Increasingly Familiar Apple Lust Objects for 2016 and onwards

you selling that mac mini? :)

4real loving my 2021 m1 iMac and glad I didn't get suckered into a "pro" model when really I'm just playing paradox games, browsing the internet and pretending to produce music with logic once a year. Happy that their pro stuff is actually for pro's so no more fomo

biggest reason for enjoyment is how nice she looks sitting on my kitchen table. Can't really make a statement like that with a laptop ya know

the mac mini will be transitioned into HTPC duties, although last time I tried I remember there's some weird fuckery about whether you can stream 4K on a desktop vs. a drm locked down apple TV etc.

Sell the mini, get an aTV 4K, so much simpler and better. Plus you get to keep the change. If you want to stream off a server, Infuse is superb and not expensive.

plus phones and iPads as remotes, etc etc

play too much downloaded content to fully commit to an apple tv

That's what Plex is for.

NAS (which is a little long in the tooth but has enough compute power to run the Plex backend) plus Apple TV over here. Works like a charm

AppleTV sees the library on my mac so I can play all music/videos that are on my desktop. Maybe not as powerful as a plex type deal, but does the job for me.

i have a NAS that i never got around to using because it was too complicated.

i have access to my friend's plex and it's cool, but not something i think i'd ever set up. too much work and it feels like oh great, another library to manage and maintain and upkeep - my music library is messy enough as it is!

play too much downloaded content to fully commit to an apple tv

I just drop all my music purchases/downloads on a NAS folder and use Plexamp on my phone now. 😈

xp

huh, infuse is neat! i've been (half-heartedly) searching for an iOS media player for a while now, no idea that one was just hanging out.

now the question is, is there a way to surf the web on apple TV that isn't painful? that's the other thing we like to do on our current htpc.

Hm, can't say I have a snappy answer for that one! But I've never seen a usable web browser on a TV. I guess one can screenshare to an aTV and browse via a more congenial device.

and yeah Infuse was like oh, at last, *that's* the thing.

I just drop all my music purchases/downloads on a NAS folder and use Plexamp on my phone now. 😈

you don’t have to pay to stream local content.

I believe you do for the Plexamp app. Plex doesn’t have a lot of compelling premium features, but I like that one and shelled out for the lifetime pass option a few years back.

I previously would use Apple’s Music Match feature, which was something like $15/year and seemed (seems? not sure if it still exists) like it could disappear. It wasn’t perfect at matching/uploading but was pretty decent, could listen to all my music wherever.

Plexamp connects back to my home library from anywhere, lets you set up rules for keeping a local cache on the device, and overall does all the stuff I expect

what's the best itunes/apple music alternative? that'd be the other use case for a mac mini htpc / apple tv - streaming music from my base mac

hmm the apple tv only has an hdmi out, so any optical out would probably have to be run from the tv, and removes the ability to hook up a usb dac or something (I don't have a receiver and refuse to get one)

well, i ran into some bad luck yesterday. i've had this awesome 2020 macbook pro 13" (M1 model, albeit one with only two ports! lol) for a couple months. An old acquaintance of mine was selling it in almost brand new condition and at a great price, so it was an instant huge upgrade on my old laptop.

anyway, the screen cracked out of nowhere. but not because i dropped it, or anything at all. i was using the computer. i closed it, just like i've closed computers a million times before. i went out back and played with my beloved dog for a while. i came back inside and lifted the lid, and there was a huge distortion on the left side of the screen, and then it spread to some vertical lines elsewhere. for a few minutes, the computer was still usable, but when i rebooted, it was much worse, just totally busted.

it turns out a lot of people are experiencing something similar (https://www.makeuseof.com/m1-macbook-screens-cracking/), and there's a class action thing brewing? i don't want or expect a ton of money out of any settlement, but it would be nice to get a reduced cost replacement. i knew what was coming when i talked to the geniuses, at it was a $550 fix. just way the fuck too expensive for me, especially when it could happen again

what are you all using for a NAS? I've finally realized I need one; I've got a macbook pro running plex off a hard drive but I'd rather have something else that I can just leave on, dedicated to streaming. and how is infuse different from plex?

