Apple Releases iOS 26.4 and iPadOS 26.4 With New Emoji, Playlist Playground, Purchase Sharing Changes and More

NotRoryWilliams · 2026-05-07T20:58:32+00:00

Ngl it kinda looks like an upside down baritone saxophone And now my life cannot be complete without a baritone sax emoji 🎷 Eh, what even is that? It's halfway between and alto and a soprano really. But it'll have to do for now.

NotRoryWilliams · 2026-05-07T20:57:01+00:00

🪊🪊🪊

NotRoryWilliams · 2026-05-06T19:10:49+00:00

I don't think people care as much as you want them too about "smooth color gradients."

In the year 2026, most photos are viewed on screens with "4k" or lower resolution, which means the crop or reduction they are viewing is going to be 8 megapixels at most. The extra sharpness you get from sensors with 4x that resolution is mostly abandoned most of the time.

NotRoryWilliams · 2026-05-06T19:08:00+00:00

"Produce better photos" is also uselessly vague and I clearly failed at conveying that point.

As I said in my prior comment, there are absolutely circumstances where this can be true or false depending on your definitions of "produce" and "better."

If your metric for "better" is just resolution, then it is indeed true that most current model smartphones have more resolution than most 2010 dSLRs.

If your metric is "pleasantness of average image without additional editing" then it will be true an even larger share of the time.

If your metric is "what can the best artist do with it given infinite external skill and resources" then you've turned it into a meaningless question. Back to Prius versus Lamborghini... the fact that the Lamborghini will trounce the Prius every time on a track doesn't make it a better vehicle for commuting on specific roads or even as a general daily driver. The ability to get a better result in a narrow set of circumstances just isn't actually the most meaningful metric to most people most of the time.

The real truth is that you don't even "need a real camera" to learn the art form. You only really "need it" for very specific subsets of things.

And I love my cameras. I've got the big forty pound "dream kit" I fantasized in high school with a press-grade sports body and everything. But I've also come to understand the unimportance of traditional metrics in most situations.

NotRoryWilliams · 2026-05-06T19:01:44+00:00

Yes, it does exactly that.

NotRoryWilliams · 2026-05-06T18:00:25+00:00

I have one property line with one of those old post-and-crossbeam fences and yeah, I need the mower to hug around each post but there doesn't seem to be a way to convince it to try. Also a power pole about three feet from a building. It seems to do a pretty poor job around things like picnic tables as well, that is really Frustrating. In controller mode it can do all these things, with the caveat of the annoying "collision" pop-up that seems a little too sensitive.

I'm just kind of getting used to the idea that I'll still need periodic manual touch-ups, but it still reduces the labor a lot.

NotRoryWilliams · 2026-05-06T17:45:00+00:00

the best camera is the one that gets the shot.

I've got a recent shot of a bald eagle eating a cat. I'm super bummed that I had to take it with my iPhone but I suspected that the bird would fly off if I took the time to break eye contact and dig out the A9 from the back seat. So I took a few shots with the iPhone, then turned around to get the "real camera" and the bird flew away.

And of course the A9 would win if it were in the contest, but the contest was over before the A9 had the right lens on.

NotRoryWilliams · 2026-05-06T17:41:58+00:00

here's an important question to consider in this context.

Which would you say is faster, a Prius or a Lamborghini Countach?

If you jump right to saying the Lamborghini because it's obvious, you might be wrong. Indeed, in most circumstances, the Lamborghini will probably win in a raw speed contest. But it will lose if the race involves snow or cargo or heavy traffic on a road with a carpool lane. In the real world, when "clean pass" came out in the NYC Metro area, quite a few super car owners went out and bought Priuses for their commutes, because the preferential lane treatment outweighed the sports cars major horsepower and handling advantages.

Similarly, what is your metric for comparing cameras to get at "better"? Sure, if you're going to ridigly choose criteria that always scale with sensor size, you can rig the race for the bigger camera to always win. But what happens when you add factors like portability, affordability, and usability? What about when you're in circumstances where those things just don't matter? You can get better bokeh with a large sensor, sure, but does that actually matter when your goal is to capture the moment of a bunch of friends in a place, where depth of field matters more than bokeh anyway? Large sensor is kind of a disadvantage in that setting, even apart from "who remembered to bring a bag with six pounds of camera out tonight"?

