Trout Mask Replica

Hi folks. It is February 15 and 70 years ago today, Matt Groening was born and of course, he is best known as the creator of The Simpsons, Futurama and Disenchantment. So, in honour of this day, let’s do a post about one of Matt Groening’s favourite albums of all time. I am of course talking about Trout Mask Replica by Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band. I actually don’t have the album as it isn’t available on iTunes and it should be, because Matt Groening likes it and because, I say it should be. I’m kidding about the last part, but Matt has said in interviews that he loves this album and if you listen to the Simpsons theme and how it is rather dissonant, using the tritone it shouldn’t be a surprise that Matt likes this particular album. No, it’s not using Diabolus in Música, but the album does not follow the regular songwriting structure or straightforward song arrangement style. In fact, it’s quite messy and it is intentionally that way. People have taken it apart in order to find order out of its chaos. I haven’t heard the whole thing, but I have heard some of it and it is noisey. Would you like to hear a song? Yes you should to get an idea of what I’m talking about. There is nothing wrong with your phone, computer or what ever you may be watching this Youtube video or others from this album. https://youtu.be/r9lpLm7jwQY?si=RcY0wkPj8zvTRqxK

Here is one more song and then I will talk about it as much as I can, given that I am grasping at straws for this one. https://youtu.be/jI6zsx42D20?si=H8v0zg019T5zblN5

Okay, not only does Matt Groening love this album, but many others who are quite creative also enjoy it too. For example: John Lydon of Sex Pistols and PIL loves it because it is so weird and unsettling. John Frusciante of Red Hot Chilli Peppers, filmmaker David Lynch and guitar virtuoso Steve Vai also loves it. It’s out of tune and a cacophony, but John Lydon once said that because of the bum notes there’s room for everything. Not everything has to be in tune or in rhythm with each other all the time and that is liberating for all musicians. After all, music is not just about playing but also being creative at the same time and jazz isn’t always straightforward either so, what’s wrong with this? After all, Captain Beefheart (born Don Van Vliet) should have had all his albums released on not just CD, but on iTunes so the world can open its mind to what he is doing here. I have only heard some songs and I hope that some day, the whole thing will be available on all digital and streaming platforms, so everyone can listen to it and realize that you don’t have to be perfect all of the time.

There is hope because as of 2023 the entire album is available for listeners of high resolution audio, but I want it for everybody including those of us who use smart phones to listen to music on regularly. I guess, it’s baby steps toward that goal and hopefully we get to that mountaintop soon. Anyway, happy 70th birthday to Matt and hopefully many more.

iOS 17 So Far, Continued

Here is another post on the newest generation of iOS and a flaw, which had been detected in it, relating to media apps. I had gone into detail in my last post on the software, but here it is again, with words about what had clinched it for me.

This particular and much unexpected and unwelcome flaw with iOS 17, has everything to do with music and TV and how they sync up when you purchase new music, or new TV shows and episodes of TV shows and not the alert or ringtones. Before iOS 17, I would purchase either new music, movies or TV shows and I would download a previously deleted episode of The Simpsons, in order to help sync both the music and TV apps up with each other. For some odd reason, The Simpsons is my go-to TV show for syncing up my music with TV and everything in both apps and respective libraries. I don’t know why, but that is just how it is. Something else which is odd, sometimes I seem to lose all of my Simpsons episodes in the downloaded episodes. I obviously haven’t lost them, because things hadn’t been synced up with the new album purchase.

In the past, I would download from the TV app and yesterday, I purchased an album on iTunes, which relates to one of my favourite bands, namely Queen and a Freddie Mercury compilation from 2019. I tried the usual thing, but for some reason things did not sync up. The first clue I had that something was wrong was when I would do the download of the episode I had deleted, get out of it by closing the TV app, come back and it said that it could not download the episode. What happened? I don’t know, but I had tried deleting an entire season and redownloading it and the same thing happened again, unless I had stayed and babysat the download. So, I tried deleting again and this time, downloading from the iTunes Store app and it worked from there. Why?

The clincher for me was when I went into my Settings app, general, iPhone storage and then review TV downloads. This includes both TV and movies including anything I may have purchased from the Classic Albums series. I tested this out on the A Night At The Opera Classic Albums documentary and the same thing happened. What was that same thing you may ask? Well, when reviewing TV downloads, those Simpsons episodes and the documentary were missing from there when I had re-downloaded them onto my phone from the TV app. When going into the iTunes app, I found them under TV and movies respectively, then downloaded them again and when I did that, everything showed up as if nothing was wrong and my TV seasons and movies were all there, in the TV app and when reviewing TV and movies in iPhone storage.

