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All Things Apple (was MacBook Air, but things evolve...)
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
It’s usually good practice to be a little patient in upgrading to new MacOS versions. MacOS Monterey 12.0.1 has been out for about a month, but it had a few rough edges, as they usually do, and so it’s often worthwhile to wait a little until other people have tried it out and software incompatibilities have been shaken out of the whole.
Now today I noticed that last Monday the 12.1 update was released and I decided to take the plunge on my iMac. The download and preparation process took a little while, it’s a 12.13 gb file, but I spent the last fifteen minutes watching the installer do it’s thing, and in the end it booted with no problems. So now I’m reading the Ars Technica review on everything that’s new, lots of small improvements.
I think it’s a good thing that after the major update that was MacOS Big Sur they’ve decided to do a polish update which fixes a lot of small things.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
That said, macOS Monterey does seem to have introduced a few problems which were not there in Big Sur, and which haven’t been fixed in the 12.1 update. If you don’t need the new features you might well be advised to wait a little longer.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
edited December 2021
@Jeroen said:
Hmm, my mother is contemplating buying either a 24” iMac similar to mine above, or a 16” MacBook Pro.
It looks like it’s going to be the 16” MacBook Pro, although when is another question. It’s quite a lot of money and she wants Apple to migrate the data off her old 21.5” iMac (2011), so the Apple Store needs to be open, she has to be able to visit, and so on.
I checked whether the Migration Assistant, an OS utility, would be able to handle moving everything across different macOS revisions and systems, but it should be fine. I could do the migration for her but she also wants to trade in the old iMac, so it makes sense to do it at the same time.
And it looks like she will get back a whole €30 for her old machine, which is completely functional and in good shape. It’s a pittance but for a 10-year-old computer you generally don’t get much. I checked eBay, those machines go for about 150 USD, once you factor in all the trouble it’s just not worth it to sell it yourself.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
edited January 2022
A short film for the Chinese New Year, made entirely with iPhone 13 Pro’s.
I saw this with a little anecdote about how Steven Spielberg when he was 12 borrowed his dad’s Super 8 camera and got his friends to help him make his first short film, titled The Last Gunfight. It makes you wonder how many other budding film makers are out there with their mother’s iPhone.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
@Jeroen said:
And it looks like she will get back a whole €30 for her old machine, which is completely functional and in good shape. It’s a pittance but for a 10-year-old computer you generally don’t get much. I checked eBay, those machines go for about 150 USD, once you factor in all the trouble it’s just not worth it to sell it yourself.
It’s interesting, there seems to be a healthy market for “upgraded” second hand machines. These are older iMacs and Mac Minis which have had one careful owner, often a decade old and were then picked up by someone with technical knowledge, who installed a new SSD drive and possibly a faster CPU. These machines are then resold on eBay or Craigslist or other places, for a good 300 USD more than the original.
There are significant downsides to buying a machine like that, for example no warranty, no operating system updates, and the possibility of a breakdown in the older components. But it is a cheap way of having a Mac which feels relatively smooth and quick. Usually the sellers clearly label what it is and why it is the price it is.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
edited January 2022
It seems there is a US website called decluttr which specialises in this kind of refurbished technology, and even offers a 12-month warranty.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
From the news there was a piece about Apple making a deal for Imagination’s latest graphics technology called CXT, which will allow them to bring raytracing hardware to the graphics pipeline in their products in a power efficient way. It would be kind of cool to have an iPhone doing fully raytraced games. Apparently the deal was signed in January 2021, so we might see it in products quite soon.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
I think my iPad is starting to suffer from the dreaded touch-disease, which is when the touchscreen starts to operate inconsistently and has dead areas. Sometimes its good, and sometimes I am left wiggling my fingers ineffectually against its unresponsive glass surface.
It has had a good run, from 2015 to today…
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
There’s rumoured to be an Apple Event coming on 8th March, on which they will announce new products, upgrade others and maybe kill off some things. So now is not really a good time to buy, if the event is then it will be announced a week in advance.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
Another film by a talented director and cast shot entirely with iPhone 13 Pro as cameras…
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
@Jeroen said:
There’s rumoured to be an Apple Event coming on 8th March, on which they will announce new products, upgrade others and maybe kill off some things. So now is not really a good time to buy, if the event is then it will be announced a week in advance.
No Apple Event on the 8th it seems, contrary to early reports. If you're interested in keeping up with the rumour mill I'd recommend MacRumors.com, I'm going to post just the essentials here, such as when an Apple Event has happened.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
@Jeroen said:
I think my iPad is starting to suffer from the dreaded touch-disease, which is when the touchscreen starts to operate inconsistently and has dead areas. Sometimes its good, and sometimes I am left wiggling my fingers ineffectually against its unresponsive glass surface.
It has had a good run, from 2015 to today…
It seems to be getting worse. I had hoped it was just the cold temperatures, but that hope is slowly fading. I'm left considering a side grade to a base 10.2" iPad (which has the advantage that it is cheap) or upgrading my laptop and iPad Pro in one by buying a new MacBook Air (which would enable me to do more).
