That Music Tech review is interesting, I had missed that. Thanks Yoss. I didn’t know this bit: “The 16GB RAM in the M1 means more than it does in Apple’s predecessors, thanks to Apple’s Unified Memory Architecture.” It kind of confirms my conclusion tho - the M1 and unified memory thing is better, no doubt the new iMacs are better than my 2015 one of course, but if I’m looking for a new one for the next 5 years or so I’m happy to hold off a year or two for an M2 version with 32 GB as Boris mentions, because that should be a beast of a machine. That plus we need all the plug-in software suppliers to play nice with Apple Silicon. Universal Audio to start with ideally. Looking forward to Apple Silicon ‘Pro’ machines so I can have 60 instances of a Moog plugin playing my shit synth riffs instead of only 5.

At worst expect it in the new year. Also expect far quicker iterations of the M architecture. Apple were always held up by Intel who couldn’t get their act together. Expect it to follow the progress of the phones and iPads.so probably every two years significant power boosts.

What do they do?

With close range accuracy if you have a phone with a U1 chip in.

Physically, they’re a bit crap. No hole because of the obvious accessory cash grab, but I’d have probably been ok with that if they’d been black and flat. I’ve tried velcro-ing them to eg. tv remote and they look terrible.


But yeah, the object location is disappointing. Loses connection at very short distances (5ft or so), only becomes quite clever when you’re literally on top of what you’re looking for.

Main crapness though, is as a pet/kid locator - I know Apple said don’t, but I’d hoped that that was an absolving responsibility thing. It’s not, it’s because they’re shit. I tried one on my daughter in the park; they’ll accurate track the distance she was away but not the direction, but only up until 100ft and only if had made the connection at close distance. Beyond 100ft it’s basically iPhone-type accuracy, a vague area circle.

So - maybe you could just use it as a sounder, to alert your kid that it’s time to come back? Nope, not if it’s gone outside the 100ft range (which I’m assuming is using the U1, so no iPhone older than an 11.)

And one other stupid thing, your partner can’t see them on their phone - they can see all your devices on Find my..., and vice versa, but not Airtags. Shite.

Aye, that sounds like a complete waste of time and money.

Sounds like what they need to be for all functionality is some kind of mini phone complete with battery and mobile/gps connection.
You might actually be better off buying a small cheap mobile phone.

I hope they keep developing on them though. I’d like to stick one on the kid when we go out.

The use of these things appears to be to sell people a £35 keyring to keep them in.

Recently used up my old faded CeX vouchers to get the HomePod, which I wanted but couldn’t justify buying. Main reason now being I think it’ll go nicely in the new house were moving to, and my local CeX had a new in box one in stock.

Really awesome, I’m not into any smart home stuff so the limited use of Siri is an advantage for me, and it sounds really good. Also the kids yelling for tracks is fun, even if I never wanted to hear George Ezra, let alone have it interrupt every album I try to listen to...

Since setting it up, I hear a random ‘pop’ come from it though. Only when idle, don’t hear it when music is playing or anything. Just at random intervals:



Luckily checked it was in warranty with Apple still (runs out in less than a month) and opened a case with support, but they had no real useful info and will get back to me next week on it. Anyone else run into this? Have tried resetting, updating, moving rooms... I read that turning voice activated Siri off helps as it might be the mics but I ain’t doing that, it’s a reason we use the damn thing.

I have a couple of HomePods (and four minis), none of them do that. You could try replacing it, although I reckon it’s something else going interfering with it somewhere. Almost sounds like something disconnecting.

Yeah get that replaced toot sweet, electrical faults = bad news

Yeah, replace. At the very least that’d rule it out.

Y’know, I haven’t had any drama with upgrades in years. They just work. It’s easy to forget how much terror an OS upgrade used to instil.

It's the "helpful" messages that piss me off the most.
Upgrading your Mail database... This may take a few minutes.
really should read...
Upgrading your Mail database... This may take until the end of time.