Just a note of warning, when you go into the iTunes app, go to more, then purchased and either music, TV shows or movies, then download either a movie or TV episode or episodes, it will probably say “Play” when you wish to do the download back onto your phone or maybe even your iPad. This may confuse some of us so, now you know why that is, if you have an iPhone 15 and had noticed that some things haven’t come back in the transfer. However, if you tap the “Play” button in the iTunes app, it will download everything as is and it will all be back and everything will match, with both the TV app and with iPhone storage. The catch is that you can only download each episode one at a time, but at least you can start the download and not have to babysit it. The other thing is that while downloading episodes one by one by one, you can just keep moving along while movies and episodes are redownloading and in my case, when I hear the words “cancel download” I know that the download has started and I can move on to the next one and so it goes. I had tested this out with my movies, seasons of TV shows and an entire HBO special from 2014. Yes, I have the Foo Fighters: Sonic Highways special on my phone as of June 2022 and there are a lot of episodes to download, including bonus material and interviews with various musicians and even Barack Obama. When I did the test I had found I had missed the episode on Washington DC and the track The Feast and the Famine and I had to go back and get it again, after closing the iTunes app. Yes, I close my apps when I know I won’t be needing them for a while because they do not need to stay open.

Can you imagine if you have a lot of TV episodes, seasons of shows and a bunch of movies to download onto your iPhone 15, if and when you upgrade to it? For some reason, both books, TV shows and movies do not come back by themselves when doing the transfer of data and the upgrade to a newer phone. I do not expect this to change any time soon and now, I hope I will not have to upgrade for a while, because of this flaw. By the way, isn’t this kind of a disincentive for those who have a mast a collection of music, books, movies and TV shows to upgrade with something like this going on with iOS 17? By the way, the music app allows you to download music and you can download it from the iTunes app and everything shows up in all appropriate places, including iPhone storage.

Otherwise, iOS 17 works just fine… … unless there is something else hiding in there which needs attention and needs to be talked about, to Apple and to other users. I hope that this will certainly get attention from not just myself, but others who still purchase music, movies and TV shows on their phones, rather than only streaming.

The End Of Itunes???

This is a post about something I read on another blog, written by someone whom I respect and who’s opinion I listen to. For some time, there have been roomers about the iTunes Store being shut down, in favour of Apple Music and other streaming sites. This is not a good step forward for a number of reasons. Before I get into them, I want to try and give you their own perspective on why they want to discontinue the store.

They see this as a way to direct consumers to no longer purchase music but stream it instead, through Apple Music and as their way, of allowing you to get more for less money. They also feel that people are buying iPhones more these days and now that the iPod touch is on the way out, why not get rid of this pesky store. Also, they probably had this plan in place a while ago but, we won’t know about the real endgame until it’s too late, like when the store is no longer active.

I disagree with the shut down for a number of reasons:

We should be paying for songs and albums we purchase because paying for streaming doesn’t offset the cost of studio time and the hours spent, working on the songs. It doesn’t matter if it is in the Brill Building or whether it is in a crappy motel on the road. These songs don’t just come out fully formed and recording them can be equally time consuming. Think of all the overdubs and multiple takes a song goes through, before the final version is mixed and released to the unsuspecting public. Streaming doesn’t pay for all of that sweat and patients and time the artist takes to write and record an album, no matter who gets money from it. So, paying for downloads is the right thing to do and not for streaming services. Yes, it is convenient to download as many songs as you want at any time but, think about the artist and what he, or she, has gone through to make this music for you to own and listen to, on the radio or in your music collection.

Unlike streaming services, you can actually keep what you download from iTunes forever. You can delete songs and albums from your library but, you can get them back from your hidden purchases. Right? It’s not hard to do, if you take the time to go into the iTunes store and into your account. With Apple Music, you can get songs and if you don’t want them anymore, you can throw them away, like garbage. What does that say to an artist who has spent all the hours, months,years, recording a bunch of songs for you? This devalues the music and is a slap in the face to the writer and performer! I will give you part of an email I sent to the author of the post, which inspired me to continue this subject. This will repeat a lot of what I said here but, it is worth it.

