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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 9th, 2023

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  • I’m not sure why people are surprised by this. In a lot of ways, Apple was a pandemic darling that didn’t take as big a fall as the other pandemic darlings did when the pandemic ended. When the pandemic started, there was a big splurge in tech spending that benefitted Apple + the other pandemic darlings (Zoom, Fiverr) as the whole world was going remote.

    But then the pandemic ended, and so tech sales went way down as everyone started to step outdoors again.

    They released the first ARM Macs with the M1 chip during the pandemic, which were a big step up in performance and power efficiency over the Intel Macs they replaced. That further raised their sales as people upgraded their old laptops.

    But the M2 and M3 had the majority of their work go into improving the GPU for apps used by hardcore gamers and creative pros; the non-graphics processing increases are not as substantial. The majority of their customers are not gamers or creative pros; they just use their computers for email, social media, and word processing or sometimes spreadsheet use.

    So this is not surprising at all. Not when the pandemic ended, and the M1 was good enough for most of their users. I suspect their Mac sales will go up again in a few years when the M1 is obsoleted.


  • They are good enough for the vast majority of their customers. You have to remember that the vast majority of laptop users only use their laptops for email, social media, and occasionally word processing; they aren’t using Baldur’s Gate III or Final Cut Pro or some other app that needs the extra RAM. You don’t need more than 8GB of RAM for that.



  • Yes, the volume controls on the USB-C EarPods work with Android.

    The playback controls work as well, but they’re a little different on Android than they are on iOS. Holding in the middle button summons Google Assistant, for instance, instead of fast forwarding. But the all-important pause/resume control works the same way.




  • Looks like the new M3 chips are a significant upgrade from the M1 chips, a very significant upgrade from the Intel/Radeon chips, and a super significant upgrade from the Intel Macs with no discrete GPU. Except for 3D content creation, gaming with games that actually support Metal ray tracing, and video production, it’s not that significant an upgrade from the M2 chips.

    And I see people on social media bashing it for the default configuration only having 8GB of RAM. It’s like they don’t realize Apple intentionally keeps a low end, compromised, and cheap configuration around for the large amount of MacBook users that just want a cheap-but-not-uselessly-so laptop for email, social media, and the occasional word processed document. The people bashing it on social media are free to buy a less compromised model; Apple does sell them.


  • Here are some more good puzzle games that are not Portal/Portal 2:

    • Colossal Cave
    • The Entropy Centre
    • Hourglass
    • Myst
    • Obduction
    • Pneuma: Breath of Life
    • Quantum Conundrum (one of the original Portal developers was attached to this project)
    • Quern: Undying Thoughts
    • Riven (this is the sequel to Myst, but unlike Myst, it has never been remade since it first came out back in 1997, so you’ll have to excuse the old graphics and gameplay)
    • The Talos Principle (the sequel is coming out soon)
    • The Turing Test
    • The Witness

    If you can only play one of the above, then as the other commentors have said, make it The Witness. The recent remake of Myst is also very good.



  • Please ignore cloud; they have been posting inaccurate flamebait throughout this thread.

    I would never not buy a laptop from Apple. Not only are they the last PC maker that hasn’t fallen to the Microsoft Monopoly Machine, but their laptops are well-built†, futuristic, and have incredible value and battery life for what you get. Especially since they migrated off of Intel.

    † I know someone will inevitably come up with a counter-example, but the last time they had a widespread quality problem was a little more than ten years ago.







  • With Minecraft, the Java edition was & still is available on many different platforms, but the later Minecraft games that were made after the Microsoft takeover have, for the most part, only come out for Microsoft platforms. Minecraft Dungeons, for instance, never came out on GNU or macOS.

    The Bedrock edition was ported to PlayStation, but for how much longer will it be available, I wonder…