New Apple Lust Objects for 2010 and onward

and you shouldn't

the mba is the way of the future

actually the ipad probably is

but if you need a laptop

https://twitter.com/cabel/status/360549363245789184

some of us hate cords and subscription models.

i guess i should just bite the bullet and get that but it would be annoying if they came out with a revised model of the basic one within a month or so.

what would you advise? I guess i could wait a month or so but not much longer than that. cheers.

― i lost my shoes on acid (jed_), Thursday, July 25, 2013 7:01 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Isn't there usually a week or two lag time between announcements of new products and when they hit the stores and the old ones are no longer available? And after that (and even before that), sometimes the old models appear in the on the online Apple Store Certified Refurbished site, which are usually good deals - these are sold by Apple with their standard one-year warranty and optional AppleCare, with all standard accessories, documentation, and latest software. No guarantees they'll have the model you want though, and if they do they are usually available for only a short time.

As for why anyone would want a spinning hard drive in their new laptop, two reasons - more capacity for less money, which still matters for some of us. Apple is clearly fine with reducing the storage space in their new MacBooks in order to go solid-state, which serves their business interests by pushing iCloud accounts instead of local storage. Of course SSDs are also more technically elegant, more reliable, smaller, faster, lighter, silent, and draw less battery power - all things Apple (and many buyers) find alluring.

i need a laptop for draughting.

And for gods sake in this day an age why would you get a spinning harddrive? It makes your laptop feel like it is running through mud.

for the couple of months i had it the thing felt very sprightly to me! compared to what i was used to, at least. external things plugged in to hump around would be a real drag for me, sorry.

xpost and thanks Lee.

iCloud doesn't save on local storage btw -- all machines have all copies of everything in iCloud.

(ITunes Match a diff matter, I guess, but I don't see them shipping less space just to drive its usage)

jed, I had something similar over here:

Should I buy an Apple laptop?

a couple of weeks ago. The advice on that thread def swayed me, especially Tracer pointing out how cheap 32/64gb thumb drives are now. I went with a 13ʺ macbook air - 128gb (but boosted the ram to 8gb). Absolutely no regrets yet (although tbf I am still only a few days in and basically opening and closing indesign over and over and oohing at how quickly it launches). Really fast, really light. If 500gb built-in storage is a must, then it wouldn't be right for you, but I am sold.

jed, you can get a regular 15 or 13" with the optical drive, and swap out the optical drive for a spinny one, and swap out the normal one for a solid state

I had the impression thumb drives were somehow inherently more unstable in terms of memory - am I wrong?

(ITunes Match a diff matter, I guess, but I don't see them shipping less space just to drive its usage)

― stet, Friday, July 26, 2013 4:49 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Not just HDDs but also the removal of DVD drives in laptops and Mac Minis. I think Apple would rather you download your entertainment via iTunes and such rather than rent from Netflix or Amazon.

I haven't found USB thumb drives unstable, but you do have to be careful not to lose them (or have them stolen), and it's just a bit of a nuisance to have to unplug them each time you pack your MacBook away in a case, then reinsert it when you take it out.

The Apple rumour sites seem to become much more accurate about one week in advance of new product launches.

xp
I wouldn't trust one as sole back-up, or the only place I have a photo/music/something important library - stability aside, they're just too easy to lose.

But I think they're prob ok for stuff that you could download again. Like there's a hinterland of films, games, comics that I mean to get round to and I'd like to available - if I keep that on one, should mean my main drive has a bit of breathing space.

until I can get 500GB of Dropbox space for free, those SSD drives are too small to hold a library of media/games/what have you; but if you have a main home computer to store all this stuff i guess it can work, maybe

if i had a zillion bucks i think the ideal situation would be an mba and then at home a thunderbolt display into which i kept an external hd permanently plugged

mba + little flash drive for things I will *definitely* get round to watching soon + hard drive library/back up at home seems to be working for me atm but the home end could be nicer & less of a faff.

(*definitely* = *probably won't* of course)

Since I'm leaving my job I just got a new 11" MBA and the new Time Capsule. 802.11ac wifi makes wireless storage truly practical for almost anything (n wasn't that bad to be fair)

Leaving this job I'll miss my thunderbolt display for sure. I'm also wondering if I'll buy my own dropbox subscription, google drive is fast becoming a more than adequate replacement for it.

how is the screen size on the 11"s? we've been using a 15" MBP but my wife is going back to school and it's entirely too big to cart around with her, so we were going to pick up an Air. 11" just sounds so tiny but maybe it's perfectly fine for writing.