With music we can stream, we can get it and discarded like garbage but with purchased music, we can get it and keep it forever to use when we see fit. with streaming sites like Apple Music and others, this devalues the music as opposed to those of us, who prefer to own our music. Don’t people consider the hours of work it took to record the songs that we hear on the radio and elsewhere?

I agree that the convenience of being able to download as many songs as you want without purchasing them is great but that doesn’t make up the cost in time at the artist took to write and record the songs that we hear every day. Not to mention the studio time and money spent with this work, by big name artists and even small artists who are cutting their teeth to get to a level equivalent to Taylor Swift or Adele, or even Linkin Park. I dread the day that iTunes shuts down because of all the money spent in writing and recording the songs being wasted, on streaming music. Is it another sign that album sales don’t matter anymore? Also, we won’t be able to purchase TV shows and movies anymore, to watch and to keep them. It is nice to walk around with your favourite movie or TV show in your pocket, which you have purchased and can watch again and again. With iTunes going down, we can’t do that anymore and there is another thing to consider, we are using data to stream music, TV shows and movies. With stuff you’ve purchased, you don’t have to use more data than you need, in order to hear or watch it. Yes, there is an off-line option but it is only available if you have paid for the privilege of streaming music then, you can use it.

Unfortunately, Apple does what they want without consulting the consumer first and they only apologized for slowing down iPhones with software updates, because it would be bad for business if they hadn’t spoken up. However, at least some of us are trying to express our opinions, such as the author of the original post, myself and hopefully other bloggers. If enough of us speak up, then people will listen to us and see that this could be a dumb move going forward. Here is the original post, which inspired my email and this entry.

Here we go again: More rumours about Apple shutting down iTunes. And now we have a date.

