> It's one of, if not the, best UX chat message apps with so many features it's sort of mindblowing.
I'd go as far as saying it's by far the best. I have used the word unnerving to describe the fact it's so beyond the rest of the competition, yet free and without a viable business model.
I use Signal with friends and Matrix with other nerds.
I totally agree. And I can't understand why FB - a much wealthier corporation - can't fix numerous problems with its Messenger app. Sometimes the messages don't sync correctly, sometimes voice messages don't play, sometimes images are not loaded in high quality, the search sucks, removing a single message requires 3 taps!, etc. etc. None of these happened in tg for me, and yet, I don't know why more people aren't using it.
Given the open-source nature of tg, I would imagine someone would put together a Messenger client based on tg source code. I guess that would solve many problems with FB's own messenger.
It’s mind blowing how the app has had millions of users and massive development for years and it was all paid for by one billionaire’s personal funds without a plan to make the money back. It’s only being monetised now because it costs too much.
It goes too far for me. Every time I set it up I have to turn the background to white and turn off emojis that take up the entire window and wipe out all context. I actually prefer the simplicity of Signal's apps.
So much confusion. ProRAW is not raw because it stores demosaiced (not raw) data. ProRAW is good ole Linear DNG[1] and it has been around forever. However, it's very cool we now have real-time HDR merged linear captures. This has been possible post shot[2].
Lastly, I'm not sure why Apple chose to go with RAW (not raw), because that's how them n00bs spell it out. Raw is not an abbreviation.
The very term “raw format” is confusing. Having long since ceased to mean “unprocessed sensor data”, nowadays raw (or indeed the ever-shouting all-caps “RAW”) is primarily a marketing term used to denote lossily processed data left and right (ProRes RAW, BRAW, Sony’s “raw” .arw files that in fact come lossy from some cameras), causing much dismay to terminology purists or photography enthusiasts who want to work with the full range of values their camera is capable of capturing.
On the other hand, there is a definition for what constitutes scene-referred data.
ProRAW is scene-referred AFAIC. Un-demosaiced CMOS data is useless, and I am not holding my breath for any breakthroughs in demosaicing algorithms. As TFA stated, control over hardware gives Apple the opportunity to handle this stage better than what we are used to in the decoupled camera manufacturers vs. post-processing software developers world.
Unless there is more loss happening in addition to demosaicing, I am inclined to say this is on balance good stuff and good tidings for DNG format, although I wish Apple called it for what it is (i.e., DNG, not ProRAW).
That's why I didn't mention "raw format", only raw. :)
> Sony’s “raw” .arw files that in fact come lossy from some cameras
Yeah, had one of those. First gen ⍺7. To me raw denotes that data has not been demosaiced. But, as you note, mosaiced data can also be cooked and lossy compressed.
I'm not saying ProRAW (i.e. multi exposure linear DNG) is a bad thing. In fact, I've been waiting for something like this for years. The output from my Pixel cameras with their computational features like Night Sight has floored me. But still, there's almost no editing headroom in these overly contrasty JPEGs. The future is merged!
> nowadays raw (or indeed the ever-shouting all-caps “RAW”) is primarily a marketing term used to denote lossily processed data left and right (ProRes RAW, BRAW, Sony’s “raw” .arw files that in fact come lossy from some cameras)
That does happen but I don't agree that it's "primarily" used that way. Canon and Nikon are still dominant and still use it to refer to uncompressed raw images.
My exposure to this issue was mostly through mirrorless cameras (where Sony has been huge) and raw video capture formats (I almost got a BMPCC this year, but at the last moment found out that they have entirely dropped support for CinemaDNG and replaced it with compressed BRAW).
I was not at all expecting raw capture to mean something else here compared to DSLR world, so I guess my disappointment shows.
Early digital cameras still had RAW files, if anything they were more important since the onboard chips for synthesizing JPGs weren't very powerful.
At the time, portable storage like Compact Flash or Sony Memory Stick was often formated in good ol' FAT32, so 8.3 file names using only capital letters was a longstanding convention.
They were .RAW files, not .raw, in other words, and frequently enough, still are.
It makes a lot more sense if you say it as upper case every time you say it out loud. "I shoot in raw format" vs "I shoot in RAW format!!" It makes the conversation more interesting.
I run Lineage without gapps or MicroG. Lots of apps throw a waning saying they don't work without GSF, but really they all do. Banking is fine. I run proprietary apps in an isolated Shelter work profile.
Fun fact: the reason that Swedish dance bands[1] dressed so f*ed up is that there was a tax deduction for stage clothes that could obviously not be worn off stage.
> What surprised me was how many extremely obscure sites came up before ones that get hit tens of thousands of times a day.
What a BLESSING! All I ever find on Google/Startpage/Bing/DDG is last weeks product listings, sponsored reviews and influencer "content". Let's embrace randomness!
EDIT: i just managed to find some serialz (for the lulz). Almost like the old days. What a blast!
I'd go as far as saying it's by far the best. I have used the word unnerving to describe the fact it's so beyond the rest of the competition, yet free and without a viable business model.
I use Signal with friends and Matrix with other nerds.