It's great. It's pretty hi-res, so you actually get the same number of pixels you got on the old white 13" MacBooks.

WSJ reporting retina iPad mini this year, this could be conclusive.

don't have the money to be upgrading, but don't really need to either

how is the screen size on the 11"s? we've been using a 15" MBP but my wife is going back to school and it's entirely too big to cart around with her, so we were going to pick up an Air. 11" just sounds so tiny but maybe it's perfectly fine for writing.

― akm, Friday, July 26, 2013 11:46 AM (6 days ago) Bookmark

have had the 11" for 2 years, i don't really like it - highest pixel density outside of the retina airs, but OSX still hasn't really implemented, uh, what's that term? you know, the feature that allows you to scale up fonts system-wide without any objective loss.

i really hate writing on the 11" - it's simply too small vertically, you end up doing a lot of scrolling up and down to move between sections when you're writing.

My GF has the 11" MBA and loves it - and she's mostly dealing with text. The slit-like screen is too much for me, but I dunno... I'm planning on going traveling in the fall for a couple weeks and am at a dilemma. Hoping for retina iPad mini

My wife just got a 13", never actually saw an 11" until a week ago and I'm kind if shocked at how tiny it is compared to the bigger one. I think it would drive me crazy unless I was someone who had to use a laptop on planes for dozens of hours a month.

so i'm thinking of getting an iMac to complement my 4 y.o MBP - is a new model on the horizon? is Retina a realistic and affordable possibility?

No rumors or announcements on a Retina iMac, but there will likely be a standard spec bump this fall.

http://allthingsd.com/20130810/circle-sept-10-on-your-calendar-for-apples-big-iphone-event/

Yeah, a retina iMac is probably a ways down the line. Gonna take a lot to juice a 27" screen with that kind of pixel density in that case size at a not insane price. Worth waiting for the likely spec bump though. Bought the most recent iteration around Xmas '12 and I totally love.

xxpost

Would love so much a Retina iMac or external display in the 15-20" range. No need for it to be 27 imo

today i went into an apple store with my iphone 5 and a litany of problems (screen brown at one end, grit on the camera sensor, dying wake/sleep button). they gave me a new phone on the spot, no questions asked. this is why i will remain an apple customer.

fuck. i forgot to mention that i had dropped it, and i told them i had dropped it, and they still gave me the new phone. that's the amazing bit.

This^

I took my four year-old MacBook Pro in last week because the d key and bluetooth weren't working, and the monitor (which was in excellent condition otherwise) was separated slightly from the base in one corner, so when I closed it there was like 1/8" misalignment in one corner.

The guy looked in their in-house book of shit that goes wrong and found a tiny illustration of the same little gap between monitor and base. He said the monitor would have to be replaced but that it was COVERED ENTIRELY, even though I had obv. dropped the thing a few times over the course of a four years.

After cleaning and poking around the d-key contacts he told me I needed a new aluminum case, too. (The top part, which includes all the ports on the side etc.) Two days later I got back what looked like a brand new laptop. The whole thing cost $165.

(the bluetooth hardware is housed in the monitor)

was it under warranty AA?

hmm, I wonder if they'd do that for me -- a few months ago I got a replacement phone from Asurion (the "insurance" that Verizon uses -- do NOT sign up for this, it's such a ridiculous ripoff), and it has like no battery life. I've seen it drop from 20% to 10% to 1% in ten minutes of use.

september 10 is the thing announcement? damn i gotta get a new phone

was it under warranty AA?

― socki (s1ocki), Tuesday, 13 August 2013 02:20 (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yep (and technically it's two years here), but i'd clearly dropped it and they offered me a new handset anyway.

iPhone 6 concept

why do people do these things, do they think apple will notice and give them a job

Also, that looks terrible.

Apple's not giving a job to anyone who points out how many things they'll never roll out except for one thing at the same time.

xp well that parts iOS7

~edgy~

One thing to remember about MacBooks: the internal construction is actually designed to funnel any liquid spilled on the keyboard straight to the "logic board" (Applespeak for motherboard), so be careful with those beverages!!

Thinking of treating my old MBP with a fancy SSD drive. Is it easy to install? How do I migrate my old HD's content?

which MBP? Depends a lot on the model. The removable battery type are way easier than the sealed ones, iirc