10 Years Of The iPhone Influencing Our Lives

Hi folks. Yesterday was the release of iOS 11 and this year is also the 10th anniversary of the iPhone itself. I found a post a couple of days ago on Twitter which lists five ways the iPhone has influenced the world around us. As a companion piece to this article, I thought I would mention how the iPhone has enhanced our lives in general. Although, there will be some overlap in this list between this and the other article but, there are things which has made the lives of a certain portion of the population (with disabilities) easier in reading, writing and communicating with others.
Apple Pay
Apple Pay is something that took a long time for me to grasp because, I didn’t have an iPhone which was compatible with this feature until late last year. Also, I didn’t feel comfortable with the concept at the time until this summer. I guess it was the safety which I was concerned about! Now, I use it as regularly as I can and can do it with ease. Although, I do need guidance as to where the sensor is so I can put the iPhone on it and bingo, I’ve paid for my item. I hope that one day everything can be paid for using both Apple Pay and other companies equivalents to it, so there will be no need to carry cash.
Social Media
The use of social media has also been a great benefit to myself and I guess everybody who uses Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat these days. Even doing this blog wouldn’t be possible without my iPhone in 2013 and I’m very thankful for the use of social media because, it has help me stay in touch with old friends and make some new ones in the process. Even getting a chance to communicate with my favourite musicians and actors has been possible with the iPhone. For example: I follow five of the six main voice actors on The Simpsons and have communicated with a few people associated with The series on Twitter. Also on Facebook I have had the opportunity to meet and disguss topics which I have an interst in with a group and I have even become an Administrator of one or two of them.
Safari
The use of Safari also has enhanst my ability to go on the web and search for things on Google. I even bookmark things which I want to read again later on because, they May change as time goes on. I do this with my favourite bands, TV shows, etc and that is how I follow some of my favourite famous people outside of social media. Even YouTube has been possible to use with an iPhone because at first, when I had the iPhone 4s in 2012 there was the YouTube app. However, when iOS 6 came along that app was taken off and I had to find YouTube videos using Safari. fortunately, I was able to do that quite easily and I have tried the free YouTube app on the App Store but, I didn’t like it because I didn’t have as much control as I do when using Safari.
Apps
The use of applications in general has made my life a lot easier and much less reliant on The media and other people at times. For example: I use a few applications for getting the weather in my local area and some of them also have weather warnings, which are sent out via push notifications. This has not only helped myself but other people around me, when severe weather or nice weather is on the way. I even use applications for getting around using local transit and this has also made life a lot easier. The only thing is that you need to have more than one transit app, in order to find the best one for you and I use 2 of them, depending on the situation at the time. As far as I’m concerned, any app which helps me get around is alright with me.
Voices
Not only do I get voice interaction from Siri, but I also get to hear voices on my iPhone with the use of VoiceOver. In case you don’t know what that is, it is a screen reading software which operates using gestures and double or two finger tapping on icons on the screen, in order to activate an app or to type out a letter or punctuation mark. With VoiceOver, I can do this either on the screen, use dictation or use a Bluetooth keyboard to help me type out: emails, text messages, posts on Twitter or Facebook, composing blog posts, etc. It is not only useful to the blind but also people with learning disabilities such as dyslexia. In my case, I’ve been blind since birth and this feature of the iPhone is what I use most of all, out of any feature on this device. Even the voices have expanded to many different languages and are both male and female sounds. I’ve talked about the voices themselves in past posts here but I will say that I am quite impressed with how many voices in different dialects there are, in Apple’s speech library. With iOS11 the new Siri voices sound even better than I thought. This is especially true of the new female Siri, who sounds quite nice, in what ever dialect you select. The American female Siri souds younger than the other voices in the past and both male and female voices, are available for download. But, they are bigger files than ever before and take up more space. As for the other voices, not much has changed, with the exception of promoting Nikki from being the American female voice of Siri, to being a standalone voice for download in VoiceOver.
iTunes and Apple Music
With the iPhone we were all able to listen to music digitally, through iTunes as well as streaming services like Spotify and various applications, which allow us to listen live to individual songs and albums and radio stations. We also were given the chance to buy our music on the iTunes Store for a cheaper price, than a compact disk would cell at a record store these days. Altho, in my last years of buying CD’s, they have come down in price to about $10.00 or so. However, some albums on the iTunes Stor have sold for as low as $4.99. The real plus with the iTunes store is that in some cases, you could buy albums you could no longer find on CD, because they are out of print or no longer sold where you live. Sometimes it goes the other way, in that the album you want is not available in your country’s iTunes Store. I had run into that a numbr of times!
I have had a lot of joy browsing and purchasing music, TV shows and some movies from the iTunes Store in the past years and that is how I have managed to come up with posts for this blog and my other blogs, related to The Simpsons and even Weather Radio.
With Apple Music, I can now listen to and download (for free) albums by bands which I can’t afford to spend money on at the moment. I can even do that with songs which are only available as an “album only” track on some albums, instead of having to buy the whole album. This has made my listening experience even more enjoyable and has been a big help, with having to learn songs to sing for people in my apartment. I wish that was around back when I went to school because, that would have been a great help in learning songs for my school ensemble.
Text Messaging
I have been able to text since 2011 but this has greatly improved since I have migrated to the iPhone in 2012. Even iMessaging has been a real plus for me, when people can’t simply text me and I don’t mind that. The only thing I don’t think is necessary is adding affects to a message but, I wil add emoji’s to some text messages.
Hearing The Real Voice On The Phone
With iPhones and some other smart phones we get to hear a persons actual voice and not just the phone quallity voice on the other end of the line. I notice this the most with the iPhone and I love it when I hear the actuall sound of a voice so I know what to listen for, when I meet them in person later. Some other phones also allow this and I think it’s great, that we get to hear the voice as it was meant to be heard. We can leave the phone quality voice to walky talky radios and landline phones, thank you very much.

Other Miscellaneous Things
I like being able to create reminders for myself, to let me know about up coming appointments and engagements. For those who like to play games on their phones, there are plenty of them out there. The news app is a good thing to have so you can keep tabs on what is going on in the world. The callender is another good thing to have, so you can plan events throughout the year without having to put down the phone. Taking photos is another thing which is good and the quality of the picture is even better now than it was with other phones and, with iOS11 there are even more improvements to photos. For those who are hearing impaired, there are options for hearing aids and such to compliment the iPhone. Watching TV is now possible with your iPhone and even your iPod Touch and iPad, with the new Apple TV app. If you are recording a voice memo it comes out in your actual voice, much like on the phone.
Those are just some of the things thatthe the iPhone has given us to improve our daly lives and make the world easier to live in. You could say that your iPhone is your: Computer, note taker, calendar, phone, radio, two way radio, virtual girlfriend or a boyfriend, Road map, GPS, etc. in your hand and there is no telling, what Apple will do in the future to improve the iPhone or discontinue it in the coming years. I guess 10 more years as possible but it won’t be the same into thousand 27. You can be sure that the iPhone you’re holding in your hand now will not be around 10 years from now and you will look back and wonder where you would be without this device.

