Hey all, I did a technical breakdown of high-fidelity audio recently for our company and thought that it might be of interest to hackers. I'm especially interested in ideas & criticisms to lead to a more thorough test methodology for when we revisit this topic in the future. I know I simplified or explained away a lot of complex subjects in digital audio, but otherwise this would have been an even more massive post!
It is a good analysis! The null test was surprising, I'm sort of interested how bad the result would be if you went up against something like 192kbit MP3! My music collection is in FLAC and MP3 (256kbit VBR actually), just because MP3 is so widely supported.
In my own testing the only thing that stands out in null testing is artifact noise and stuff that's lost in the higher frequencies, i.e. cymbals. The more compressed you go, the more artifact noise introduced and high frequencies lost. As someone who can enjoy classical music (for simplicities sake "classical" and not some other classification), I notice that a bunch of "audiophiles" seem to think that's where their money is going - to increased listening satisfaction of classical - when that tends to be the type of music where least is lost in compression. Music with constant cymbal hits (e.g. rock music with drumkit) seems to lose the most.
Again, my own personal null testing with music spanning various genres in my library.
Thanks! I agree, some things were surprising. I'm really bummed that the null tests were affected by source audio amplitude, plus the frame size causing alignment issues—I feel like it's not as accurate a test as it could have been. I have to revisit the methodology to come up with a baseline of sorts. I was thinking of doing a comparison all the way down to 128kbps next time… sounds like what you're saying!
The amazing thing is that they probably could have made a go at it focusing on paying out more to artists (despite the fact that it's not the fault of competing services for negotiating the best rates they could with the labels). Or, maybe making a go at the sound quality argument but priced the same as Spotify Premium. Like you, I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually go 24b/96K, but that will be really difficult since that would drastically limit their catalog.
Chris, the position: fixed z-index issue is more widespread than you have there; I'm trying to come up with a case for reliable repro, but I just bumped into it a bit ago and had to redo some things to work around it. (full disclosure, I'm one of Chris's coworkers)
There's an "Automatically Add to iTunes" folder that'll do that, but it's still annoying to have to use one special folder instead of just pointing it at my regular download folder. I always forget that Apple added this. More here: http://lifehacker.com/5356619/itunes-finally-adds-watched-fo...
Right, which would be rendered pretty ineffective by Gatekeeper, now, at least for people that don't know about the launch-from-disk trick or other workarounds (basically, the same people that would potentially be vulnerable).
Gatekeeper's a small, small step that doesn't add much inconvenience to developers, but it does help a bit and I'm surprised at how long it's taken to arrive at something so basic & logical.
I'd be surprised that people would just turn that feature off pretty quickly after getting a new Mac. There are tons of application out there that aren't sign and aren't malware. People will come to view this feature like the annoying warning about bad SSL certs.
Hm, that's a good point: "warning fatigue" that users get. I hadn't thought about it from that point of view; I guess how fatiguing it is will really depend on how quickly developers in general get aboard the "sign your application" train, so I'd be curious to see the response from the legions of independent Mac software developers that aren't using the App Store for delivery.
Most people don't install tons of apps (and many of those who do use the App Store). It's hard for me to think of seeing that dialogue once a week as onerous and I bet the vast majority of people don't install more than one app a week.
Really? Because I can't, at all, and I'd rather not be proven wrong as I'd loathe it as much as you would (but it sounds like it's not like you'd upgrade anyway).
Nope, you'll be able to run it: "Finally, it’s important to note that because Gatekeeper uses the File Quarantine system, it only works the very first time you try to launch an app, and even then only when it’s been downloaded from an app on your Mac like a web browser or email program. And once an app has been launched once, it’s beyond the reach of Gatekeeper." (http://www.macworld.com/article/165408/2012/02/mountain_lion...)
Yeah, well, until that happens, this is great and I'm all for it. What a simple way to improve dealing with the open attack vector that is "the user being able to install their own software". I wish they had this flexibility on iOS.
I had a couple comments on Gruber's posting, but one of the things that really jumped out at me about this hands-on is the Notification Center trigger taking Spotlight's coveted top-right Fitt's Law trigger. Also, while I say "ew" to more skeuomorphism, I could see how things like are enjoyed by some users; not that it makes this type of UI "correct", but, whatever.
* The "Gatekeeper" concept is interesting, but I expect we'll hear a lot of grumbling about the default setting. We also all remember the concern about the App Store eventually becoming the only way to get software for your Mac; this will do little to allay that.
* Hopefully Launchpad will have some keyboard-based shortcuts, search-as-you-type (the way a Stack does), perhaps a separate/faster editing view than drap-and-drop, and other usability enhancements to make it more useful. I like it in concept, especially with the trackpad pinch shortcut, but not enough to keep using it once I got all of my programs installed.
* Whither new iWork?
* Some of the tweaks Gruber talks about really make logical sense, and I'm excited to see them. I hope that reliability & clarity hasn't suffered by the time of release; each release of OS X has seemed jam-packed with more "stuff" at the expense of much of that stuff's stability and polish, it seems.
* Gruber didn't mention a new Finder, so we're left to guess and find out in just a few days.
* I wonder who the other journalists are. This format for a press reveal of a product is... interesting, I guess, is the word I'd use right now.
Briefings like that aren't unusual ... just highly unusual for Apple. I've sat in dozens of similar ones unveiling new versions of hardware, software or services for both consumer and business. It offers less launch-day spectacle, but it also offers the chance for more thoughtful analysis that can still be coordinated with embargoes.
It is, of course, a very large departure for Apple, which generally doesn't even return calls from anyone but Pogue or the WSJ, and even then doesn't generally comment.
Right, I meant they're unusual for Big Fruit. And also, the period between this reveal and release this summer is equally unusual...
I'd say that the lag between announce & release is a little more worrisome and something that I wouldn't want to see become a trend at Apple. I've always felt that a big part of their press was their general tendency to release right at announcement of a product or soon thereafter. Though, now that I think about it, I guess their OS releases have, by necessity, had to have some lead time associated with them.
The lag time surprised me, too, but if you're going to tell your app developers they can no longer sell directly to their customers without jumping through a few hoops, you definitely at least want to give them a long head's up. I'd bet the trend of early preview windows correlates very strongly with how much it impacts developing on OS X.
