Just fix the podcast app

For all the new features coming to each iteration of iOS for the iPhone, you know what I wish Apple would fix? The god damn podcast app. Podcasts are as popular as ever, so it’s difficult to understand why the Apple podcast app continues to suck so much. I don’t care what amazing thing Apple shows every WWDC; please simply fix the stuff that are still broken to this day.

I am sick and tired of the podcast app not remembering my playlist. It seems that adding more than 10 shows to the upcoming list is enough to flummoxed it. The app remembers for a time, until one day you go to listen to a show and everything is lost. It would usually queue up a podcast I’ve already listen to, with nothing to follow. I would begrudgingly build out the playlist again, awaiting the next rug pull.

What I hate even more is when the podcast app lose my place on a particular show completely. How the heck is this acceptable? Is system memory so precious that the OS can’t spare a few bytes to keep the place on a podcast? It doesn’t seem to have any problem leaving songs where I left off in the music app! I am this close to switching to a third-party podcast app, if I weren’t so lazy.

So keep your customizable home screens and shared iCloud photo libraries. When is the podcast app getting revised? It’s been broken as I’ve described above for years now!

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Hidden Porsche.

Another Apple switch

I can still remember way back when Steve Jobs announced that Apple is transitioning from the PowerPC to Intel processors. Back in 2005, I wasn’t quite the Apple product evangelist as I am now, so my initial reaction was one of fancying the idea that I can finally run Windows on a Mac. Even in those days, Apple had the edge over PC makers in terms of aesthetics and build quality (titanium Powerbook, anyone?), but the Mac lineup was woefully underpowered compared to the PCs I can build running on Pentium processors. The switch to Intel allowed me to finally seek out a Mac computer, and during my second year of college in 2007, I bought my first Macbook.

Funny enough, to this day I’ve yet to run an instance of Windows on any of my Apple computers. I didn’t know it in 2005, but MacOS (or OS X as it was then called) offers a vastly superior experience to the Microsoft operating system.

These days, strong rumors are circling around that during this year’s WWDC, Apple will announce a transition to the ARM architecture for its Mac, a seismic shift similar to the change to Intel some 15 years ago. Who could’ve thought that Intel will suffer the same fate as the PowerPC, and become abandoned by Apple because of failure to innovate at as quickly as Apple wants. Apple’s engineering on the ARM processor for its illustrious iPhones and iPads have so surpassed Intel’s development on their own chips that Apple seems to have finally pulled the plug on the partnership - it sees no future with the chipmaking icon.

Especially not when Apple’s own A series chips are soundly beating Intel processors in synthetic benchmarks, and for a fraction of the costs, one presumes (vertical integration and whatnot).

What a time to be alive that I get to witness another revolutionary switch to the Mac architecture. It will be interesting to see how Apple will handle the change from the x86 instruction set to ARM. If history is anything go by (hello, headphone jack), legacy apps are going to get swiftly left behind with no mercy. However, I reckon software makers are quite ready for the transition, because so many are already used to coding for the iPhone platform that’s been on the ARM architecture for over a decade. Surely Apple will do the most to help make the conversion to ARM as quick as possible. I bet when the first Mac is released with Apple chips, there won’t be an emulator for x86 apps in MacOS.

MacOS running on ARM; imagine that!

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Rural Chinese village life.

WWDC 2018 is software only

Apple's annual WWDC was today and the keynote was all software; the company announced zero new hardware for us to tell it to shut up and take our money. It's quite disappointing, honestly speaking. 

Yes I understand it's a software developer conference so that will be the main focus. Apple has got four interface juggernauts in iOS, watchOS, tvOS, and macOS, and showcasing the new features in their respective new iterations took the entire two hours of the keynote.

But, software doesn't sell things, does it? Not when you're Apple at least. People have come to expect great software from the company, so a dazzling show of cool items coming soon isn't going to move the needle in my opinion. 

The thing we love Apple for best is the shiny hardware, and to have none announced today was a huge bummer. Don't ever forget: the Mac Mini was last updated back in 2014, and Apple is still selling the same four-year old unit at the same original price.  

What about a Macbook with Thunderbolt 3? How embarrassing is it that a $1,200 laptop currently can't plug into modern 4K external displays, or utilize fast external accessories. Granted this one probably isn't Apple's fault because Intel is beyond delayed in bringing out appropriate chips and chipsets for ultrabook-class laptops like the Macbook.

Mac Mini though. Come on, man. 

I am excited about the new stuff coming in the software, though. Most interesting to me was a true system-wide 'Dark Mode' in macOS Mojave. 

One last longing look at the MX-5 before I sign over the papers as sold.