Tag: Apple

CHROME OS FLEX ON A 2008 IMAC

I bought my parents this iMac back in 2008. They’ve both passed, and now it’s mine. I was able to retrieve most of the old photos and such from it, but without the iCloud password I wasn’t able to update anything, or even allow some location service settings.

I tried to reinstall OS X Leopard, but even finding the right file was difficult. Then trying to set up a “bootable USB drive” became a nightmare. Formatting, terminal stuff, nothing worked out.

Then I got curious and started to look to see if I could install another OS, and well, turns out installing ChromeOS Flex on the iMac was super easy.

Setting up the boot disk was easy. Then rebooting the iMac to the thumb drive was a snap, installation was a breeze, and now I have a machine where I can update it and make it secure as needed – at least for a Google OS machine.

I’m mostly going to use it to display Weather Star 4000 while working. It’s just so soothing having that going in the background. I may also use it for notes and such for Zoom calls. Something that’s not tied directly to the machine that I use for my growing Zoom call meetings.

EMPIRES ARE STUMBLING

This bit from Jon Gruber who writes Daring Fireball:

“Ever since I started doing these live shows from WWDC, I’ve kept the guest(s) secret, until showtime. I’m still doing that this year. But in recent years the guests have seemed a bit predictable: senior executives from Apple. This year I again extended my usual invitation to Apple, but, for the first time since 2015, they declined.”

Apple might not like how critical Gruber has been in recent months, but I also don’t like how Siri will let me keep adding “bananas” to my Groceries List, and never once tell me that it’s already on the list. In 2025.

And did you know that when you say, “Siri, turn on my 6am alarm” it will just keep adding 6am alarms, over and over again? I had like 50 of them last time I looked.

I hope Apple execs will be staying back at the office fixing that, delivering their “Apple Intelligence” offerings that they promised months ago, and maybe stop fighting with independent app makers and charing them 30% of every god damn sale for eternity.

APPLE EATS ITSELF

Jon Gruber, on the recent news that Apple is demanding a 30% cut of fan payments in the Patreon app (read about it here):

“How do you put a price on the number of Patreon iOS users — who are all, by definition, Apple customers — whose view of Apple will shift from “Apple is a company that supports small indie creators and artists” to “Apple is a company that uses its position of power to extract exorbitant rent from small indie creators and artists” because of this change?

I’ve been a Mac user since 2003, so that’s 20 years. I had an iBook laptop, and marveled that I could take it to a Borders book store and surf the web.

I had a U2 iPod, and bought songs via iTunes.

If I remember correctly, I stood in line for a 3G iPhone at the Apple Store on 5th Ave.

I bought several more Apple laptops – at least five or six, and now own a M3 MacBook Pro which I love.

Apple’s “services” category (stuff like Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Care) reached $24.2 billion last quarter. Not year, but it took just three months for Apple to make just over $24,000,000,000 on digital goods.

And now, well, they need more. Like I said, growth is cancer. There must always be more money to squeeze, and now they’re going after the somewhat beloved Patreon.

This only applies to new subscriptions in the iOS app, so at least for now, direct your fans to sign up on the web.

As Derek Sivers wrote in ‘Use the Internet, Not Companies,’

“It’s so important and easy to have your own website. Instead of sending your fans to some company’s site, send them to yours. Get everyone’s direct contact information, so you don’t have to go through any one company to reach them.”

It was true seven years ago, it’s even more true today.