Ideas for iOS 11

Hi folks. This is yet another post on iOS but this time it’s all about iOS 11. I have some ideas of what I would like to see when iOS 11 rolls around in September.
To start off with, I like iOS 10 so far and thankfully with the latest updates, some problems have been fixed. For example, when I’m reading an article on Wikipedia when I select a section it reads it twice and says “edit”. For example: when I’m looking at a band or a person and the section is “History” it says history twice then it says edit and goes on to read all about the history section of the article. Another thing which I am very happy about is that finally The Simpson’s is acknowledged on my iPod touch. Ever since I had one of them, when it reads the TV show titles it has always left it blank or it says “in iCloud.” Thankfully with the last two iOS 10 updates this has been fixed.
Now we’re going to start talking about iOS 11th and what I would like to see. Before we do that, let’s talk about what we know so far. First of all, we know that the iPhone 5 and iPhone 5c are no longer a part of the future iOS updates as of the end of iOS 10.  We also now know that Siri will be revamped with a more human sounding voice and I wonder if since new voices have been added to VoiceOver, will Ava and Tom Be the new Siri voices for North American English speakers? it would make sense because those two voices are used for GPS and telephone IVR systems, as I have mentioned in past posts. The same could be true for other voices and dialects around the world, which were added on for iOS 10.
Also, the App Store will get a redesign and I wonder what that will be like. I hope that it will be just as simple for people like myself who are blind to get around, as well as those who can see their devices.
Anyway, those are just two things that jumped out at me when I First read about iOS 11 on Wikipedia. now let’s talk about what I would like to see in the update for iOS, which is not been spoken about and yes, I will mention voices which I and others would like to see added on in September. 
First of all, I have an issue with the alarm clock in that it does not play the full song anymore, unless it’s under 15 minutes. I specifically but one of my songs in my music library as and alarm to wake me up. Unfortunately the song is about 22 minutes long but as of iOS 10 it only plays 15 minutes of it then it shuts off. I hope that with iOS 11 goes back to iOS 8 and how the alarms used to Play an entire song, no matter how long it is whether it is two or 20 minutes long without repeating it.
As for the voices I would like to see in Voice Over, I hope they all stay because all the voices are good in their own right. I especially appreciate the fact that we can download the Siri voices as I mentioned in the past and I’m not going to get into it any further. However, I want to see some new voices added, particularly for North America. Some of the names I like to see added are: Paul, Mike, Jennifer, Donna and or Crystal in iOS 11, along with everything else. I like Donna because much like Alex, she actually breeds but she does sound a little more robotic then most of the voices we have here. However, she does have a human intonation to her voice.
This brings me to changing the internation of a voice, which you can currently do on the computer but not on an iPhone or an iPod. I would love to change The internation of some voices, to make them higher and maybe even deepen one or two of them slightly. For example: I would love to make Ava’s voice just a bit higher and she’ll sound even better to me. I think this could be done with the option of changing the pitch. Simply, they can add the option to change the pitch not by toggling anything on or off but by creating a new option to change the pitch or intonation of the voice, as well as maybe the inflections of the selected voice. In some cases some voices don’t speak properly in that they don’t acknowledge questions by the voice going up at the end. Karen is a prime example of this and I would like to change that if it is possible with iOS 11. Also, I would Play with other voices to either make them lower or higher, just so I can hear what they sound like. Now that we have Fred, you could do the same thing with my proposal of adding on the pitch change option. Imagine me Fred sound more robotic?
As for other things I would like to see in iOS11 and later, iTunes should have a section where if you can’t find the album in your country store you should be able to get it from another store around the world. We could do that and record stores where they sell imported copies of albums at a higher price. Why not with iTunes? Obviously the price will be higher because it’s an import but, at least we would all get what we want without having to get another iTunes Account in another country or address. It would certainly save a lot of headaches when looking for an album on iTunes using Google and finding out it’s available in another country, other than where you live. I’ve been burned by that many times and I had discussed that here and in other blogs.
The same could go for apps on the App Store, where if you can’t find what you want and it’s available somewhere else, you could get it at a higher price. Once again, this would save a lot of headaches when searching for something on Google. Although in the case of apps, I can understand why some aren’t available everywhere because not all apps apply to everywhere around the world. However, in the case of iTunes, music does apply to everywhere around the world and everyone should have the same access to the same music, where ever you live. The same with audiobooks because I’ve done the same thing on Google and as I mentioned earlier with music, I’ve been burned by finding out an audiobook is available somewhere else and the same thing with movies and TV shows.
To end off this post I have some other ideas: I would still like to see video playlists being added to the videos app because I would love to watch episodes of some TV shows in a certain order. Also for the Maps app, I think that the iPhone should speak with all options while going somewhere. I find that it doesn’t say anything when using Transit options. Yes there are transit apps but the maps app does have The options for driving, walking and transit directions. It talks while driving or walking but why not for Transit?
For the notes app I think that you should be able to move attachments from not just iCloud and the “My iPhone” folders but two other folders throughout the app, encompassing your email or (email addresses) if you have more than one. Also I think that for iBooks and the audiobooks portion, not just the title and author should be shown but who also narrates the book. For example: I have a copy of A Christmas Carol which is narrated by Patrick Stewart. It does not say that on the outside but if you open the book, the voiceover says it before the story starts.
If we have apps with sounds Or voices attached to them they should be automatically a part of the suite of ring tones, voices and alert tones. For example: One of my weather apps has its own sounds for when an alert is issued. I would like to have that as an alert tone for my phone, for whatever I would like it to be for email or otherwise. further to that, I hope that in the future we can select a voice for voice alerts for apps which allow for it. For example, all the apps so far whitch have a voice alert option use the compact voice as opposed to the enhanced voice. I think we should at least be given the option, as to which voice we would like to use for the particular app and it’s voice alert. Also, since some people like to switch voices on the fly, why not allow for the option for each app to use a different voice if we desire. For example, I would use Tom for my weather apps and as my default voice I would use either Ava or Samantha and for Safari, I would use a different voice. This could be done in either the speak screen or voice over speech setting options and at first, I admit it would look confusing but it would give us what we really want, which is variety without having to change things manually on the fly.
Finally, I hope that all of the upgrades which have been made in iOS 10 continue in iOS 11. I like the text selection, which is great for copying and pasting text from emails and websites, for example. I have also gotten used to the new email format and well, I hope both examples I have mentioned here stay in iOS 11 and future upgrades.

