Everything Apple (the Mac heads thread)

Thanks both

I have iPhone 13 Pro in good condition I need to shift as work gave me a new phone. What’s the going rate for an LFGSS sale on one? Have the OG box and all the gubbins somewhere.

I’d be interested in this. Will pm

are the three lens pro 12 and 13 worth the upgrade over the normal phones?
me and the mrs need to upgrade our 8 and 7 as the battery life is now rubbish, can’t decide if i want a same size phone line a mini or a normal size one (12/13), likely to be from the apple refurb store.
I’m not into spending 8-900 notes on the latest phone but if the pro versions are worth it i might get one. they seem to not do pro versions on the latest phones now though?

There is a 14 pro, and there will be a 15 pro next month. There’s no 14 mini and won’t be a 15 mini either sadly.

Depends how much you value the camera. It’s better. But the normal one is good too.

I upgraded from a 12 mini to a 13 mini as I prefer the size of it vs the larger ones.

Sorry for the lazy analysis… but truth is they all work the same.
Camera vs size, that’s the only consideration and whether it’s worth it is entirely subjective

14 or 15 are a non starter, i refuse to buy an £800+ mobile phone.
the only reason to buy bigger than an 8,SE or mini size is an improvement in the camera or perhaps battery life as i like my phone to fit in a jean or cycling jersey pocket

Yeah, I’m just saying the question of ‘is it worth it for the camera’ is one only you know. Can/do you take good photos? If not, mini. I went mini because a phone I can run with is more important than one I can take a pic with

13 mini would have a vastly better battery life than the 8 you’re used to. Comfortably a day anyway unless you’re really on it loads, so functionally not an issue.

As an aside, given the amount of time I spend using my phone, I’m not convinced £800 is bad value for money. But, yes, it is a lot of money still.

I had to upgrade my 12 Mini to a normal sized second hand 13 because the 12 isn’t supported on Starhub 5G network. I’d just replaced the battery and was cross about this.

I’ll get the 15 next month.

"Can/do you take good photos”? well i’m a finalist in the AOP photography awards this year but didn’t use a phone for that :-)
Looks like the 15 is going to be launched imminently so i’ll wait until then and prices of the 13 will likely drop a little, gives me time to decide between mini or normal size, the price after any drop will dictate if i bother with a pro.

Are Hackintosh's still a thing? My 2011 MacBook air is still going fine but I think I'd like to retire it soon.

The only OSX thing I'd like to hold on to is Logic Pro X, so I've been considering going for a hackintosh desktop so I can run the occasional osx programme and get back into games.

Any thoughts or good resources/guides I should consider?

What's the best place to look for a reconditioned MacBook? eBay?

I think it relied on the Intel chip integration in iOS so now the OS is based on Apple Silicon that backdoor is closed.

Ahhh, shame. Come to think of it, I do remember hearing something about that.

Congrats! Link to photo?

I have an 13 pro and battery life and cameras are great. Rarely bring my Fuji out as the phone camera is good enough for everyday stuff. Most of my Instagram is phone images

Could we have a link to the bits that got you there?

@kboy they look great and way better than I would expect from a phone, I have an 8 so old tech.
@hurricane_run here is a link to the still-life finalists gallery, mine are a series called ‘dicroic’, 3 images of crystal prisms.
https://www.aopawards.com/38th-aop-photography-awards-still-life-object-category-finalists/

the only reason to buy bigger than an 8,SE or mini size is an improvement in the camera or perhaps battery life

For what it's worth I chose a 14 Pro half a year ago mostly for the camera - for the first time you could have 48MP raw images, this was indeed a selling point for me.

Gotta say the main camera is very good, but the "tele lens" (and the fake bokeh / aperture shit) is total rubbish, the wide angle lens is ok (but indeed super wide - I mean the regular lens already is 24mm equivalent), I have hardly any use for ultra wide stuff, frankly).

So as I don't carry a proper digital camera around every day any more I do appreciate having that thing in my pocket to be able to at least snap a nice wide-angle-ish shot in decent quality every now and then. Still, what I'd actually want / need most of the time would be 40 / 50mm.

Long story short: I should have bought a much, much cheaper (and nice and small) SE for example, and a small but proper digital camera for actual photos.

Agree with this. The main camera on my 13 pro is great, but the other two is shit in comparison. I very rarely use them at all, even for casual snaps, and nothing ever comes out good enough for instagram etc.

I see why they go with three lenses as this gives a distinct pro look, but tbh it would be better if they went all in on a good 28 or 35mm equivalent, and then other modes were just cropped from that. Same as Leica does with the Q

Good luck. All the cool pics you linked to look like they were hard work for the finalists (I know zero about the technicalities of photography).

that backdoor is closed

Not really. You do have to use an Intel chip, but rumours of the demise of the hackintosh have been vastly exaggerated. Intel Mac Pros are still for sale, and Apple's most expensive computer is one of them.

Hacks based on Opencore are better (i.e. more compatible and stable) than they've ever been and an Intel hack built now will still be good for years, if not as future proof as Apple silicon.

I'm writing this from my 'Hack Pro' with a 4.1Ghz 6 core i5, 16Gb of DDR4 and a decent natively compatible graphics card and I expect it to last me a good few years still running MacOS. Although I can't say how long exactly, support was dropped for the trashcan Mac Pro about two years after it was discontinued, three years for the Power Mac G5, so I could well get longer out of it than a real Mac :P

If you're interested @ACRe19 Dortania's OpenCore install and buyer's guides are pretty much the bible these days. They very much encourage doing it properly though (understanding what you're doing so if it breaks you can fix it, not just following instructions), so I wouldn't underestimate the work involved.

I enjoyed it but it was definitely harder than previous hackintosh builds and I've been doing it for longer than I'd care to admit. If it wouldn't be any fun for you at all I wouldn't bother.

Are you using the last OS that was Intel compatible?

Also the Mac Pros are now Mac Silicon so there are no Intel Mac Pros available from Apple anymore.

I have to say as a follow up the value proposition of a Hackintosh has been hugely undermined by the performance improvements offered by Apple silicon, especially the Mini and Studio which have so much processing power for the price I can't see it making much sense to build a hackintosh.

Are you using the last OS that was Intel compatible?

..so far, they're all still Intel compatible, right?

Had to check but you're right they do support some Intel chips. I have been changing my very old Intel stuff over for the past few years so I thought Ventura was Mac Silicon only.

Using the current version of MacOS (13.5.1).

Right you are, I don't really keep up with current hardware, for obvious reasons!

That only happened in June, so up until then you could presumably have spent $54k on the top Intel machine launched in December 2019, lol.