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
@Jeroen said:
There’s rumoured to be an Apple Event coming on 8th March, on which they will announce new products, upgrade others and maybe kill off some things. So now is not really a good time to buy, if the event is then it will be announced a week in advance.
No Apple Event on the 8th it seems, contrary to early reports. If you're interested in keeping up with the rumour mill I'd recommend MacRumors.com, I'm going to post just the essentials here, such as when an Apple Event has happened.
Sigh, there is an Apple Event on the 8th of March after all, they were just a day late in announcing it, Wednesday instead of Tuesday. Anyway, that's the last time I'll pre-announce one of these things.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
So, an M1-based iPad Air, which joins the Pro iPads in using the Mac chip. Also a 27” 5K Studio Display which integrates speakers, microphones and camera, and a Studio Mac which can be configured with an M1 Ultra option for a powerful 20-core workstation CPU. Nice, but not cheap. I don’t think you’re going to want to buy these unless you actually are a professional in need of them.
They did say the last Mac to be transitioned will be the Mac Pro later in the year, so presumably that means the Studio Mac takes the place of the iMac Pro and the 27” iMac in the lineup. It kind of makes sense that since people will be replacing the Studio Mac more often with new models because its all integrated that it and the display are two separate items.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
edited March 2022
There are some initial benchmarks in for the M1 Ultra, and there are some interesting conclusions one can draw. The Geekbench multi core result for the M1 Ultra was around 24000, a result that is only beaten by AMD’s high-end Threadripper 3990X which scores 25000. Now the Threadripper has 64 cores, compared to the M1 Ultra which has 16 high-performance cores and 4 smaller high-efficiency cores.
So I asked a chip designer friend, why the dramatically better scaling in the Apple chip? It turns out that as you put significant workload on all the cores in a Threadripper (or any high-end x86 chip for that matter), the thermals are such that you have to underclock the cores otherwise the thing would melt. So you get less work done in each core and the overall score goes down.
Apple in developing the M1 architecture have focussed on performance per watt, trying to extract the maximum performance per unit of electricity. This means a very efficient, low-temperature architecture—and many fewer problems when scaling up to many cores under load. It means Apple have what is called an “architectural advantage” in creating chips going forward.
Note that a Threadripper 3990X also costs about 8000 USD, so seen in context perhaps the Studio Mac is not so very expensive for what you get.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
A decent review of the new Mac Studio:
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
There are some noises that the build quality on the new M1 iPad Air is a bit substandard, with some flex in the backplate, so best try before you buy, and maybe avoid altogether.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
Still some interesting discussion and price comparisons going on, mostly coming from people interested in upgrading to a cheaper-and-lower-spec 27” iMac. Someone cited this presentation from Steve Jobs on why Apple should have a range of iMacs…
It seems the option Apple left open was pairing a 27” Studio Display with an M1 Mac Mini, but this still leaves you buying 3200 euros worth of gear, and 3200 euros buys you an awfully big PC. Its not exactly a best-in-class solution, though it is 500 euros cheaper than the base Mac Studio.
The feedback on the net has been that people are basically finding the Studio Display too expensive for what it is, and that paints you into a corner as far as getting value for money is concerned. The 24” M1 iMac is a better value proposition.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
@Jeroen said:
I'm left considering a side grade to a base 10.2" iPad (which has the advantage that it is cheap) or upgrading my laptop and iPad Pro in one by buying a new MacBook Air (which would enable me to do more).
It seems quite a few people are making this consideration. iPad Pro is quite expensive, and for the same money you could get an M1 MacBook Air, which has about the same battery life, weighs close to the same, is powered by the same chip, but has a keyboard and trackpad built in and runs Mac OS which is a lot more versatile.
My iPad Pro seems to have recovered a little, so the question is no longer urgent. Maybe an M2 or M3 device might suit me well.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
Apple this week announced that its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is returning June 6 through June 10. For the third consecutive year, the event will take place in an online format, but a limited number of developers will be able to apply to attend an in-person viewing party for the Keynote and State of the Union videos at Apple Park.
As usual, expect Apple to unveil its latest software platforms, including iOS 16 for the iPhone, iPadOS 16 for the iPad, macOS 13 for the Mac, watchOS 9 for the Apple Watch, and tvOS 16 for the Apple TV. Hardware announcements sometimes occur at WWDC too, with rumors suggesting that a new Mac Pro with Apple silicon may be previewed this year.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
This short video about the role of the Mac in creating movie sound was released in honour of Star Wars Day.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
edited May 2022
This story came out a few days ago, providing a look into Apple’s work on the as-yet unannounced virtual-reality and augmented-reality glasses. It’s not often that we see this kind of detailed expose of products which are still being worked on. The glasses will probably come out in 2023.
I had been limping along on a 2010 iMac, but it developed some kind of a screen problem last year. The IT guy who makes house calls in this region transplanted all the data to a 2012 Mac Mini to get me through. I've been watching the news about the new plexiglass-top Mac Mini, waiting for its release to buy one. Now apparently it isn't being introduced until next year, so I'll probably just get one of the current ones.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
Are you going to buy an M1 Mac Mini or an Intel one? The M1 will probably get longer software support and is likely to be quite a bit quicker, although it doesn’t support 32 GB of ram.
