Everything Apple (the Mac heads thread)

There are a few knocking around. There’s definitely a 4.1 there and I think there might be another 5.1. I’m currently trying to get an OS on the one I took, but I’m having trouble doing the firmware update for high Sierra.

I’m not sure what the situation is but I’ll see if any others are up for grabs and let you know.

Hmm, good to know but feels like you’ll have to have a certain amount of confidence taking computers apart with all that talk of thermal paste and cleaning with alcohol.

Question - I need to replace my iPhone XS screen. Advice online says that non-genuine Apple screens affect the battery life, are not as good, etc. Is there a third party brand that is as good / close quality or do I need to spend the money on going to a certified Apple reseller and paying full whack?

I got one from ifixit, but have not done much testing as to battery life.
Quality is ace though.
(Xsmax)
If you need tools to do it let me know and you can come use all the multitude I have.
I suspect they’re all much of a muchness.

I reckon ifixit will be as good as a non-Apple screen will be. They have a brand to protect so won’t sell any old shit. I hope.

What is the current sweet spot for value in the iphone range. Particularly for those with a smaller screen. Mainly just used for a bit of web browsing, whatsapp and pictures.

iPhone 8 is still plenty fast and has great cameras, screen, battery life etc. Should be good for the next four years or so.

The 11 series (pro and non-pro) are huge leaps in battery life which is something I’ve missed since the Nokia days. Standard iPhone 11 on their 0% finance is pretty good going.

As usual, I’m not sure if there is a specific thread for this question but I will try here first, which would be better for my daughter - Office 365 annual subscription or Microsoft Office one off download?

Hope everyone had a good Christmas.

Have a look here first:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/education/products/office

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/free-office-software/

Thanks for that. Her school have advised that free Microsoft Office is available using the school emails. But, I was wondering if 365 was better?

Tl;Dr - if it's for your daughter get the free one from your school.

Long answer...

365 is an annual subscription. It comprises of the main office programs and 1TB cloud storage. You can also use it across a number of devices (you'll need to check how many). It's something like £70-80 vs £250 for a full license you own for one device.

The 1TB storage and multiple devices is the key selling point imo. However, if you don't need office on multiple devices in your home - ie daughter's laptop, your laptop, your wife's laptop, the home desktop, etc. it is less good value. Equally if you use other cloud storage, don't need it or don't need as much, again it's benefit reduces.

Great. Thanks. It’s 6 devices and we would use three. Currently £49.99 on amazon for the next 14 hours in a sale.
Thanks for taking the time to reply - much appreciated.

No worries.

So at ~ £17pp plus 300GB each it sounds like good value to me.

I have an iPhone 6s and need a new screen protector thingee.
Can somebody recommend any of those "3D" ones (ideally I'd like to buy one that goes right to the (rounded) edge / around it a bit, so it snugs under the apple leather-type slim case.
Thanks!

I'm pretty sure you can set up multiple users on that office licence so they can each get their own 1TB OneDrive. As you say it's good value if you use the cloud drive.

Also be aware that you can add licences before your current one expires so if you spot a good deal during the year you can apply it and it will extend the expiration date.

By way of an update, at the moment it doesn't look like I can go and grab another one
BUT I have a sneaking suspicion that at some point they're just going to want to get rid of the lot of them to make room in their studio, at which point I will attempt to intercept as many of the ones not currently bricked as possible (one more 5.1 and a couple of 4.1s).

I managed to get mine up and running yesterday - took me a while to get the firmware updated to run High Sierra, but it's all sorted now and running fine. In fact that reminds me I need to enable SIP again!

Cheers!

Thinking about picking myself up a macbook air (prob a refurb) looking at this;

https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/product/FVFH2B/A/refurbished-133-inch-macbook-air-16ghz-dual-core-intel-core-i5-with-retina-display-and-true-tone-technology-space-grey?fnode=bbc9324c9212ab9ed4e6577d5c9299958b23fa35ec1a17df56a2a40c3a856754e1f61621b216d27089176df86cd6ed53977ce7bad4261efb54c279fe3d8c095f27dc342355deabcefeb571e09a02a30c

mainly for photography and writing then just general computing tasks.
Is there anything on here that won't play nice with raw files or will make my life a living hell?

Sorry I haven't been au fait with macs for a few years.

Actually perhaps this one is better? All it looks like is this one has more RAM?

https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/product/G0X23B/A/refurbished-133-inch-macbook-air-16ghz-dual-core-intel-core-i5-with-retina-display-and-true-tone-technology-space-grey?fnode=bbc9324c9212ab9ed4e6577d5c9299958b23fa35ec1a17df56a2a40c3a856754e1f61621b216d27089176df86cd6ed53977ce7bad4261efb54c279fe3d8c095f27dc342355deabcefeb571e09a02a30c

The second one also has 512 vs 128 GB SSD. If you’re planning to store a lot of photos locally.

All current MacBooks bar the new 16 inch have questionable keyboards (google “butterfly keyboard”). Although it’s going to be a year or two before you can get a refurb MBA with anything different.

I did read about the keyboards - do they really affect things that much?

There is another option on the refurb store of a 128 ssd and 16gb of ram, perhaps thats the one to go for?

Well, thousands of people happily use them every day, so they can't be that awful. If you're lucky you'll have no issues, or intermittent issues that clear themselves. If you're unlucky you'll have keys that become unusable requiring multiple full top case replacements. It's a bit of a lottery. All of them very short key travel though. Try one in a shop before buying.

Just ordered a specced out mac mini as my new work machine, begone unreliable laptop docking

Can somebody recommend a cheap but cheerful tripod thingee that will hold an iPhone in place?
Or rather an adapter I can screw on a real (photo) tripod?
I could just strap it to something with a rubberband basically, but will have to attach / detach it on a daily basis so something which isn‘t such a faff would be good.

Ta!

One of those Joby GorillaPod griptight ones maybe?

Edit: There’s a few on eBay so cheap too - https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F323992973477