for a long time I've just not even tried to understand iTunes. I never really considered myself an Apple person. And I figured my time with Apple products was just a stop gap until better Android tablets arrived. However now I own an iPad Mini 2, iPhone 5S, and Apple TV, it probably would not be a bad idea to try to figure this out. I have an old iPhone 4S that I'm using with iTunes now trying to abuse it and make mistakes. I figure after I make enough mistakes I'll probably understand it better and fear it less.


Re: Touch ID losing accuracy.
I've had the impression that my TouchID losses accuracy over time as well. Though I can't be certain this is a fact or just me not holding the phone quite the same as I did when setting it up. But it does seem that when I delete a profile and add it right, it works much better for a few days and starts trailing off again.

Another thing that bugs me is sometimes when it fail it does nothing, doesn't tell me it failed and to try again and doesn't seem to even allow me to try again, so I have to swipe and tap in my passcode instead.


Re: Mac computers.
I've never owned a Mac. The very idea was ridiculous even a couple years ago. But I'm kinda warming up to the idea. I'm not quite there yet. I really like the touch input on Windows 8 laptops. But I'm thinking of Apple ever add touch input to a MacAir, I might consider switching.

I used to think Macbooks were not worth their price. But now that I'm older, I'm more interest in higher quality computers, something with a high resolution IPS display, light weight, long battery life, and I really don't need to play all my games on my laptop (my home desktop machine will definitely stay Windows). And it seems most Windows laptops that have the same quality and specs I'm looking for are about the same cost as a Macbook, so that "Apple products are overpriced" thing I've had in my head in the passed seems less true now.

If the day ever comes that a Macbook Air has touch input and even better, can run my iPad apps, I might camp out for such a thing.

 

[ponyo]

AppleTV is great. We use AirPlay all the time to stream internet videos to the TV. All 3 of our AppleTV2 are jailbroken with XBMC installed. So playback of local media is easy regardless of the format. We also use AirPlay to play music on WIFI speakers. AirPlay has no equal. DLNA is crap.

 

[vi edit]

Re: My iTunes hate. Yeah, maybe technical people hate it because we'd rather just drag and drop content onto our phones. My problem seems to be when I try to sync content, I sometimes either sync extra stuff I didn't want to or loose some stuff I had before.

That's pretty much exactly my complaint. It's too heavy of an app for what I want to do. If I have 10 movies uploaded to it, and I want to add an 11th, it wants to go through and try and resync everything. And heaven forbid that I had it synced on a different machine and it freaks the f out and wants to delete everything on there from the 2nd computer. It's infuriating. Just let me plug it it, drag and drop in 2 minutes and be on with my wife. It does not need to be any more complicated than that.

WP8 devices work that way. Android works that. Apple wants me want to beat my computer with a crowbar trying to do menial tasks.

I very infrequently actually hook my i-device up to a computer. And I don't use iTunes to manage music or video content. It's simply a frustrating speed bump in the way of easily managing content on a portable device for me.

 

[vi edit]

And yes, I do really love the Apple TV. It's more or less a glorified netflix streamer, but it's hands down the best one I've used. Interface is fast and useful, and the streaming video has almost never studdered or buffered in two years of using it. I can't make the same clame for various "smart tv's" I've used. Nearly every one of them turns into a studdering, buffering mess on HD content. The Apple TV never complains.

 

[slackerinabox]

ok that sounds workable. Mind sharing what you use to transcode?
is it same that pulls meta data? and if no what program you use for that?

I use iFlicks - it transcodes from mkv to itunes compatible mp4, adds meta data/artwork and even adds the file to itunes for you. Handles both movies and tv shows