Everything Apple (the Mac heads thread)

MetaZ doesn’t seem to work for me. Filebot has been a godsend. There’s an edit function so you can change the naming, so it automatically does S01E01 rather than 1x01, have been through the tv series, and there’s only a couple of shows like futurama which have a weird episode structure which I need to go through and do manually.
Once that’s done will copy films and music across. And with the current lockdown coming and the run on streaming services feels like a good time to have local copies of films/tv series to hand..

While on the topic of microphones - what is the best, say, sub €100 mic for video calls and recording instruments with an iPhone / MacBook Air?
Like, something that's significally better than the built-in mics.

Thanks for any suggestions.

USB or XLR? Do you have an audio interface?

I've got one of these and a focusrite scarlett interface, should come in under budget

..on a €2000 item you likely use for years? Are you being serious?

Not sure I agree it's a no brainer.

I'm considering getting one. But I'm not sure I'd bother upgrading much.
i5/8GB/256GB I think would do me.

While an i7 would be nice, they're not actually much of an upgrade - same cores, small CPU bump. It'll be about 7% quicker.
Likewise the 16GB. I'll do some light dev but that's it. I don't see Jupyter needing loads.
And 512GB. There's the cloud for storage.
(also, have a desktop for gaming that can do heavy lifting if needed)

i5/8/256 is £1099
i7/16/512 is £1649
50% extra cost. That's quite a price increase for not much of a speed increase.

I get that it's something you'll use for years. But save the £550 and put that toward upgrading it in 2-3 years rather than 5-6 when 12th gen Intel chips are around and 16GB is standard.

I’d prob go for 16gb ram. £200 is a fair chunk but I think it’ll buy another year or two of use

Ok, it's not really a no-brainer for everyone, yet (in my case) for €80 more I'd really just say fuck it and do it.
Not sure how much faster it actually is compared to the i5, let's wait until the benchmark results become stable.

Regarding 8 or 16GB RAM and 256/512GB or 1TB SSD I guess different people have different needs, simple as that.

Hi gang,

Need more screen real estate, and for better posture I'm looking at 27" monitors to plug my MBP into.. but given the laptop is quite old now, wondering if the money on a new monitor is worth it or if I should refresh the whole setup altogether. opportunity to start over perhaps and get that instagrammable minimalist desk look.

Plan A) buy one of the following monitors any other 27" QHD/4k IPS display like these and some cables and keep running the rMBP from 2012 until it dies, then replace the laptop eventually?

dell-s2719dm

acer-h277hk-4k

dell-ultrathin-s2719dc

hp-pavilion-quantum-dot-display

samsung-lu28e590ds-4k

Plan B) just suck it up and buy a 5k iMac given the MBP never leaves the house anyway, but I'd prefer to have an awesome monitor that anything could plug into as for work I use a Windows 10 device and it would be awesome to alternate that and the MBP with the screen (hence selling the Thunderbolt Display recently)

so... was torn between the DELL S2719DM and the SAMSUNG LU28E590DS but the HP Pavilion has so many ports (hdmi/displayport/usb-c/usb? ... is there any reason not to / go for one of the others / reconsider?

I'm sure you realised by now that I don't really know much about monitors... but I'd like the "retina" detail of my rMBP on a far larger surface please k thx bai.

..or (Plan C) get a nice display and a mac mini?

Would save quite a bit of money and be also nicely instagrammable

Get a used 27" Thunderbolt? Cheap as chips now and still great...

The 2012 rMBP can only run a 4k display at 30 Hz, which is not great. Plus to get a "retina" experience on a 27 inch display, you really need 5k resolution.

I think you need a new(er) computer to get what you want.

This is what I did and I’m really happy with it. Great to have a dedicated work machine that stays at work.

This is good reading on monitors: https://bjango.com/articles/macexternaldisplays/

very good info, thanks for sharing

so if I want an external display that:

• has HDMI or thunderbolt capability for my current MBP
  
• is 27" and relatively futureproof if I upgrade MBP or get a mac mini which can drive it better
  
• has usb-c for my HP Elite Windows laptop and future upgrade Mac
  
• best resolution possible across all the above scenarios
  
  

it sounds like 4k/5k ips panel is the way to go, even though current laptop can't make the best use out of it? although 5k seems to need double display port cables which will create a world of adapters and stuff I don't want for a clean setup

Sounds like you should get a 24” 4K screen? I think my link makes a good point that 4k @ 27” will be a world of bad compromises

Or a standard res 27?

Is there a poker app out there that lets you play just friends?
Had to cancel a poker night next week and would like to see if we could do some sort of virtual version, without having to sign upto a gambling website/app.

standard res 27?

well he said he wants the "retina" detail of my rMBP on a far larger surface please k thx bai

: ]

Then it’s a LG 5K afaik. When I researched the market a few months ago it was that or an iMac, nothing else available at all weirdly enough

There are a few remote tabletop gaming apps around, some of which are game agnostic. Cant be much more help than that im afraid, but might be worth rooting around on the forum at Board Game Geek or somewhere like that.

shouldn't it just this simple? I can't believe there are monitors that would make the experience worse

The problem is the 4k 27 inch monitors is they're 1.5 times higher resolution in each direction (or 2.25 times as many pixels) as the equivalent non-retina.

So you end up with displaying your desktop at either 0.75 or 1.5 times the non-retina physical size, neither of which is good. Or you use some ugly scaling to get it the same size.

This reminds me of when a dear but not very tech-savvy friend of mine spent quite a lot of money on a new iMac - he wanted the big, nice, all-in-one solution as his MacBook was on it's last legs.
Bought the thing and schlepped it home, and put it on the sideboard opposite the couch, where the TV used to be.
Sat down on the couch and realized he couldn't recognize shit as he was 2,5 meters away from the screen.
Called me over and there he was standing in his living room, pointing at the newly bought supercomputer and complaining, as if it was Apple's fault.

I set the display resolution all the way down to something like 1280x768 and he was happy.

LOL!

my eyes will be about 70-90 cm from the monitor so within the 50-100cm that OSHA/HSE recommend

probably a noob question, but the system storage amount on my MBP is going through the roof!
Still on Mojave and using an external disc for Time Machine, is it safe to delete all the time machine files in the laptop's main drive using the terminal? Like so: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfvYkhXrqAs&feature=youtu.be

No idea, but could be worth checking if you have a new version of osx downloaded and waiting to be installed

at risk of embarrassing myself... where would the file be? Have not seen it in downloads :) After some tidying the system storage is still at 55GB which is over two full back ups...