Everything Apple (the Mac heads thread)

a mouse with at least configurable buttons for desktop switching & expose

..people do this? I just use hot corners, since the late 90's I think 😅

Cheers!

Keyboard doesn't have to be BT, but I thought there were no ports on macs and the only hubs that worked costs £££s

It depends a lot on which model MacBook they got, but there will definitely be some ports 🙂

With some models there's just not much of them (only two USB-C for example, of which you probably need one for the charging cable most of the time), so this is where the fancy / expensive hubs come in, they give you more ports, ethernet, more options to connect external screens etc.

Actually I've got a small anker hub, so they could probably plug their current budget Bluetooth dongley keyboard and mouse combo into that.

I'm dredding the bitching about having to learn a new OS. That said they're not much of a Windows power user, so Idk if there's much to learn beyond opening folders and single-clicking.

Definitely try with the Anker hub - sometimes dongles etc. don't like them, but it will probably work fine.

Regarding learning the new OS - actually, I haven't heard of a lot of people having a hard time.
Sure, some things are different, but mostly stuff just works and they're happy.
I transitioned two people in their late sixties who used Windows all their life to macOS and they're both super happy they have a mac now and do not bitch at all 💁

MX master has plenty of buttons which make it super quick / easy.

I know, I know.. just not a fan of many buttons - actually I don't even have an external mouse but an external trackpad (since I don't need to photoshop all day any more I don't need a mouse and have transitioned to trackpad-only, and frankly I like that way better, mostly because it doesn't make my hand cramp up at all) - sometimes I use the multi finger gestures, but to be honest mostly it's indeed hot corners, even though that's not the quickest of ways..

What do you mean single clicking?

I’ve got an old Mac wired keyboard - the full size one

^^ didn't Apple used not to have two mouse buttons?

^ cheers - the BT dongle plugged into my Anker hub seems to be working aok.

Another random question, but how long would people expect a used m2 13" MBP last? My OH says she can't get a working day out of it. Idk how old it is, but I didn't think they'd been around so long that the battery would be that bad.

Is there anything obvious that slays battery life, or some smart battery analysis?

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-help/mh20865/mac

should at least tell you what % health/capacity it's at

and I think it also shows usage

What's "a working day"? 8 hours continuous use? Because that's fairly ambitious even with a brand new battery and frugal apps.

The Apple "Activity Monitor" app has an Energy tab that can tell you useful things.

I'm getting a full working day out of my 15" macbook pro M1 as long as I stay away from rendering and heavy psd's

Maybe a bit less in terms of activity, but about that. Teams calls would be the only heavy use. Everything else would be Officey stuff.

I was sure when the M1 Air came out everyone was jizzing themselves senseless over the battery life, so I was just a bit surprised vs their old X1 (only 10hrs claimed). It's a work laptop, so Idk what it's history is like, but other than the charger it looks in vgc.

Cheers all for the guidance - I just wanted to make sure there wasn't something specific like the display settings or whatever.

Anyone got an new-ish iPad for sale? My mum mentioned hers isn’t working (I reckon is best part of 10 years old) so nothing fancy, would be browser + photo's on WiFi. Not much on Apple refurb, so cheers for any pointers!

Just a (hopefully final) update to the "why doesn't my new monitor work" thing - I purchased an official Thunderbolt cable and now it works perfectly. Thanks for the advice everyone.

That was, I think, the most expensive cable I have ever purchased.

Actually I spoke too soon. The Mac can’t see the monitor speakers, which is very annoying.

Anybody having multi-monitor woes, specifically apps being opened going into an unused (connected, but turned off or not in correct input) display, or not remembering their correct display designations (but they're correctly designated in the dock right-click) and how do I fix it?

Currently I do a dock right click "Assign to display 2" "Assign to display 1" dance and they come back, with bad coordinates and I then have to adjust the window position again.

I had a similar problem many years ago trying to get a non-Apple monitor to work via Thunderbolt 1. I gave up after several mini displayport cables failed to do the job. I just bought an Apple monitor.

Can I remotely reset an iphone (or have the new owner do so) without giving out a password?

I went back to using the USB-C to HDMI converter which works fine. Which is what it is I guess.

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/icloud/mmfc0ef36f/icloud

Think you can according to this.

Thank you, I ended up doing that and it worked.

My 6-7yr old 15" MBP is starting to get a bit creaky and bad tempered, I fear it will give out soon. It flat out refused to let me edit a tune in Logic the other day, the processor just couldn't handle it.

So how fast a machine do I need to run Logic and Creative Cloud? Just the 2D stuff, I haven't done any video editing in ages. I'm currently running the MBP in clamshell mode through a Mk1 Thunderbolt monitor. Will probably go 13" for portability.

Budget isn't a massive issue, it'll get written off. ⛳ I may even upgrade my monitor and keyboard while I'm at it.

Gimme both guns. 💸

14" MBP with M3 Max will do you right, and last another 7 years easily.