Category: Technology

An Apple Relic Resuscitated

While in the continuous throes of ridding my home of junk, I found a very old Apple iPod in a drawer. The battery was dead but I was able to find a suitable charging cable in a box of cables, and hooked it up. It took over a minute, but the device came to life displaying the big battery, in the red. After sitting for a few hours the big battery was in full green.

At first power on, a logon prompt was presented, and I realized I was probably not going to get into this device. After trying a number of possible passwords, I was forced to give up. The trip taken over quite a few days to get the iPod working again was tedious, but seeing its out of the box Apple app icons on the main screen was worth the effort. The process of getting it recovered was documented in case it goes fully back to out of the box again. The iPod has been alive since January of 2019 due to making sure the battery stays charged, and that it seems to hold a charge well.

By the model number on the back, it’s a 4th Generation iPod Touch. I was unable to find a receipt or any other record of the actual purchase date, but believe it was purchased it in 2010.

My current iOS devices are on iOS 12.3.1. This iPod is trapped on iOS 6.1.6, the update being installed after it was up and running. This the last available release for this device.

There are zero apps in the App Store available for this iPod due to the iOS version. All Apple apps that came with this release still work as intended. I can see my iCloud email account, and have manually downloaded music from my iTunes library. It cannot interface with the sound system in my car other than with a direct USB connection. This means all music playing has to be initiated from the iPod after the connection is made, making playlists a must.

All the Apple supplied apps that came with the purchase still work: Calculator, Calendar, Camera, Clock, Contacts, iTunes, Notes, Photos (camera roll), Reminders, Videos, Voice Memos, Weather, Maps, and FaceTime. The listed apps may be missing features or settings added through the 6 iOS releases since the iPod’s version.

I have fun with it. Its small size (4.25′ by 2.13′) makes it easy to carry. With tethered ear plugs the music sounds good, and I often use the iPod on my walks. To prevent impacting my data, I don’t allow iCloud access from the device except for my Apple email account. I’m still amazed it can do as much as it does, and that the battery charges last as long as they do. This version iPod is selling on the web for as high as $250, so there must be other folks out there coveting this early device.

Unknown Caller Rage

I’m retired and have a lot of time on my hands.

I’m going collect as many phone numbers as I can, legally or not. I will then call these phone numbers every day and evening, often multiple times, using an unlisted phone number. I will change this unlisted number often. I will ignore the Do Not Call lists.

If you answer I will try to sell you insurance, a newspaper subscription, or play a recording that will tell you that you are in trouble with the government and you need my help to get out of it. I will keep calling, whether you answer or not.

If I get voice mail, I will leave you as long a tiring message as I can, every time. After a month or two, my voice mail will offer to stop calling if you wire a monthly fee to an account I provide.

How long would you put up with this? Would you call the police? Would you try to have me fined, or arrested?

You would probably succeed. And deservedly so. So why can’t we citizens, harassed daily by unknown callers, call the police and get them arrested?

Adding insult to injury, the Telcos make money providing these miscreants the bandwidth they use, and then have the audacity to offer us a priced, monthly service to stop only some of the calls.

Think about that for a while.

Didn’t Wait Long Enough…

I have no complaints with the Mac Mini that I purchased last November. It’s a speedy and dependable machine, and I’m still impressed with the local storage transfer speeds and the number of memory sucking apps I can run simultaneously.

But I didn’t wait long enough. Apple’s recent announcement on March 25 included a spanking new line of iMacs. What a surprise.

Maybe they just wanted to see how many Mac Mini’s they could sell to people like me who were waiting for this news for about the last 2 years. The ones who listened to the Tech bloggers reporting that if Apple didn’t announce new iMacs at their previous new product announcement, the iMac line was probably dead (except for the one that starts at $4,999).

Sour grapes, eh? Admittedly, yeah. But like I said, the beefed up Mini performs very well and I have no complaints. But for the money I spent on it and the 3rd party monitor, I could have purchased a new iMac for the same money or slightly less, and have even better performance and longevity. And a hell of a lot better graphics.

HA! Shut up, ol’ man. Just shut up. And quit your whining. You done ok.

Yeah, that’s the ticket.

Time to Upgrade

Apple.

The iMac I’m using right now is old. It was manufactured in 2013. It’s getting slower on boot up, and the more time I spend in a given logon session the slower it gets, even without a lot of apps running.

I’m unhappy with Apple for not upgrading this model in quite a while. I’m not going to spend $2,000 or more to replace the iMac with a machine that’s running 2016 / 2017 technology. It was a big disappointment that their late October announcement did not mention any new iMacs.

Oh wait a minute – they did release a new iMac within the last year. It’s the iMac PRO, and the PRO part at the end of the name means it starts at $4,999. It’s targeted to professionals in the movie, arts, architecture, and design businesses.

By not announcing a new home or business iMac model by now, I think Tim Cook and his financial guys are forgetting the working class grunts and their Apple hardware and software purchases that helped Apple obtain their current financial status.

But that’s just my disappointment talking. In all fairness, they did announce a new Mac Mini PRO. The media tacked on the PRO, not Apple. My first Apple desktop was a Mini and was a great little box I used for years. The new Mini has many configuration options and a nice set of features. It allows for the building of a Mini beast which is what I did, aiming for it to have as long a life as possible. I’ll be ordering it soon, but without their $700, or $1,300 LG monitor. I’m sure I can get the monitor I need on the net for a little over half those prices.

I’m admitting to being too locked into Apple with my iPhone, iPad, iMac, Mac Air, and iCloud. I’ve severed my relationship with Microsoft for good (for the second time). I have a Lenovo laptop that now runs Linux instead of the Window’s 10 it came with. The Window’s updates got very unpredictable and often made messes it took me hours to cleanup, sometimes a day or more. I have minimal experience with Linux but early investigation tells me getting it to do all the things I do on the Apple platform may be a pipe dream. But as I said, I have a lot to learn about Linux and what software is out there for it.

My future plan is to not replace my iPhone when it is no longer keeping up with the other devices, and instead purchase an iPad with cellular. I may end up getting tired of lugging the iPad around all the time to not miss calls, so getting a low cost cell phone and plan providing only unlimited text and calls may be another solution.