I think the M1s are less expensive. I'm not a power user, and I tend to keep computer things a very very long time, so that seems to be the best bet among the two. I have my current one plugged into a 30" cinema screen, and I'm thinking my keyboard and trackpad, speakers, etc, should all transfer over. I was just looking at one online, and I'm surprised to see how few USB ports it has.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
If you are considering getting a USB dock to firm up the selection of ports, it might be worthwhile to have a sniff around various Mac forums first, I’ve heard some people have had trouble with docs.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
edited June 2022
So from the WWDC yesterday, iOS16 will have a bunch of new features, probably the most significant of which is a reworked Lock Screen which is customisable and shows more info. Also the new collaboration features stood out. On MacOS Ventura (13) there will be a new way to do multitasking, called Stage Manager, which will also come to the iPad. Better support for family sharing, kid’s devices and so on. Lots of small changes. Also M2 MacBook Air and 13” MacBook Pro announced.
Here is the full 1 hr 48 min keynote video:
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
I just wanted to mention, my dad was recommended by his cardiologist to get an Apple Watch. He had a Xiaomi Band 5 which he used to track his heartrate but he was told it’s terribly inaccurate. So he got an Apple Watch Series 7, and the day after he first put it on it told him it detected an anomalous heartrate and he should call his doctor. He didn’t feel well and his girlfriend was just at her mother’s funeral and he didn’t want to interfere with that, but when he did finally call the doctor several hours later they got him an ambulance to take him straight to the hospital. It turned out all right, after several days of observation and adjusting his heart meds they released him again.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
edited June 2022
A neat new feature in iOS15 is ‘visual look up’, it allows you to identify plants, buildings and art from their appearance. Just take a picture and if the AI finds something it will show up in the information panel of the picture. It’s not perfect — it misidentified the frost-covered lavender in one of my pictures as white sage — but its right often enough to be useful.
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
edited June 2022
One discussion which it is good to take note of is the rate at which Intel Macs are being retired from support. MacOS Ventura only supports 2017 and later MacBook Pro’s and iMacs I believe, which means only 5 years of support, and that’s a couple of years less than usual. If this keeps going in this way, we might see the last MacOS to support any Intel Macs in just 1-2 years time.
That doesn’t mean these Macs immediately become useless. They will keep getting security patches for a couple of years, and then there is an extended period where everything keeps working, until eventually the security certificates on the browser are retired, and then you have to install a new browser. And so on. The real problem is security from malware and viruses, which stops being up to date.
So if you have any older Intel Macs, it’s a good idea to be aware they won’t last forever.
JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
Just a quick note…
Pages, Numbers, Keynote, Mail, Calender, Contacts = free (on a Mac)
Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook = €299 (on a PC)
And there’s more good Apple-supplied software on Mac, like Garageband, iMovie, Music and TV. All free extra’s. Soon Freeform coming too.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
There is a small controversy over SSD speeds in the new M2 laptops compared to the M1 models. Apparently Apple used a single 256 GB NAND storage chip in the M2 base spec devices, which has as a practical result that the read/write speed is halved if you buy a machine with only 256 GB of storage. This matters when the device is under heavy load and is swapping ram to disk, and also of course when reading or writing large files. So something to beware of when buying one of these laptops, it may be worth your while to buy the storage upgrade to 512 GB.
Another thing is that the M2 MacBook Air is fanless, and will thermal-throttle under sustained load. This means it may slow by as much as 30% if you use it to do a 30-minute transcode of 4K to 8K video or something like that. Are you likely to do that kind of task on a MBA? Probably not, but its good to know.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
There was an Apple Event on the 7th of September which announced the iPhone 14, Apple Watch Series 8 and Apple Watch Ultra, and the Airpods Pro 2nd gen. There were a lot of small hardware tweaks and features in the lineup, probably the most significant was the new 48 Megapixel sensor in the iPhone 14 Pro models, and the removal of the Mini-size phone.
Also its interesting that the new A16 system-on-a-chip is limited to just the Pro phones, while the non-pro phones ship with the A15. Also in the US models there is no more physical Sim tray, it all relies on eSims now.
Here is the presentation…
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
Also something you may be interested in, the Steve Jobs Archive, a website and presentation meant to inspire and uplift, with various moments from Steve Jobs’ life and career.
You know Jeroen, I was considering an iPad for studying / basic purposes, but at the end I've settled with a Samsung S6 Lite for budget reasons. Can't wait to report back and see if I'm happy about changing Apple for Samsung.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
Samsung probably makes the best Android hardware, it is true, and there are occasional very good deals to be found on Samsung tablets and phones. I think you made a better choice than my father, who bought a Chinese tablet. You’ll have to let us know how it goes.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
Pages, Numbers, Keynote, Mail, Calender, Contacts = free (on a Mac)
Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook = €299 (on a PC)
And there’s more good Apple-supplied software on Mac, like Garageband, iMovie, Music and TV. All free extra’s. Soon Freeform coming too.