IOS 10, So Far

Hi folks. This is the first post since iOS 10 was released on Tuesday and I have some things to say about it, both good and bad. These are all my own personal feelings on it and you may agree or disagree but, I stand behind what I say here.
Okay, let’s start from the beginning… I first heard about it back in July, when I read about it on Wikipedia. Okay, I know that Wikipedia isn’t always right but in most cases they are absolutely bang on and in the case of iOS, I wanted to find out about it so I could be prepared for what was to come.
So, I did my research and I have posted here, my feelings on Apple dropping support for certain iPhones and iPods and I did what I had to do, to get ready for September 13th. Of course, I had no idea that iOS 10 would be released that day. I thought it would come out on a Wednesday, as it had come in the past few years.
Now we will get to the download itself. On Tuesday September 13th I went to my usual location to download anything that was bigger than 100 MB and or the latest iOS Software updates onto my iPhone. I did it successfully on my iPods but not on my iPhone at first. I have an iPhone5c and well, it’s kinda old and the battery is rather shaky in that it charges quickly and discharges just as fast.
The download got through but the installation was a real problem. First of all, my phone decided to go to 0% battery power, despite that I used my portable charger to keep up the charge. I went to the Apple Store and found out that the iPhone was frozen and I wasn’t surprised. I had this problem with it for a while now and it is frustrating but I know now not to do a hard reset unless I really, must do so.
Anyway, I went home and managed to get the phone going again and iOS 10 was now installed in all my devices. So, I was happy and now, we can get to what I like and dislike about iOS 10 so far.
What I Like
I like the new voices you can download and if you have any type of screen reader or GPS you know the mall. We have: Tom, Susan, Allison, Lee and many others who are familiar to anybody with anything which talks. We even have Fred, who sounds like an Old fashion computer from the 1980s. In fact, if you have the album OK Computer by Radiohead, check out the track Fitter Happier. It is a short peace which consists entirely of 1990’s slogans which singer Tom York put together quickly, according to what I read. That’s Fred on the track and on the first single paranoid Android, under Tom’s singing “What’s that?” With the held e on the word that. Anyway, I digress.
As for the classic voices for Siri and the iPhone, they are all there in the basic and enhanced forms. I like that all the names of all the voices are available now and they are not just named Female Siri or Male Siri. For example: my favourite Austrailian Siri voice is named Catherine I called her Sheila before I found this out. So, I’ll call her Catherine now but I still like her and she likes me too.
I think it is really cool that we are now able to change how some words and phrases are pronounced. Too bad you can’t change the dialect of a voice such as changing Catherine’s voice to an American dialect. Hmmm! If we could I would do that in a second and as for Karen, I would change your dialect and her inflections. I found that she was rather unemotional, unlike her current counterpart.
What I Don’t Like
Okay, this is about what I don’t like about the new iOS but there are some things in this section, I like but they need to be improved upon. I also believe there are too many things that if not used properly, you could shoot yourself in the foot.
For the Music app, I like that everything is organized and the “Downloaded Music” tab is a good idea. However, if you swipe the wrong way then tap you could accidentally delete a song or an entire artists work from your music library. Everything else is fine and I may comment on other things that will come to mind later.
I find the email is now confused in that in some message threads, I had a real hard time reading all the messages at first. I had to change some things in the settings so I could be able to get to all emails in a thread, when they apply. Also, if you have more than one email address it will direct you to send an email to a certain folder or another email box. That is used with the second or third email address and not so much with the default account. That is confusing and hopefully this will be looked at for future updates.
The alarm is fine except that it repeats songs like in iOS 9. Another thing I found out is that it will only play a song for 15 minutes and that is it. I used a 22 minute song as an alarm to wake me up for the past couple of years and now, it cuts off after 15 minutes. I think that Apple should have gone back to how it was in iOS 8, where you could play a song as an alarm once and it would play the entire length of the composition.