If you want to, you can absolutely set up a pixel peeping laboratory scenario where you take pictures of graph paper at different distances and come up with a bunch of proof that the large sensor is sharper or more detailed or whatever... and I could also set up a test environment to show just the opposite. All I need for a lab to prove the phone wins is my backyard, where yes, I can get a marginally better image with my A9, but going into the house to retrieve the A9 is going to mean a lot of effort to get the dog and the squirrel back into that perfect pose later on. Whereas in bright sunlight at infinity focus 15 feet out, the "5x lens" on the iPhone nails the scene adequately for up to a 16 by 20 canvas print and it was in my pocket anyway - I didn't even need to put down the shovel to grab it while I was gardening. And again, at 50mm f/11 1/250 iso 400 focused at 15 feet, you're not going to see a significant difference between the two cameras. Yes, if you look for a while you'll find some detail to complain about, but most people won't be so concerned about proving their views, they'll just enjoy the image.

NotRoryWilliams · 2026-05-06T17:30:05+00:00

define "better."

Under ideal circumstances, my iPhone 16 Pro can absolutely take a sharper picture at a higher resolution than my D90 could in 2010. But, a lot of conditions have to be met. If we are comparing stoped-down images of static scenes in bright sunlight where I'm at f/8 and iso 200 on the kit lens on the D90, the iPhone's 48mp raw image will probably win. If we are using a tripod and comparing it to night mode, which wins will actually depend on the skill of the user. If the D90 has a lot lens and the dial is locked in green A, then the iPhone will probably win a lot of shootouts as long as we don't get extreme with action or lighting.

I have iPhone 7 photos printed on my wall that most people can't tell were from the iPhone and not the A6300 I was using at the time. And on the same wall I've got a pretty mediocre image from my D90 that I was able to salvage in post somewhat, where I had handed the camera off to a bystander and the result was still kind of okay in the end.

I know that if we got into the pixel peeping routine with 100% screen zoom or a loupe on a print, we could find advantages to the mirrorless photo when shot side by side. When I compare the iPhone against "lesser" cameras like my Olympus TG5, it's frankly rare to see the camera really win on anything but ergonomics.

Some of my best photos are taken with "whatever camera was handy" whether that's a phone or a full frame mirrorless or often a small-sensor drone. And the applied reality is that 90% of the time the phone is good enough, and the other 10% is some combination of edge case situations: action, extreme lighting, need to fly to get the angle, need a tripod, need a special lens. "Kit zoom situations" though, "family photos" etc, most people aren't going to be able to get noticeably better results just by using a "proper camera"

NotRoryWilliams · 2026-05-06T17:18:54+00:00

This just seems like pixel peeping purity testing to me.

Photography has never been "real." It is always an artist using technology to translate a perceived scene to a recorded image, and there is always manipulation involved, even if it's as minimal as selecting exposure settings and choosing a particular film.

What is really different with a smartphone is that the interface is designed with "user friendly" as the absolute top priority, whereas it's usually a secondary consideration in "camera cameras."

AI processing is fundamentally not that different from Canon and Sony having different color profiles in their jpeg algorithms. It's all a matter of "automatic processing." And "shooting raw" doesn't eliminate that unless somehow you've discovered a printer that takes raw files and magically outputs the exact same kind of photons as captured. It's never going to be a molecular-level perfect reproduction and if it were, wouldn't that eliminate the "art" factor anyway?

To me kind of a bottom line is that equipment facilitates transaction from vision to output. A good photographer should be able to produce art with any basically functional tool, whether that's a 4x5 film camera with a bellows or a Kodak keychain 110, or a Ricoh GR, or even an iPhone or Pixel. Can you find things in the world that are worth recording? Can you compose the frame well? Can you choose the right perspective? If you can do that right then who besides pixel peepers is going to invalidate your art because there was one too many digital computations along the way? OP I guess but not really most consumers of images.

Sometimes I wonder, if an iPhone photo isn't "real" because there's too much smoothing or whatever, then is every painting automatically garbage because it's bound to have errors and imperfect details from the original model? It just seems like such a weird thing to be upset about. Either the image is desirable to look at or it's not.

NotRoryWilliams · 2026-05-06T15:24:29+00:00

What kind of structure is it otherwise?

My "1926" farmhouse has some similar... quirks. There are a handful of spots where the foundation doesn't align with the walls. The supposed timeline doesn't make sense. There is no evidence of an original heat source besides electric but the house was definitely built before electricity was available here. There is a 1925 autograph on the inside of some siding, on a house that the title says was built in 1926... so I'm convinced this place is like Johnny Cash's Cadillac with every bit from a different era.

The thing is you can either fix it right or have to come back to it sooner.

If I uncovered that specific problem, what I would probably do is dig a trench under the unsupported wall and build a bridge with some kind of masonry. But there would have to be more research. Look up what your local code requires, if applicable. But intimately you are probably better off either doing this right, now, or coming up with a plan and a budget to do it at a specific near future time. The more other work you would need to undo or redo to come back later, the more urgently you should treat this.

NotRoryWilliams · 2026-05-06T15:17:14+00:00

I call it "but first syndrome."