I’ve been looking a little more deeply into all the software that you get for free with a Mac. If you look at all the stuff you’re expected to pay a subscription for these days, like Keychain on the Mac, a decent cross-device, Cloud-backed password manager will set you back 5 euro a month, which is 60 euro’s a year, which is 600 euro’s over the roughly 10-year lifetime of a Mac.
You also get Notes, which is a cross-device, Cloud-backed multimedia notes service, for which you have to pay a similar amount. And Photos. And Find My. Altogether there is several thousand euro’s of free software that you get when you move to Mac, which more than offsets the greater expense of buying the hardware. And you get free updates to this software.
Whats the catch? Well, most of this software is elegant and minimalist, so it is capable but doesn’t provide the over-abundance of features that the leading mature commercial products do. You might find that if you’re a heavy user, it doesn’t do everything you want. It also only works within the Apple ecosystem, none of it has PC or Android clients.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
Austin Mann’s iPhone 14 Pro camera review from Scotland:
@Jeroen said:
Hmm, my mother is contemplating buying either a 24” iMac similar to mine above, or a 16” MacBook Pro.
It looks like it’s going to be the 16” MacBook Pro, although when is another question. It’s quite a lot of money and she wants Apple to migrate the data off her old 21.5” iMac (2011), so the Apple Store needs to be open, she has to be able visit, and so on.
My mother has finally done the deed, last month she bought a shiny new 16” MacBook Pro with M1 Pro, 16 GB ram and 1 TB SSD. She bought from Coolblue, a large Dutch webshop which has physical stores across the country too, and paid about 500 euros less than the Apple Store price. Way to go mom.
Right now you can get very good deals on the 16” and 14” MacBook Pro’s, because of the imminent release of the M2-powered new models. These are expected to be about 20% faster, but not otherwise that different, which means that the discounted M1 models are rather good value for money. Amazon in the USA was offering about 800 dollars total discount from the Apple Store price on all models, for example.
Delicious purchases. I'm still trying my mother to step away from the cheap all-in-one computers with screens because they are dreadful...schrecklich nutzlose sch...!
I'm still waiting for my tablet....slow delivery is one of the things you have to get used to when living in the Canary Islands...!
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
edited October 2022
@Kotishka said:
I'm still trying my mother to step away from the cheap all-in-one computers with screens because they are dreadful...schrecklich nutzlose sch...!
Cheap PC all-in-one’s are terrible because they cut so many corners. On an iMac you get a good screen, good speakers, good microphones, a good webcam… the last time I looked at a cheap Hewlett Packard all-in-one it was terrible at everything. And Windows. Life is too short.
@Kotishka said:
I'm still waiting for my tablet....slow delivery is one of the things you have to get used to when living in the Canary Islands...!
Ah but the sweet, sweet feeling when it arrives. Still a month for delivery really is a long time!
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
I’ve donated my old 13” MacBook Air (2011) to an ex-girlfriend, who wanted to use it to play music in the room where she does her painting. So it has gone to a good home and will have a useful life as an audio player.
Exactly. Also the brand is Hewlett haha. I told them to PLEASE ask me before making these wild purchases because the salesman always sells them the idea of "you don't need a screen, all-in-one" and it is a rip-off!
Regarding old Macbooks, my MB 2010 has a broken motherboard as you know. What is the best I could do? Donate it? Sell it for parts? It is in Ukraine and I thought they could try and savage it for some money to at least cover the firewood costs.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
@Kotishka said:
I told them to PLEASE ask me before making these wild purchases because the salesman always sells them the idea of "you don't need a screen, all-in-one" and it is a rip-off!
Yeah I know. But it’s really tricky to convince older people to take good advice. My father was going to buy a new tv, and I told him, buy Samsung or LG. So he goes and buys a Philips, and I tell him, my experience with Philips is that they leave too many software bugs in the implementation. Now six months later he is suffering from software bugs.
Regarding old Macbooks, my MB 2010 has a broken motherboard as you know. What is the best I could do? Donate it? Sell it for parts? It is in Ukraine and I thought they could try and salvage it for some money to at least cover the firewood costs.
Selling it for parts (on eBay) will at least give you a few euro’s. There are local computer shops who buy them up and then cobble together all the working parts, to create a refurbished machine. Otherwise you could return it to Apple for recycling and get a minimal amount.
I think I have a question similar to Jeroen's original one (but I"m not sure, because I don't know what "out of support" means). I'm wondering if anyone can recommend good virus/malware protection for Macs. I subscribed to such a service that was just for Macs years ago, but that was on a different Mac, and I don't remember the name of it anymore.
But I recently got a message. that I picked up some malware somewhere on the internet and need to clean that up. What product do you recommend that could do a good job of cleaning up the issues I have, and providing protection against future issues?
Mine also is a MacBookAir. They're great for traveling! They fit in a small backpack or large handbag.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
edited October 2022
“Out of support” has several meanings, first it means that you can no longer install new operating system versions. Older operating systems receive security updates for a few years and are then retired. My old 2011 MacBook Air was stuck on MacOS High Sierra, which stopped getting any new security patches a few years ago.
