On this episode @MacSparky and @ismh mentioned 10-year old Macs. My current laptop is a mid-2012 Retina MacBook Pro, ordered on June 11th (launch day), so 9 years 4 months. Now it was displaced as my primary Mac by a 2017 iMac, but itās remained my only mobile Mac to this day. Iāve got a new M1 Pro MacBook Pro on the way to replace it.
My wife is using a mid-2012 Retina too and itās still chugging alone fine. One kid is using the 2013 13ā MBA while the younger one settled for the 2012 11ā MBA. The latter struggle a bit as itās only 4GB RAM but for doing Google Classroom homework, sheās fine. These machines do last long, fortunately.
I think the Retina MBP is a particularly good candidate for this sort of longevity: SSD only, so no spinning hard drive to fail and as the first retina Mac, itās screen holds up visually a lot better than itās non-retina contemporaries.
I think every single Apple Pundit is missing the point of the Apple Music Voice Subscription ($4.99)
While it is a step up from free ad supported music, I think it is meant as a direct competitor Amazonās Echo-only $3.99 Music subscription. This is a āgatewayā subscription just to give people a taste of Apple Music. For people that end up wanting more, they will get a more in-depth subscription. It isnāt targeted towards people who already have Apple Music. However, unlike an Echo Dot which can get people into the Alexa ecosystem, I donāt think many people are buying a Homepod mini as their first Apple device. The price point is too high. My first Echo Dot cost me a total of $5.00 on sale.
I think that most people with this plan arenāt going to sit there and play individual songs while they work. They will say something like āPlay Classic Rockā which gives them a playlist predetermined by Amazon/Apple and plays music for hours. When you say āPlay āNew York, New Yorkā.ā It is going to find an appropriate playlist and play it. The requested song will come up eventually but it wonāt necessarily be the first.
However, I donāt know how successful this plan is going to be. I donāt think it will encourage new Music customers to drop $100 on a Homepod Mini. If youāre already a Music subscriber, this new plan doesnāt add anything.
@ChrisUpchurch Exactly what I have!
I love it dearly but due to not being able to upgrade & my zest to dig into the Silicon world, I will finally move on. I do think most people who are Apple naysayers havenāt acknowledged the quality & longevity of most of Appleās products. Iām glad this was brought up, even though most of us already know this!
Everyone who purchased new MBPs or MBMs - enjoy!
I came here eager to see what speakers folks were recommending for @MacSparky as I could use a pair. But nothing yet? Oh well.
Iām jealous of everyone whoās older computers have been so steady for so long? I struggled with my 2013 Retina MacBook Pro for years due to truly atrocious battery life (30 minutes after AppleCare logic board and battery replacements) before finally downgrading to the first Retina MacBook Air - largely a worse machine but its functional battery life has been great when Iām away from my office (about half the time).
The 14-inch is very appealing. Slightly bigger screen, much better screen, better keyboard, better battery, and much more power (which will come in handy in stacking frame in photography).
First Mac Power Users episode to save me moneyāI did not know you could trade in old Apple gar for credit. I thought you had to apply them against a specific purchase, and only like-for-like, such as an old phone for the new model.
Speaker Recommendation: IK Multimedia iLoud. Crazy good sound from tiny little speakers.
As a professional composer/musician, Iāve used these as a second set of monitors. They are great.
Apple must have gotten a bad batch of batteries because my 2013 MBP I had to recycle last year because the battery swelled.
Thanks. Checking them out.
@MacSparky Sorry, they have expanded thier line a bit. These are the ones I have worked with: iLoud Micro
Regarding competition, maybe we can do what we did for Cray computers when Reagan, the great free marketeer, tarriffed away the Japanese competition. Followed in true bi partisan style by Clinton on the same protectionist tack. Fair enough as long as one doesnāt then pursue free market fantasies in the public sphere and the role of Government is recognized and compensated for the general Welfare.
Complicated topic and I think best left before it turns āparty politicalā and a moderator has to step in.
I think everybody is in favor, almost a truism really, of good jobs for people, especially oneās fellow Americans and the discussion could soon become enmeshed in questions about labour standards and so on. It is strange why such a truism is so elusive in practice? Or maybe the only criterion is whether a factory is actually situated in Arizona?
Best not continued too far I think since your point about China is quite muddy. Why have any factories there with their labor conditions, even worse than ours sometimes! Then again why import roses from Columbia produced in sweat shop conditions, though I am sure the competition drives down prices.
I guess in China the technocrats and others are saying something pretty similar to you, substitute say, 'under the shadow of the āmilitary industrial complexā for āPRCā. Please note that this is not meant as a defense of the CCP, or Belt and Road.
Yeah, my 2013 MBP was retired from service due to a swollen battery too.
Just listening to the podcast now on dog walks. You were discussing the SD card slot that Apple brought back. Indeed it is 300 MB/s. As a retired pro photographer I notice these things. And as good as it is, Apple could have done so much better by doing what Sony has started to do with their upper-tier cameras (A1 and the new one) by making the card slot dual format compatible.
They are making the slots compatible with CFexpress Type A as well as SD. The benefit her is that it can handle 800 MB/s and no need for a second slot.
I just bought an M1 MacBook Pro last year and love it (especially with this weekās Adobe updates, the speed is amazing). So Iām hoping by the time Iām ready to go with an M3Max down the road, it will indeed either support SD and CFexpress Type A, or even better just go CFexpress Type B and forget about SD. CFExpress is the future for cameras, a ton of companies are making the Type B cards now and they are based on NVME PCIe, so they are vastly faster than SD will ever be.
Maybe, but plenty of us have still-relevant DSLRs that will never run the faster cards. 
Iām curious. I have loved photography for eons. Which software do you use?
Iām also an amateur photographer but Iām seriously considering getting the new Nikon pro camera Z9. Expensive but should carry me a long time.
Do you like electronic viewfinders?