Increasingly Familiar Apple Lust Objects for 2016 and onwards

to be fair that's partially self-inflicted. i ran into permissions problems with superduper after installing. could not fix them. so i used disk utility to erase my external for a fresh backup. however, i didn't erase the 'volume group' - i erased the data volume of the overall external disk container. then i tried superduper again and somehow this happened.

(i also have backblaze as a secondary backup for this volume, so don't worry, you paranoid backuppers!)

Got my hands on a mini today and it seems more..user friendly than the pro max, which i returned as it’s just impossible to use one handed without feeling like my hands are in gym class doing calisthenics all day

Paused plans to buy the new MacBook Air until there’s a supported docker and some benchmarks of intel docker images.

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Sunday, November 15, 2020 10:59 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

not inside docker, but these are good https://mjtsai.com/blog/2020/11/16/performance-of-rosetta-2-on-apple-m1/

in Big Sur my Mail app decided to not show any windows. I tried everything to get it to display an inbox, a new message window, something. At one point I right-clicked on the dock icon and chose 'Show All Windows' and it kind of blurred most of the screen and displayed a message right in the middle that said 'No windows available'. Spooky shit! No, they weren't in another workspace. I restarted Mail, restarted the computer, still no windows. Eventually I hit on 'create new mailbox', which had the effect of jogging everything. I called it 'Adam'. I'm not sure who I had in mind. But once everything was back I deleted Adam. Sorry Adam.

Here's another one. If I'm in another app and I click on the Mail icon in the Dock, it doesn't bring it to the front. The app name in the upper left corner doesn't change either.

Ugh, Catalina is buggy enough for me, thanks.

catalina was fine for me!

have started using time machine though because superduper isn't compatible w big sur yet (TIL)

I haven't noticed much with Big Sur, aside from rounded edges on everything. I don't want my pics to have rounded edges in filmstrip mode in Finder! Trivial stuff.
Funnily enough, I gave up on Mail years ago, and just went back to having pinned tabs in Safari for Yahoo/Gmail - but now, I've decided to re-link the accounts. Seems...ok?

I think I use my Mac in a clunky inefficient way anyway (if I wanted to launch something, Cmd+Space and start typing; if I want to switch apps, Cmd+Tab; Spaces and stuff are *there* but a bit lost on me).

that sounds pretty efficient, Steady Mike. sadly cmd-tab doesn’t work to bring my Mail to the front, either

It's all just muscle memory at this point. I feel sympathy for all my (very remote) Client Rep and Account Coordinator colleagues that we try to make work "more efficiently" with all our back-end dev and UI clean-up, and Zoom presentations and initiatives... and it all goes nowhere. Cos ppl like to do what they like to do, even if it involves swearing. About 10% are excited about the One Cool New Trick but most want to get through the day.

Anyway, *that* was a digression!

The 12 pro in silver looks really great, especially the edges, very latter day 3PO

(and both are running Catalina, any retina machine can)

v nice

https://www.singhkays.com/blog/apple-silicon-m1-black-magic/

i like this one:

Apple M1 🤯🚀 pic.twitter.com/REskldpMap

— Mustafa Al Marzooq (@Memo_AlMarzooq) November 18, 2020

waiting for progress on this though https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/issues/7857

well that settles that. guess i'll start saving for the m1 16"

I'm sure this has been mentioned before, but Big Sur feels a lot like it's getting MacOS ready for touch screens. Lots of padding around controls, buttons plenty big enough to hit.

Changing the scaled display resolution on the new #AppleM1 MacBook (left) is absolutely instantaneous 🔥 compared to the delay and screen blanking required by the Intel graphics on the 16 inch MacBook Pro (right) pic.twitter.com/YybbPF09TF

— Daniel Eran Dilger (@DanielEran) November 20, 2020

Like

mmmhmmm

forget #pepsinext, i'm part of #m1generation now

Is changing the resolution a thing people do a lot?

hush

Every time you (dis)connect an external monitor.

But yeah it’s almost pointless showing off, no one ever thought it was slow. This is the kind of minor thing that is only worth the time it takes to fix when you have an architectural clean slate like silicon.

Little things like this are going to make pcs look incredibly primitive. (macOS is still terrible and apple is bad)

home working, the idea of a KVM switch came up. it would solve a problem i have pretty easily i.e. wanting to use a laptop with an existing desktop setup. instead of plugging and unplugging everything each time the laptop user wants to take advantage of the big screen, fullsize keyboard, etc.

i've been looking around and they cost either £30 or like £900. not sure what that extra £870 is getting you...

Alternatively, get a bluetooth keyboard that can pair with multiple devices and a monitor with multiple inputs

I’ve been using the same desk for work and home stuff by having both hooked to the same monitor. Put one to sleep, wake the other up, and I have the (albeit crappy) sound build into the monitor connected to my speakers

I do that. I have iMac on desk and Dell monitor. When I want to use my work laptop I plug in the Dell cable and switch input. Then I usually use a second keyboard because I hate switching Bluetooth connections.

I have an external monitor / hub with a keyboard plugged into it, and a Magic Trackpad (Bluetooth, obv.)

I didn't find a good way to reliably switch the Magic Trackpad between two laptops, other than turning Bluetooth off on one of them. I considered getting a USB Bluetooth dongle, plugging it into a spare port on my monitor, and connecting the trackpad to that, but never got around to it.

This is good if you want a hand wavy explanation of why the M1 is fast and whether intel/amd can catch up https://erik-engheim.medium.com/why-is-apples-m1-chip-so-fast-3262b158cba2

Thanks for that!

Alternatively, get a bluetooth keyboard that can pair with multiple devices and a monitor with multiple inputs

KVM switches still exist!

i think the very expensive ones support multiple 4k monitors and thunderbolt and things like that. they're basically this sort of thing combined with a kvm (which is not to say $900 is reasonable) https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-thunderbolt-dock/.

i would never spend more than $50 on something like that but cool they exist i guess

i'd be tempted to just buy a bunch of cables and a DIY breaker switch before paying that kinda dough. but you don't have to!

once you've used some shitty KVMs you understand why people who need them for daily use will drop hundreds of dollars on a decent one

also I got an M1 Air and I am excite (although I won't get it for weeks yet)

Would it be a nutso suggestion to Remote Desktop into the laptop from the desktop rather then KVM?

Pretty laggy for anything other than basic icon dragging and typing text.
I’d just plug the keyboard into the monitor and buy a second trackpad (e.g. used or refurb).

in the end i got an HDMI switcher for £8 and a USB switcher for £18 (which can connect 4 peripherals). i think i’m going to be able to just hit two buttons and be done with it.

I got a pretty expensive Thunderbolt dock because my MBA has only 2 ports, and I need to power it, connect an external monitor, ethernet, one to three external hard drives (including key drives), plus charge my peripherals.

Remoting in shouldn’t be laggy if you use adaptive or whatever it’s called. I’m working remote and half the time I remote into my work computer because it has a faster connection to the work server than if I use vpn

These machines esp the “pro” only having 2 ports is just a slap in the face to customers

Eh it’s fine.

Airpods Max are £520? When you can get Sony MDR 1000s for about £200 now that seems insane pricing.

V-Moda headphones are also better and not at a price point that screams "mug me on general principle"

no wireless charging, less space than a Nomad.

That’s a silly price

Target market: rich people called Max