Older mac systems are put on Vintage and Obsolete lists when Apple no longer makes parts for them, which is usually around the time they go out of support. Generally you can expect a Mac to have a lifetime of about 10 years, including the tail when you’re no longer getting new OS versions but still have an OS that is getting security patches.
For antivirus I’ve heard good things about Malwarebytes, which has a free version which you can install and run to clean a Mac. They also sell a version which runs continuously on your Mac and protects it.
I have the free version of Malwarebytes, but it doesn't protect me from malware. It only notifies me when I have a malware issue.
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
You can use the free version of Malwarebytes to run a scan and remove malware. But any apps that provide full-time protection against virusses are subscription, paid-for affairs. There are a number of these.
The Mac does include a default antivirus, I heard it was called Gatekeeper and that it’s not bad.
@Jeroen said:
You can use the free version of Malwarebytes to run a scan and remove malware. But any apps that provide full-time protection against virusses are subscription, paid-for affairs. There are a number of these.
The Mac does include a default antivirus, I heard it was called Gatekeeper and that it’s not bad.
How do I use Malwarebytes to remove malware? When it runs a scan, all it does is try to get me to buy their Premium service.
And how to I find and use Gatekeeper?
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JeroenLuminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlandsVeteran
Gatekeeper does its thing automatically. I thought Malwarebytes presented a Remove button when it found something it recognised? But its been quite a few years since I used it last. You could try AVG Free?
Comments
It’s usually good practice to be a little patient in upgrading to new MacOS versions. MacOS Monterey 12.0.1 has been out for about a month, but it had a few rough edges, as they usually do, and so it’s often worthwhile to wait a little until other people have tried it out and software incompatibilities have been shaken out of the whole.
Now today I noticed that last Monday the 12.1 update was released and I decided to take the plunge on my iMac. The download and preparation process took a little while, it’s a 12.13 gb file, but I spent the last fifteen minutes watching the installer do it’s thing, and in the end it booted with no problems. So now I’m reading the Ars Technica review on everything that’s new, lots of small improvements.
I think it’s a good thing that after the major update that was MacOS Big Sur they’ve decided to do a polish update which fixes a lot of small things.
That said, macOS Monterey does seem to have introduced a few problems which were not there in Big Sur, and which haven’t been fixed in the 12.1 update. If you don’t need the new features you might well be advised to wait a little longer.
It looks like it’s going to be the 16” MacBook Pro, although when is another question. It’s quite a lot of money and she wants Apple to migrate the data off her old 21.5” iMac (2011), so the Apple Store needs to be open, she has to be able to visit, and so on.
I checked whether the Migration Assistant, an OS utility, would be able to handle moving everything across different macOS revisions and systems, but it should be fine. I could do the migration for her but she also wants to trade in the old iMac, so it makes sense to do it at the same time.
And it looks like she will get back a whole €30 for her old machine, which is completely functional and in good shape. It’s a pittance but for a 10-year-old computer you generally don’t get much. I checked eBay, those machines go for about 150 USD, once you factor in all the trouble it’s just not worth it to sell it yourself.
A short film for the Chinese New Year, made entirely with iPhone 13 Pro’s.
I saw this with a little anecdote about how Steven Spielberg when he was 12 borrowed his dad’s Super 8 camera and got his friends to help him make his first short film, titled The Last Gunfight. It makes you wonder how many other budding film makers are out there with their mother’s iPhone.
It’s interesting, there seems to be a healthy market for “upgraded” second hand machines. These are older iMacs and Mac Minis which have had one careful owner, often a decade old and were then picked up by someone with technical knowledge, who installed a new SSD drive and possibly a faster CPU. These machines are then resold on eBay or Craigslist or other places, for a good 300 USD more than the original.
There are significant downsides to buying a machine like that, for example no warranty, no operating system updates, and the possibility of a breakdown in the older components. But it is a cheap way of having a Mac which feels relatively smooth and quick. Usually the sellers clearly label what it is and why it is the price it is.
It seems there is a US website called decluttr which specialises in this kind of refurbished technology, and even offers a 12-month warranty.
From the news there was a piece about Apple making a deal for Imagination’s latest graphics technology called CXT, which will allow them to bring raytracing hardware to the graphics pipeline in their products in a power efficient way. It would be kind of cool to have an iPhone doing fully raytraced games. Apparently the deal was signed in January 2021, so we might see it in products quite soon.
I think my iPad is starting to suffer from the dreaded touch-disease, which is when the touchscreen starts to operate inconsistently and has dead areas. Sometimes its good, and sometimes I am left wiggling my fingers ineffectually against its unresponsive glass surface.
It has had a good run, from 2015 to today…
There’s rumoured to be an Apple Event coming on 8th March, on which they will announce new products, upgrade others and maybe kill off some things. So now is not really a good time to buy, if the event is then it will be announced a week in advance.
Another film by a talented director and cast shot entirely with iPhone 13 Pro as cameras…
No Apple Event on the 8th it seems, contrary to early reports. If you're interested in keeping up with the rumour mill I'd recommend MacRumors.com, I'm going to post just the essentials here, such as when an Apple Event has happened.