I’ve heard good things about Synology NAS products

I’ve got a Western Digital PR2100 that is long in the tooth but still works well.

Yeah Synology products are great - I've had two 4-drive versions I bought used. Earlier this year I retired the DS413J which was ten years old (and I still got $150 for it used, without drives included). Bought a DS415+ which is also quite old (8 years) but much more capable, for $250 (Aus). Slotted the drives from the old one into it, it downloaded the latest OS and ticked away for about ten minutes, boom, same setup up and running. It will do lots of advanced stuff like run virtual machines, but for me it just feeds files over the network (including 4K data rate) and automatically backs things up. If a drive fails, it tells me, I pull the drive and swap it for another and it spends a day rebuilding all the parity etc. No loss of data or availability, never skipped a beat in the five years I had the earlier model. Configure and operate via a web interface. Indispensable for me.

if i order something direct from apple.com that won't ship for 8-10 weeks, am i right in thinking that 1) they won't run the credit card until it's about to ship and 2) i can cancel the order right up until it ships?

I don’t think so. I just checked back on my (US-based) MacBook order last August 12th and they charged my card on the 14th and told me it had shipped on the 16th.

Though I guess that a shorter timeframe.

Yeah I’m talking months here.

even if they run the card, they will refund it if you cancel...

and yes you should be able to cancel until it ships

or is being 'prepared for shipment' as they say

yeah that's my understanding. it's a vulgar amount of money though so i'm kind of interested in when they'll run the card too.

They don’t run the card until it ships.

source: my brother has a Studio Ultra due in June

Yeah, my experience is that you get a charge within a day or so of the shipping

new work macbook pro arrived. good stuff so far!

i have an SE 3 and so far it feels exactly like my SE 2, which is good because i liked my SE 2, but i literally can’t tell the difference. (normally i would have held on for another couple of years but the queue for my old phone had become very vocal)

AirPod Pros fuckin’ rule. Got them discounted through a work thing even though I wasn’t particularly clamoring, but I’ve been using them while working out these past two weeks and it’s made the experience significantly more enjoyable. Beyond the fact that they finally fit firmly in my ear and the sound quality is really good (considering the size and y’know streaming apps), the noise cancellation is the game changer.

I don’t have any other noise cancellation buds to compare them too, but it’s kinda freaky sci-fi shit when you activate them for the first time. Will make running on a treadmill actually fun with the right music and I can’t imagine getting on a plane again without them.

I hate both computers and new things, so I’m surprised to find myself saying that Monterey is kind of nice.

I finally gave in and got an SE 3 to replace my SE 1, which was becoming borderline unusable due to having only 16GB of storage space. I miss the smaller form factor and the home button that actually moves (haptic touch helps a bit but its still not the same), but its nice to not have to worry about deleting one app to make room for another one whenever you need to do something.

Unexpectedly appealing presentations yesterday. Thinking this might be the year I finally replace my 12 (!) yo MBP. Now question will be whether to go for the new Air or MBP

I'd go the Air unless you have a huge need for GPU grunt etc - the leap of an M2 over a 12 year old i5 would be pretty huge. Just max out the RAM if poss.

Always sad to hear again that my iMac will no longer be supported (late 2015). Them's the breaks! I'm gonna try to squeeze another couple years outta this, since I had to burn some cash to fix it last year.

The 13” mbp is pointless. I don’t understand who the market for it is. Get an air for less or a 14” mbp for more.

Gurman says there's a new 12" in the works which I'm v. v. excited for. Despite being slow as all hell and having the shit keyboard and no ports my 12" MB is my all-time favourite form factor, I think.

Likewise, that's very exciting - my M1 MBA is amazing but I really miss the weight of the 12", the only laptop that I could completely forget I was carrying.

Me otoh I’m holding out for a 15” MBP or - dare I hope? - MBA

just got one of these

https://www.keychron.com/products/keychron-k8-pro-qmk-via-wireless-mechanical-keyboard?variant=39755425874009

it's pretty nice. i would say the only downside is how incredibly cool it makes me look.

https://i.imgur.com/0mPSKFP.gif