One more thing I will mention here is the video application. Earlier in the summer I said that there should be an option where you can create a playlist of videos and or movies, which you would like to see. This will be good if you are on a long trip wore want to watch episodes of a TV season you have downloaded, in a certain order according to you. However, you still can’t do that and I think that it should be looked at for future updates pronto.
Something else that deserves a mentio is the new iPhone7, coming out tomorrow. The main thing everyone is talking about is that lack of an earphone jack. I agree with those who don’t like this and I believe that this is done, so you can listen to your much using Bluetooth headphones or, the new EarPods coming out later this fall. Let’s be honest about this and ask ourselves, do we really need something else to be responsible for while listening to her music or talking on our phones? It seems that Apple is forgotten that Bluetooth uses battery power, just like the iPhones, iPods and iPads. This is just one more thing to have to babysit, while either listening to music, talking on your phones or writing out a report, blog post, etc. I know there are other things you can do but I think you understand the point. In the future there will be other add-ons but you will need to purchase, which require you to monitor battery power. This means carrying multiple battery chargers with you, while you were mobile.
Well, that’s about it for this post and I will be back tomorrow with another one.

Is This Strange To You?

Hi folks. I’m back from my break from blogging! I actually stopped posting on July 31st, in my blog related to The Simpsons. In my last post here I recounted my tale of the frustration I am going through, while my apartment building is being renovated and the problems that have come up with it. I also mentioned having new windows being put in the next day and well… they are in and I will reserve comment on how good or bad they are in this blog… for now.
Today it is all about strange things in my iTunes Music library. I recently acquired a new iPod Touch because of iOS10. I mentioned why in a previous post about iOS10 earlier this summer, if you are interested in looking!
When I downloaded all of the music I wanted on this pod, I checked it all out the next day. I found something rather odd about one of the songs. It was the song N.W.O. By Ministry from their 1992 album Psalm 69: The Way To Succeed & The Way To Suck Eggs. The version I downloaded and purchased originally had a more thrash metal style and this new updated mix, had some of it taken out and replaced with some words from George W. Bush. Both the original George Bush and W Bush speeches about a New World Order are in this version, with George’s Father’s original samples intact at the end of the song. I also found it on the compilation Greatest Fits and a 2005 compilation, which listed the same mix as the “Updated Mix.”
I don’t know why this happened but I guess that it may have changed, dew to the current American Presidential Election going on now. I wonder if there will be any Donald Trump samples in any further updated mixes of the song in the future. If so, it would be very interesting.
Something else that is rather strange is the song Back In The U.S.S.R by The Beatles, from their White Album. At first it ran together on the album, with the next track Dear Prudence but lately, it has faded out like the version that appears on The Beatles 1967-1970. As Dear Prudence starts the airplane in the previous song is heard, as if it ended normally. I wonder why this is.
I also noticed a similar situation with the Cheech & Chong albums Big Bambu with the tracks Let’s Make A Dope Deal and Unamerican Bandstand. Dope Deal fades out, like it does on Cheech & Chong’s Greatest Hit and then goes into Bandstand, somehow with out missing a beat. There are 2 other examples with the Greatest Hit album that are Noteworthy to mention. The bits Sister Mary Elephant and Sergeant Stadanko are separated on the iTunes version of this album. Along with Cruisin’ With Padro de Pacas and The Continuing Adventures Of Padro de Pacas and Man are also separated. Those two beds along with the previously mentioned pair are normally linked together with each other. However, the rest of the album remains as it was released. So, why? Not that it’s bad but it does sound like someone put it together on their own iOS device, as a playlist. Then someone at the record label decided to take hold of it and put it out that way.
I noticed it very soon after purchasing both albums on iTunes and I find all of these examples very strange. Do you know of any examples in your iTunes collection, VS. Your cd, cassette or vinyl collection? There are probably more out there but I just wanted to point out the most obvious ones to you, that you would notice on first listen.
Well, that’s about it for today.