It seems to be getting worse. I had hoped it was just the cold temperatures, but that hope is slowly fading. I'm left considering a side grade to a base 10.2" iPad (which has the advantage that it is cheap) or upgrading my laptop and iPad Pro in one by buying a new MacBook Air (which would enable me to do more).
Sigh, there is an Apple Event on the 8th of March after all, they were just a day late in announcing it, Wednesday instead of Tuesday. Anyway, that's the last time I'll pre-announce one of these things.
So, an M1-based iPad Air, which joins the Pro iPads in using the Mac chip. Also a 27” 5K Studio Display which integrates speakers, microphones and camera, and a Studio Mac which can be configured with an M1 Ultra option for a powerful 20-core workstation CPU. Nice, but not cheap. I don’t think you’re going to want to buy these unless you actually are a professional in need of them.
They did say the last Mac to be transitioned will be the Mac Pro later in the year, so presumably that means the Studio Mac takes the place of the iMac Pro and the 27” iMac in the lineup. It kind of makes sense that since people will be replacing the Studio Mac more often with new models because its all integrated that it and the display are two separate items.
There are some initial benchmarks in for the M1 Ultra, and there are some interesting conclusions one can draw. The Geekbench multi core result for the M1 Ultra was around 24000, a result that is only beaten by AMD’s high-end Threadripper 3990X which scores 25000. Now the Threadripper has 64 cores, compared to the M1 Ultra which has 16 high-performance cores and 4 smaller high-efficiency cores.
So I asked a chip designer friend, why the dramatically better scaling in the Apple chip? It turns out that as you put significant workload on all the cores in a Threadripper (or any high-end x86 chip for that matter), the thermals are such that you have to underclock the cores otherwise the thing would melt. So you get less work done in each core and the overall score goes down.
Apple in developing the M1 architecture have focussed on performance per watt, trying to extract the maximum performance per unit of electricity. This means a very efficient, low-temperature architecture—and many fewer problems when scaling up to many cores under load. It means Apple have what is called an “architectural advantage” in creating chips going forward.
Note that a Threadripper 3990X also costs about 8000 USD, so seen in context perhaps the Studio Mac is not so very expensive for what you get.
A decent review of the new Mac Studio:
There are some noises that the build quality on the new M1 iPad Air is a bit substandard, with some flex in the backplate, so best try before you buy, and maybe avoid altogether.
Still some interesting discussion and price comparisons going on, mostly coming from people interested in upgrading to a cheaper-and-lower-spec 27” iMac. Someone cited this presentation from Steve Jobs on why Apple should have a range of iMacs…
It seems the option Apple left open was pairing a 27” Studio Display with an M1 Mac Mini, but this still leaves you buying 3200 euros worth of gear, and 3200 euros buys you an awfully big PC. Its not exactly a best-in-class solution, though it is 500 euros cheaper than the base Mac Studio.
The feedback on the net has been that people are basically finding the Studio Display too expensive for what it is, and that paints you into a corner as far as getting value for money is concerned. The 24” M1 iMac is a better value proposition.
It seems quite a few people are making this consideration. iPad Pro is quite expensive, and for the same money you could get an M1 MacBook Air, which has about the same battery life, weighs close to the same, is powered by the same chip, but has a keyboard and trackpad built in and runs Mac OS which is a lot more versatile.
My iPad Pro seems to have recovered a little, so the question is no longer urgent. Maybe an M2 or M3 device might suit me well.
Apple this week announced that its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is returning June 6 through June 10. For the third consecutive year, the event will take place in an online format, but a limited number of developers will be able to apply to attend an in-person viewing party for the Keynote and State of the Union videos at Apple Park.
As usual, expect Apple to unveil its latest software platforms, including iOS 16 for the iPhone, iPadOS 16 for the iPad, macOS 13 for the Mac, watchOS 9 for the Apple Watch, and tvOS 16 for the Apple TV. Hardware announcements sometimes occur at WWDC too, with rumors suggesting that a new Mac Pro with Apple silicon may be previewed this year.
This short video about the role of the Mac in creating movie sound was released in honour of Star Wars Day.
This story came out a few days ago, providing a look into Apple’s work on the as-yet unannounced virtual-reality and augmented-reality glasses. It’s not often that we see this kind of detailed expose of products which are still being worked on. The glasses will probably come out in 2023.
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/the-inside-story-of-why-apple-bet-big-on-a-mixed-reality-headset
Or if the paywall is a problem here is a link to The Verge’s story
https://www.theverge.com/2022/5/20/23133038/apple-mixed-virtual-augmented-reality-ar-vr-headset-self-contained-device
I had been limping along on a 2010 iMac, but it developed some kind of a screen problem last year. The IT guy who makes house calls in this region transplanted all the data to a 2012 Mac Mini to get me through. I've been watching the news about the new plexiglass-top Mac Mini, waiting for its release to buy one. Now apparently it isn't being introduced until next year, so I'll probably just get one of the current ones.