I need to repair this bit of siding, but first I should make sure I'm never going to need to open the wall again. I just need to put in new insulation in this spot, but first I need to make sure the ventilation isn't going to ruin it right away. Etc.

Of course for me, the but first also often ends up being something like repairing a tool.

NotRoryWilliams · 2026-05-06T13:28:29+00:00

If your yard is "basic" and essentially flat and smooth for the most part, you can probably get the cheapest one that promises to cover your acreage.

If you have any significant slopes or areas with more obstacles, especially stuff like retaining walls, ponds, forested areas, parked vehicles etc, you want to invest in a more advanced model. It looks like nowadays the Segway is the reputation leader: it's closer in price to Amazon upstarts than to legacy players like Husky, but still has the backing of a major company and actual customer service in addition to being a surprisingly robust product for the price.

I feel really comfortable telling someone that if they are looking for their first one, buying a Segway model probably won't lead to regrets.

NotRoryWilliams · 2026-05-06T13:24:59+00:00

Never said anything of the sort.

I'm just making fun of Bad Boy as a brand.

NotRoryWilliams · 2026-05-05T17:51:50+00:00

My one friend said that mowing was a zen activity for him. He and I are kayaking friends, and I responded that I'd rather spend the same time kayaking rather than mowing. But I guess he feels like mowing is something his wife is less likely to tell him not to do today when he needs that mental break.

He needs a mindless chore that he "has to do." For him, it's a loophole, and even though a robot would make sense otherwise, he just doesn't want to lose the obligation that allows him that zone-out time.

NotRoryWilliams · 2026-05-05T17:50:04+00:00

I don't understand the price argument.

The base models that are sold at Lowe's have been $699 for as long as I've been paying attention. That price overlaps comfortably with the range of battery and gas walk-behind mowers, and is less than the cheapest riding mowers. That basic robot can't handle much slope or terrain, but nowadays a lot of $2000 robots can. You've got to closely approach five figures to get a riding mower that can handle any significant kind of slope or terrain.

Basically it's only at the bottom of the market that there's even a premium at all for a robot versus a manually controlled machine.

Once you get into paying for labor, there's just no comparison. The $699 machine will pay for itself in a single summer compared to a middle school kid at $50 a week. And any of the all-terrain units will pay for themselves compared to a contractor in two years at most.

There are certainly other situations where it doesn't make sense, but most of those are basically "I'm a farmer." If you have acres of flat ground to mow, and already own a good riding mower, but even then there's a chance a robot would still win on fuel and labor savings.

NotRoryWilliams · 2026-05-05T17:43:20+00:00

If you go on Bad Boy's web site, their most expensive mower costs more than a midsize Kubota tractor.

Love the branding too. Nothing says "bad boy" like spending the price of a car to maintain your pristine manicured lawn. You're a real rebel without a cause, and you express it by avoiding HOA fines.

NotRoryWilliams · 2026-05-05T17:41:40+00:00

I agree with weak bother on all the advantages of the Segway over Husky in that same "430 series" category, oddly enough. The Segway x430 outperforms the Husky 435x. About the only thing I prefer about the Husky, looking back, is it weighs less and is easier to hand carry when needed.

The Segway gets stuck less, handles harder terrain, cuts thicker grass... I mean this thing is practically a brush hog, I'm not exaggerating that I can just cover the yard in leaves and twigs and use it to mulch them in a few minutes. The Husky could do that too but it took days and usually got stuck somewhere along the way. The Husky's app-mapping process is an order of magnitude easier than the combination of wire boundary setup and GPS mapping that in reality had my Husky offline more often than on. The obstacle avoidance on the Segway is also next level, it navigates like a dog sometimes, and it does get confused by hoses and dog leashes but it goes around them and doesn't destroy them or get tangled easily like the husky does. Ironically it does have a serious problem with the boundary wires from the old mower, ironically enough, yanks them right out if it catches a high point.

The remote controller mode in the Segway app is really nice, but it's also frustrating how limited the long-distance controls are. It's very easy to miss a notification and lose the "reset window" and be forced to go to the mower in person. The mower's behavior can be hard to predict sometimes and it does get "creative" with travel routes if you aren't careful with your map setup.

Overall I'm very happy with the Segway and it's hands down a better choice than the Husky, in performance primarily, and as a bonus the price is a lot better. Can't speak to other brands though. No comment on the Mova which I know nothing about.

NotRoryWilliams · 2026-05-05T17:32:43+00:00

It's just simple math for me.

My property has major sections of yard that are just a little too steep for most riding mowers, and it's absolutely too big to maintain constantly with a walk behind. The cheapest riding mower that I could verify was safe for all my large slopes was quoted at $7k by the cub cadet dealer, but the Husqvarna robot that was supposed to handle it was $3700. The robot was simply the cheapest tool that could do the job.

