Michael DeGusta

Sporadic gadfly. Possibly also a 'patronizing idiot', 'font hipster', and/or author of 'a tech blog', depending who you ask.

[Michael DeGusta @degusta]

@rjonesy @irace (Unless the TV is older, I should say.)

[Michael DeGusta @degusta]

@rjonesy @irace I have multiple of my elders setup like this without issue - never use it for music, never touch app etc. Note that both Beam and Arc require HDMI-to-optical adapter so really no benefit of using optical vs straight HDMI in my experience.

[Michael DeGusta @degusta]

@rjonesy @irace Esp. with 30% off, I think most people would find the Arc Ultra worth the ~$300 over the Beam 2, even for limited dialog-centric uses. I would not get bigger rears - Era 100 is plenty for normal folks.

[Michael DeGusta @degusta]

@neilcybart @charlesarthur But no reasonable person is actually arguing the reversed version is literally a better ad (nor that it's bad an iPad can do all these things). The point is it demonstrates Apple could've done the reverse -concept- (& surely done so in a way that sold more iPads than objects).

[Michael DeGusta @degusta]

@sama It's sunset on New Year's Eve on Sydney harbour. A speedboat zooms under the Harbour Bridge, and past the Opera House while multi-colored fireworks shoot overhead. The boat launches off from the water, flies through the sky, & into outer space, passing the moon.

[Michael DeGusta @degusta]

@sscheirey @BenBajarin I can actually confirm that he (unsurprisingly) absolutely hated it. :)

He raved about the (large, right-side-up) Sony logo on Judge Ito’s computer display in the OJ trial. (And from the first iMac to today’s, there’s been an Apple logo on the back…)

[Michael DeGusta @degusta]

@stratechery @benthompson 2 pedantic notes re Vision Pro & "media consumption on the go": you can't download 4k from Apple (or Disney) - it's HD only, & AVP's horizontal pixel count is actually less than a 4k TV. It might still look amazing! But it seems like offline will be HD scaled-up to less-than-4k.

[Michael DeGusta @degusta]

Extending actual -verification- to everyone who wants it makes sense. Extending an automatic blue checkmark to anyone willing to pay $8 seems pretty dumb.

[Michael DeGusta @degusta]

@rjonesy @kevinclark My best guess at an explanation is that the reason Lutron was finally willing to introduce this new Diva for Caseta is -because- they now have the clearly superior Sunnata for their higher tiers.

[Michael DeGusta @degusta]

Sorry Apple, you can't argue with The @Verge Score: the iPhone 14 Pro is the worst flagship phone you've ever made.

[Michael DeGusta @degusta]

It’s pretty amusing that everyone thought Android was going to become the Windows of mobile, but what actually happened is Windows became the Android of PCs.

[Michael DeGusta @degusta]

What the Wall Street Journal considers a “Breaking News” push notification…

[Michael DeGusta @degusta]

@counternotions It’s available next Friday for $1,300, for suckers…

[Michael DeGusta @degusta]

@gruber @om @stevesi @mjtsai The only other combination Apple ought to make but currently doesn’t is size > perf > price, which is what the original Air was, and hopefully this new 12” will be.

[Michael DeGusta @degusta]

@gruber @om @stevesi @mjtsai I always think of it as: the 3 meaningful laptop characteristics are size, performance/capability, & price, with their ranking defining the machine. The Pro has always been perf > size > price. The plain MacBooks were price > size > perf, which is what Air has now come to mean.

[Michael DeGusta @degusta]

@chornbe @hardie Apple's reported numbers are that both M2 MacBooks are "up to 1.4x" faster than their M1 counterparts, which would strongly imply the gap is the same or at least similar in this generation. not way higher.

[Michael DeGusta @degusta]

So the new 13” MacBook “Pro” is nearly identical to the Air except that it’s heavier, louder, has a smaller screen, a worse camera, fewer ports, and it costs more.

One of the more embarrassing products Apple has released - I’d love to hear a charitable defense of its existence.

[Michael DeGusta @degusta]

@DavidWrites1 That is legitimately as strong of an argument as any I can think of, sadly.

[Michael DeGusta @degusta]

@hardie My understanding is that the difference was extremely minor in M1 version & only in very particular use cases. At least that one had a better screen, same camera, and same ports as M1 Air, whereas the M2 “Pro” is worse in all 3.

[Michael DeGusta @degusta]

@reneritchie But why isn’t Apple ready to cancel it? Presumably because people really want it, but why should anyone actually really want it? If it didn’t have “Pro” in the name and a higher price tag, I think basically everyone would assume it was lower end & less “Pro” than the Air.