Are you going to buy an M1 Mac Mini or an Intel one? The M1 will probably get longer software support and is likely to be quite a bit quicker, although it doesn’t support 32 GB of ram.
I think the M1s are less expensive. I'm not a power user, and I tend to keep computer things a very very long time, so that seems to be the best bet among the two. I have my current one plugged into a 30" cinema screen, and I'm thinking my keyboard and trackpad, speakers, etc, should all transfer over. I was just looking at one online, and I'm surprised to see how few USB ports it has.
If you are considering getting a USB dock to firm up the selection of ports, it might be worthwhile to have a sniff around various Mac forums first, I’ve heard some people have had trouble with docs.
So from the WWDC yesterday, iOS16 will have a bunch of new features, probably the most significant of which is a reworked Lock Screen which is customisable and shows more info. Also the new collaboration features stood out. On MacOS Ventura (13) there will be a new way to do multitasking, called Stage Manager, which will also come to the iPad. Better support for family sharing, kid’s devices and so on. Lots of small changes. Also M2 MacBook Air and 13” MacBook Pro announced.
Here is the full 1 hr 48 min keynote video:
I just wanted to mention, my dad was recommended by his cardiologist to get an Apple Watch. He had a Xiaomi Band 5 which he used to track his heartrate but he was told it’s terribly inaccurate. So he got an Apple Watch Series 7, and the day after he first put it on it told him it detected an anomalous heartrate and he should call his doctor. He didn’t feel well and his girlfriend was just at her mother’s funeral and he didn’t want to interfere with that, but when he did finally call the doctor several hours later they got him an ambulance to take him straight to the hospital. It turned out all right, after several days of observation and adjusting his heart meds they released him again.
A neat new feature in iOS15 is ‘visual look up’, it allows you to identify plants, buildings and art from their appearance. Just take a picture and if the AI finds something it will show up in the information panel of the picture. It’s not perfect — it misidentified the frost-covered lavender in one of my pictures as white sage — but its right often enough to be useful.
https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/21/23176561/iphone-identify-flowers-plants-art-landmarks-more-how-to-ios-15-camera-app-visual-look-up
One discussion which it is good to take note of is the rate at which Intel Macs are being retired from support. MacOS Ventura only supports 2017 and later MacBook Pro’s and iMacs I believe, which means only 5 years of support, and that’s a couple of years less than usual. If this keeps going in this way, we might see the last MacOS to support any Intel Macs in just 1-2 years time.
That doesn’t mean these Macs immediately become useless. They will keep getting security patches for a couple of years, and then there is an extended period where everything keeps working, until eventually the security certificates on the browser are retired, and then you have to install a new browser. And so on. The real problem is security from malware and viruses, which stops being up to date.
So if you have any older Intel Macs, it’s a good idea to be aware they won’t last forever.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macos-ventura-drops-support-for-older-macs-works-with-2017-and-later-machines.2346922/
Just a quick note…
Pages, Numbers, Keynote, Mail, Calender, Contacts = free (on a Mac)
Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook = €299 (on a PC)
And there’s more good Apple-supplied software on Mac, like Garageband, iMovie, Music and TV. All free extra’s. Soon Freeform coming too.
There is a small controversy over SSD speeds in the new M2 laptops compared to the M1 models. Apparently Apple used a single 256 GB NAND storage chip in the M2 base spec devices, which has as a practical result that the read/write speed is halved if you buy a machine with only 256 GB of storage. This matters when the device is under heavy load and is swapping ram to disk, and also of course when reading or writing large files. So something to beware of when buying one of these laptops, it may be worth your while to buy the storage upgrade to 512 GB.
Another thing is that the M2 MacBook Air is fanless, and will thermal-throttle under sustained load. This means it may slow by as much as 30% if you use it to do a 30-minute transcode of 4K to 8K video or something like that. Are you likely to do that kind of task on a MBA? Probably not, but its good to know.
There was an Apple Event on the 7th of September which announced the iPhone 14, Apple Watch Series 8 and Apple Watch Ultra, and the Airpods Pro 2nd gen. There were a lot of small hardware tweaks and features in the lineup, probably the most significant was the new 48 Megapixel sensor in the iPhone 14 Pro models, and the removal of the Mini-size phone.
Also its interesting that the new A16 system-on-a-chip is limited to just the Pro phones, while the non-pro phones ship with the A15. Also in the US models there is no more physical Sim tray, it all relies on eSims now.
Here is the presentation…
Also something you may be interested in, the Steve Jobs Archive, a website and presentation meant to inspire and uplift, with various moments from Steve Jobs’ life and career.
https://stevejobsarchive.com/
You know Jeroen, I was considering an iPad for studying / basic purposes, but at the end I've settled with a Samsung S6 Lite for budget reasons. Can't wait to report back and see if I'm happy about changing Apple for Samsung.
Samsung probably makes the best Android hardware, it is true, and there are occasional very good deals to be found on Samsung tablets and phones. I think you made a better choice than my father, who bought a Chinese tablet. You’ll have to let us know how it goes.
