Since84
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To infinity and beyond!
Posts: 3,933
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Post by Since84 on Dec 12, 2017 3:37:49 GMT -8
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Post by hledgard on Dec 12, 2017 5:32:46 GMT -8
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chinacat
Moderator
AAPL Long since 2006
Posts: 4,432
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Post by chinacat on Dec 12, 2017 7:40:38 GMT -8
I welcome any thoughts from members about the Shazam acquisition, especially those on the younger side.
iTunes currently shows 9,309 songs in my library, and our two thirty-something sons, one of whom is a recording engineer, do a good job of keeping me minimally current with gifts that they know may appeal to me. So new music discovery is no longer a significant factor for me, and mainly comes from the BSO playing pieces with which I am not familiar.
As far as streaming goes, ever since I got the first iPhone its primary function has been to always make sure I have a cache of favorite tunes constantly available when listening opportunities present themselves.
I do realize that the younger set probably sees things very differently, but my question is whether members think Apple will only use Shazam for music discovery, as an adjunct to the iTunes store, or whether it may try apply the identification principles to other areas.
Thoughts?
UPDATE: should have read the Shazam article first. It seems that visual identification may very well be what interested Apple in the acquisition.
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Post by gtrplyr on Dec 12, 2017 7:54:22 GMT -8
I have to think that there is more to the Shazam story other than music recognition. Then again, it's been several years since Apple bought Beats and I still don't see the value.
On another note, I've noticed many people I know upgrading their iPhones in the last month ..... most have gone with the X ! I think Apple will report the best quarter in the history of the company by a country mile .
Cheers to the longs !
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Post by socal Film Composer on Dec 12, 2017 8:08:12 GMT -8
As a music lover and composer, I had just used it TWICE the day before this news broke - just out in public you hear something, or a song in a movie (if there isn't dialog playing), it it amazing how quick and accurate it is. I've also used in public places where there is a quite a lot of BG noise and it's still able to find matches.
As a tool for music discovery it is incredible tech. As far as other possible uses, I'd say search might be another long term hidden asset here - i.e. shazam works by fingerprinting an audio profile of millions of songs - each and ever second of them, and somehow can find a match in a blazingly fast time. So there is some underlying code/algos - in there which is very valuable, and could probably used for countless other applications.
I've been lurking here for a long time and still long so many shares of this company. Thanks and congrats to all of the loyal AAPL longs.
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Post by Luckychoices on Dec 12, 2017 8:12:02 GMT -8
Our long wait for the new iMac Pro will be over this week. I'm pumped. Apple’s ridiculously powerful iMac Pro is coming this weekComing out on Thursday, December 14, 2017, the new desktop Mac is available in 8-, 10- and 18-core variants. It’s by far the most powerful Macintosh ever sold by Apple.
Apple first showed off the iMac Pro at this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference, although the company did not reveal much beyond its starting price: a rather hefty $5,000 for the baseline model. As we noted at time, however, that’s actually not too expensive, even by PC standards. According to rough calculations, a comparable PC would cost around $4,686.71.
In a press release, Apple says: “Pros love iMac. So when they asked us to build them a killer iMac, we went all in. And then we went way, way beyond, creating an iMac packed with the most staggeringly powerful collection of workstation-class graphics, processors, storage, memory, and I/O of any Mac ever. And we did it without adding a millimeter to its iconic all-in-one design. So everyone from video editors to 3D animators to musicians to software developers to scientists can do what they do like they’ve never done before. Introducing iMac Pro. A lean, mean dream machine.”
In keeping with its unorthodox approach to marketing the iPhone X, Apple again courted high-profile YouTubers to hype the iMac Pro. Cupertino gave several YouTubers early access to the powerful computer and apparently authorized them to reveal their thoughts on the machine.
Check out popular tech vlogger Marques Brownlee’s initial impressions below. The TL;DR version? The iMac Pro is an impressive machine — although it is impossible to upgrade, which is less than ideal for a pro computer.
Are you excited about the iMac Pro? Has Apple made a mistake by not allowing users to upgrade a $5,000-plus machine? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
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Since84
Moderator
To infinity and beyond!
Posts: 3,933
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Post by Since84 on Dec 12, 2017 8:22:18 GMT -8
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bud777
fire starter
Posts: 1,353
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Post by bud777 on Dec 12, 2017 10:20:49 GMT -8
For those looking for a portfolio tracking site to replace Google Finance, you might want to check out Morningstar.
