I HATE APPLE

M1 Air looks tempting, but I suspect the reason these prices are so low is that it's the 8MB ram model. I'd prefer 16, esp. for a now discontinued model that you can't easily open up and upgrade yourself.

In terms of what you can get direct from Apple, I guess they’ve retired the M1 Air (and the 15” M2 Air), and dropped the 13” M2 Air into that entry level spot. (M3 Airs of both sizes launched in the last couple of weeks?) So I picked a bad time to buy a 13” M2! For the same price I paid for a refurb in Jan I could get a brand new model with 10-core GPU and a nominally better charger now. Impatience.

FWIW, I was in hating Apple mode when my (8GB) M1 Macbook Air performed like a dog with Lightroom and Photos (photos hosted on external drive, though not the Lightroom library itself). But switching the drive to an SSD has completely transformed the performance, it's all snappy as you like, so am no longer full of hate.

i have a m1 macbook air for work, it's fine but i can make it sluggish. i'm also pushing it beyond its design specs by using displaylink to drive two 27" monitors with it so that may explain part of it.

boooooo displaylink

well until i can convince work to upgrade me to a 15" m3 macbook air with native support for two monitors...

lee btw i wouldn't recommend using carplay wirelessly unless you're taking short trips. that is a recipe for overheating the phone as it'll have all its radios turned on, especially if you're charging it at the same time as wireless carplay will chew through the battery. my 12 mini used to go dim (i.e. the screen backlight would turn off) once a month from overheating (apple-designed failsafe). have also gotten the 'charging will resume when temperatures stabilize' message a bunch of times.

the iphone minis are great but thermal management is not their strong point!

that has never happened to my 13 mini fwiw

So anyone else here experiencing the absolutely insane battery drain on their Apple Watch since their phone updated to 17.4.1? Usually can get at least a full 24 hours, sometimes longer on a full charge. My phone updated last night and I fully charged the watch overnight? Today I got the 1% battery warning after barely 6 hours. It's also insanely slow to charge, just barely keeping ahead of the drain.

Googled it and the problem is all over Reddit, seems like the update broke something. Here's an Apple thread on it - https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255572671

Annoyingly, Apple seems to be telling everyone there is no problem and they should schedule a Genius Bar appointment.

Anyway, thought I'd share to save you the hours of troubleshooting.

my watch hasn't been lasting very long lately so I haven't been wearing it much and didn't notice....however after this update 2 nights ago all kinds of stuff has gone wonky. I've never had issues like this. Just like, signed out of everything and needing to reconnect to icloud and fix some security thing and not recognizing my airpods twice and forgetting all of my apple tags so now I have to like, take the batteries out and put them back in to reconnect. Just every stupid little thing. Good job with this one apple.

I recommend Oris

Yeah, the last update made things goofy for us too. Text messages coming in through the computer; problems that we had fixed before came unfixed.

I had one day when the watch drained noticeably faster after applying 17.4.1 on the phone and now it's fine. I assume it was just indexing.

yeah the text messages got screwy because icloud sync dropped off or something, so messages I had gotten on my computer didn't show up on my phone. Lots of restarting and turning things off and on again in the settings got it going again.

Air pods are magic, but god do I hate putting them in the case. I always put them in the wrong way (right for left)…and then drop them…straight into a grate on the sidewalk

I've prob asked before, but what is currently the best keyboard for Mac Mini? Also monitor, although I've seen tests for those. Also is Mac Mini still good, or has Apple screwed with it?

I think it’s fine. Cheaper than the notebooks

I use the Apple keyboard with numberpad, it’s worked fine for at least a couple of years so far.

I love the Logitech MX Keys. Also let's you sync with multiple computers simultaneously.

monitor depends on your needs but Dell Ultrasharp's are generally a good affordable option. If a photographer/graphics professional BenQ sw series, maybe Asus ProArt. I use Eizo which is amazing but this makes a good argument for the apple display: https://www.on-sight.com/display-recommendation-thoughts/

though I make use of the internal calibration you get with the likes of Eizo and the better BenQs.

Thanks yall---prob gonna be Mini or iPad Pro---

Also is Mac Mini still good, or has Apple screwed with it?

Current speculation is that the Mini will skip the M3 processor and go directly to the M4, but the M2 it ships with now is more than adequate. FWIW, we have a LG 27" thunderbolt monitor on our Mac Mini here and it works great.

for the mini i would say the apple keyboard with touch ID is non-negotiable - it means you never (okay rarely) have to type a password ever again. one of the few really massive usability advances in recent years

I overpaid for the Apple 27” monitor - bought a 4K with good reviews and returned it, years of a 27” iMac make it impossible to go back.

The Apple is good but a little too glossy/reflective (and the nano glass diffused version was visibly less sharp to me in a store), but the only other 5K option was the LG that’s also expensive and even more reflective.