Looking Forward To iOS10

Hi folks. This post is about iOS10 and my own thoughts on what it should include. This of course will depend on any changes made to various apps in the next updates in iOS9. For example: last year the music app was completely redone and fixed by the end of 2015.
I hope that iOS10 will continue to allow us to download the Siri voices, as screen reading voices because, in some cases they actually use more inflections that we would use in real life, while speaking to each other. Also, I think the variety of voice options is good in that, we can have a female Australian voice read a story to put us to sleep. We can change it to what ever we want to hear, depending on what it is we are doing at the time. If they could talk to each other, that would be fun, while it is reading a fan fiction story. For example: if Samantha narrated and the male and female American Siri acted out the dialog in such a story it would be really interesting to hear. The only thing that would be a problem is if the wrong voice did a character of the wrong gender. Could you imagine a man talking like a woman in his deep voice as part of a dialog? Well, maybe this would require even more intelligence on the part of Siri, as to the character that is being portrayed in the story.
something else up and thinking about is if music can allow for playlists, why not video playlists? If you have downloaded and purchased TV shows and you want to watch certain episodes in a particular order, while on a trip or for marathon viewing, why not have video playlist which you can create just like you create a playlist of your favourite songs? For example: I like to watch my Simpsons episodes in a chunk and not just the whole season during a particular day and I would love to divide up a season, without having to delete any episodes or put others on other devices. I think that would be a real bonus for not just a long trip with the kids but for those of us at home, who would like to watch episodes in an order we choose.
I have also been thinking about the clock and the use of music as an alarm. When iOS8 was around, you could use music as your alarm to wake you up and it would play the song once. This time with iOS9, the song plays continuously until you unlock the screen or press the sleep button on your iOS device. I hope that for iOS10 we will go back to the alarm clock playing a song once, then silence until the next song you would use to alarm you to wake up or whatever. If you have more than one device you could create a possible mix of music, to wake you up or whatever with iOS8. You can’t really do that now!
That’s about all I can think of right now, for my thoughts on the upcoming iOS10. I will be checking out the Internet for more updates on it and I am looking forward to what will be in store for us this September.

The Simpsons and The Canadian iTunes Store

Hi folks. Yes, it’s a Monday and an unusual day for me to post but, I have something to get off my chest. If you are a Canadian cidisen and you use the Canadian iTunes Store and are a fan of The Simpsons and you have purchased the latest season Season 27, you may notice that a couple of episodes have since aired. The last one available on the Canadian iTunes Store was The Marge-Ian Chronicles, which aired on March 13 and was available on Saturday March 19th. This was the last episode which has been available to those of us in Canada, who have purchased the Season Pass. I have checked on Google and all episodes so far are available on the American iTunes Store, Hmmm!

Clearly, something is wrong and I want to know what is going on and why, I am not receiving the episodes in a timely manner. I may not necessarily like every episode but it is important that they become available in a reasonable amount of time, after airing in all iTunes Stores world wide. I have contacted iTunes Support on this issue and nothing so far, has been said about it to me in my email. I certainly hope that this post will get the attention of certain people and that this issue, what ever it is can be resolved quickly.