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Post by incorrigible on Dec 12, 2017 10:34:30 GMT -8
For those looking for a portfolio tracking site to replace Google Finance, you might want to check out Morningstar. Are you using the free service or the paid premium service? I've selectively used them in the past for certain metrics like past performance and fund review. The ads can get a bit played though.
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4aapl
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Posts: 3,656
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Post by 4aapl on Dec 12, 2017 10:42:45 GMT -8
Has Apple made a mistake by not allowing users to upgrade a $5,000-plus machine? Yes! While they know the number of people that actually upgrade memory/HD/cards, it's not just that straightforward. It's a perception thing too, like the California Lottery slogan "Dream a little dream". In years past, there was the ability to add a bunch of cards to a machine. Even the Mac SE had that ability, and I think my 128k too. Talk about an all-in-one. And then there were the power houses, like the Power Mac 9500 with 6 slots, and a clone might have even had 8. These days most of these are never needed, though at the high end there are occasions (JMP's 8 30" displays from ~8 years ago comes to mind). But IMO, it should still be possible to add memory and replace the HD, without too much trouble. And it bugs the heck out of me that Apple is getting rid of that, or making it excessively hard, in more and more products. The iPhone is one thing, where they often have a lifespan of 2-4 years. But with a computer, where they can often be useful for 6-10 years, it shouldn't be hard to upgrade memory and the HD. Beyond usefulness and consumerism, this really starts to hit the environmental aspect. Apple does so well in most areas on the environmental front, even with things you never hear about. A coupe years ago I met a guy on the ski lift who's company, maybe Frog Design or something like that, had made a slimmer packaging for when Apple sends large batches of iPhones somewhere, life damaged or used ones I suppose. Anyways, by keeping a computer viable for 8-10 years, it lets them get reused somewhere, like in a school, as a web terminal, as a display, or whatever. The kids still use our ~11 year old iMacs on the web, which works fine at most places including Kahn Academy and other educational sites. Sure, we could toss them to the computer waste people (how many others just end up in the landfill) and buy new ones...but why not continue using them while they can still be useful...especially after opening up their memory cover and putting 2 or 4 gigs of ram in there, from the stock 1 or 2. Apple does a lot of great things, but there are still a few that really bug me. (OTOH, if only looking at the very high end market, one could assume that these people would upgrade their system every time a noticeable speed improvement was made, and thus could size their memory at that time. But, the video of one of the people trying out the new iMac Pro shows otherwise, since he has been using his tower for 5 years. Conversely, the high end animator we knew kept his old machines scattered about the house for different uses, but I believe they were set as an xgrid to help for the big data crunching tasks)
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CdnPhoto
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Member is Online
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Post by CdnPhoto on Dec 12, 2017 11:29:20 GMT -8
Has Apple made a mistake by not allowing users to upgrade a $5,000-plus machine? Yes! While they know the number of people that actually upgrade memory/HD/cards, it's not just that straightforward. I upgraded the RAM in my 2015 iMac over the weekend. Took 3 minutes. Most of that was unplugging and re-plugging cables. The actual RAM install was very easy and straight forward. As for upgrading the SE and the 128K, The SE upgrade was a hack. Some third party created a daughter board, IIRC. I'm pretty sure the 128k didn't upgrade too well. I did get the drive upgraded in my "fat" Mac (512k)
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Post by dmiller on Dec 12, 2017 11:41:22 GMT -8
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bud777
fire starter
Posts: 1,353
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Post by bud777 on Dec 12, 2017 13:24:21 GMT -8
For those looking for a portfolio tracking site to replace Google Finance, you might want to check out Morningstar. Are you using the free service or the paid premium service? I've selectively used them in the past for certain metrics like past performance and fund review. The ads can get a bit played though. You have to ask? Free of course
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Post by rob_london on Dec 12, 2017 13:32:50 GMT -8
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Post by incorrigible on Dec 12, 2017 13:39:52 GMT -8
Are you using the free service or the paid premium service? I've selectively used them in the past for certain metrics like past performance and fund review. The ads can get a bit played though. You have to ask? Free of course A fellow cheapskate.
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Post by Luckychoices on Dec 12, 2017 13:42:05 GMT -8
In an article from Cult of Mac titled, "Apple’s ridiculously powerful iMac Pro is coming this week", the author, Luke Dormehl, posed the question: Has Apple made a mistake by not allowing users to upgrade a $5,000-plus machine? Yes! While they know the number of people that actually upgrade memory/HD/cards, it's not just that straightforward. It's a perception thing too, like the California Lottery slogan "Dream a little dream". etc. FIFY, 4aapl!
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