I’ve been looking a little more deeply into all the software that you get for free with a Mac. If you look at all the stuff you’re expected to pay a subscription for these days, like Keychain on the Mac, a decent cross-device, Cloud-backed password manager will set you back 5 euro a month, which is 60 euro’s a year, which is 600 euro’s over the roughly 10-year lifetime of a Mac.
You also get Notes, which is a cross-device, Cloud-backed multimedia notes service, for which you have to pay a similar amount. And Photos. And Find My. Altogether there is several thousand euro’s of free software that you get when you move to Mac, which more than offsets the greater expense of buying the hardware. And you get free updates to this software.
Whats the catch? Well, most of this software is elegant and minimalist, so it is capable but doesn’t provide the over-abundance of features that the leading mature commercial products do. You might find that if you’re a heavy user, it doesn’t do everything you want. It also only works within the Apple ecosystem, none of it has PC or Android clients.
Austin Mann’s iPhone 14 Pro camera review from Scotland:
https://www.austinmann.com/trek/iphone-14-pro-camera-review-scotland
My mother has finally done the deed, last month she bought a shiny new 16” MacBook Pro with M1 Pro, 16 GB ram and 1 TB SSD. She bought from Coolblue, a large Dutch webshop which has physical stores across the country too, and paid about 500 euros less than the Apple Store price. Way to go mom.
Right now you can get very good deals on the 16” and 14” MacBook Pro’s, because of the imminent release of the M2-powered new models. These are expected to be about 20% faster, but not otherwise that different, which means that the discounted M1 models are rather good value for money. Amazon in the USA was offering about 800 dollars total discount from the Apple Store price on all models, for example.
Delicious purchases. I'm still trying my mother to step away from the cheap all-in-one computers with screens because they are dreadful...schrecklich nutzlose sch...!
I'm still waiting for my tablet....slow delivery is one of the things you have to get used to when living in the Canary Islands...!
Cheap PC all-in-one’s are terrible because they cut so many corners. On an iMac you get a good screen, good speakers, good microphones, a good webcam… the last time I looked at a cheap Hewlett Packard all-in-one it was terrible at everything. And Windows. Life is too short.
Ah but the sweet, sweet feeling when it arrives. Still a month for delivery really is a long time!
I’ve donated my old 13” MacBook Air (2011) to an ex-girlfriend, who wanted to use it to play music in the room where she does her painting. So it has gone to a good home and will have a useful life as an audio player.
@Jeroen
Exactly. Also the brand is Hewlett haha. I told them to PLEASE ask me before making these wild purchases because the salesman always sells them the idea of "you don't need a screen, all-in-one" and it is a rip-off!
Regarding old Macbooks, my MB 2010 has a broken motherboard as you know. What is the best I could do? Donate it? Sell it for parts? It is in Ukraine and I thought they could try and savage it for some money to at least cover the firewood costs.
Yeah I know. But it’s really tricky to convince older people to take good advice. My father was going to buy a new tv, and I told him, buy Samsung or LG. So he goes and buys a Philips, and I tell him, my experience with Philips is that they leave too many software bugs in the implementation. Now six months later he is suffering from software bugs.
Selling it for parts (on eBay) will at least give you a few euro’s. There are local computer shops who buy them up and then cobble together all the working parts, to create a refurbished machine. Otherwise you could return it to Apple for recycling and get a minimal amount.
I think I have a question similar to Jeroen's original one (but I"m not sure, because I don't know what "out of support" means). I'm wondering if anyone can recommend good virus/malware protection for Macs. I subscribed to such a service that was just for Macs years ago, but that was on a different Mac, and I don't remember the name of it anymore.
But I recently got a message. that I picked up some malware somewhere on the internet and need to clean that up. What product do you recommend that could do a good job of cleaning up the issues I have, and providing protection against future issues?
Mine also is a MacBookAir. They're great for traveling! They fit in a small backpack or large handbag.
“Out of support” has several meanings, first it means that you can no longer install new operating system versions. Older operating systems receive security updates for a few years and are then retired. My old 2011 MacBook Air was stuck on MacOS High Sierra, which stopped getting any new security patches a few years ago.
Older mac systems are put on Vintage and Obsolete lists when Apple no longer makes parts for them, which is usually around the time they go out of support. Generally you can expect a Mac to have a lifetime of about 10 years, including the tail when you’re no longer getting new OS versions but still have an OS that is getting security patches.
For antivirus I’ve heard good things about Malwarebytes, which has a free version which you can install and run to clean a Mac. They also sell a version which runs continuously on your Mac and protects it.
I have the free version of Malwarebytes, but it doesn't protect me from malware. It only notifies me when I have a malware issue.
You can use the free version of Malwarebytes to run a scan and remove malware. But any apps that provide full-time protection against virusses are subscription, paid-for affairs. There are a number of these.
The Mac does include a default antivirus, I heard it was called Gatekeeper and that it’s not bad.
How do I use Malwarebytes to remove malware? When it runs a scan, all it does is try to get me to buy their Premium service.
And how to I find and use Gatekeeper?
Gatekeeper does its thing automatically. I thought Malwarebytes presented a Remove button when it found something it recognised? But its been quite a few years since I used it last. You could try AVG Free?