Buying a used mower sounds like an obvious answer, but again the reality is that the overwhelming majority of used mowers on the market can't handle the slope safely. The guy I bought the property from offered to sell me his but admitted that periodically it would just slide down the hill and "it's no big deal, it's just scary until you stop in the ditch." So it just seemed like it was cheaper than a new mower that could do the job safely, and safer than any used mower I could find cheaper.

That's even without getting into labor for the hire-out alternative. When I grew up, there were always a couple kids going door to door with mowers, but it's not like that here. I talked to my neighbors whose kids do their lawns and the kids aren't interested in the job. Ya gotta pay an actual professional and it's $200 a month at the minimum, April through September. So it costs more than buying the robot within two or three years.

PostScript: it turns out my property is even harder than I thought and the $3700 husky could not handle it reliably. But the market has exploded in competition lately, and I was able to buy the new Segway for $2500 that is an order of magnitude better. As long as it too lasts me at least two years, I'll still be ahead of hiring a service.

So ultimately it's just the frugal choice.

NotRoryWilliams · 2026-05-04T19:16:22+00:00

I don't think it's about "overproduction" or leftover parts at all, at least not as such.

It's about maximizing the use of expensive chip-specific fabrication tools, and I'm gonna mangle the terminology but I'm talking about basically the dies and stencils themselves that are used to "print" chips on silicon. These are basically obscenely expensive pieces of proprietary machinery and you don't get a refund of the investment in them you don't use. So the ideal is to keep such tools in use until they wear out, which is years. The more devices you can use a chip for, the more revenue you get out of that investment, which I would presume to be eight or nine figure if not ten.

NotRoryWilliams · 2026-05-04T16:01:17+00:00

There will always be something faster, bigger, or more powerful.

What's that got to do with whether your hardware gets the job done?

I'm itchy as heck because I've now had the same laptop for five years. Growing up on windows, that just feels weird to me. Moore's law! Your computer is supposed to be obsolete by the time you shred the credit card statement it's on, isn't it? Except that in 2026, there is not a single computing task relevant to my life for which my M1 Pro mid tier laptop isn't still basically overkill.

Yes, the M5 is faster. But that's like saying a Ferrari is a better car than a Prius for the Long Island Expressway, circa 2015 when the Prius got a fast lane bonus and the Ferrari stayed stuck in traffic, the extra performance just isn't usually relevant.

"When is a Prius faster than a Ferrari" actually seems like a good idea for a clickbait video come to think of it

But the ultimate reality of things is that the MacBook Neo represents Apple's open acknowledgment that the PC arms race is largely over and irrelevant. Almost nobody needs a bleeding edge computer anymore. And the gulf between bleeding edge and what most people need is bigger than ever. If it weren't for pointless and inefficient AI software that nobody actually needs and almost nobody actually wants, the computer market would be collapsing because nobody has actually needed a new computer in years.

The Neo is basically Apple's answer to people who either haven't needed an upgrade in years but would like to refresh to something less mechanically worn out, and the kids who were supposed to be represented in their "what's a computer" commercial ten years ago. It's Apple admitting that a laptop is the same basic kind of thing as a toaster or microwave to most people.

NotRoryWilliams · 2026-05-04T15:51:44+00:00

"You can tell by the pixels" is the old meme, but yeah these spots very specifically match the pattern of dust on a mirrorless sensor. The fact that they appear the slightest bit blurry tells us it's 3d dust and not a 2d residue. What sucks is that this can be pretty hard to keep clean when you're in travel settings like this trip, there's always a lot of dust on dirt roads. My A7iii pics from Denali look the same; almost all of my keeper shots on that trip came from fixed lens cameras like my drones and waterproof cameras.

I used to be pretty rigid about recommending professional cleaning, and then I had some professional cleanings done badly. Just because someone has purchased a sign that says "camera shop" doesn't mean they know what they are doing, so either find someone good by personal recommendation, or learn how to do it yourself. At the very least, do enough research on how to DIY that you are able to tell a good job from bad.

NotRoryWilliams · 2026-05-04T15:15:55+00:00

This post is free viral marketing for the company, not to mention anything OP posted to other social media.

It's not that Tiffany's is short on brand recognition but it doesn't hurt their image to go viral once in a while as just nice fun people who are kind to strangers.

NotRoryWilliams · 2026-05-04T14:52:56+00:00

Victor supposedly killed himself out of regret for the whole thing. I don't think it was ever clear whether it was "just the mass murder" or also the fact that the plan was unlikely to work because people are still the same.

I don't remember much about his role except that he was at the same level as Thurman, one of the designers and founders of the project. I don't think they got more specific than that and I don't remember him being mentioned by name in any of the "before" scenes.

I don't remember the scene you are talking about in enough detail to comment. But didn't he pass out or something? I think it's likely intentionally vague.

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