Everything Apple (the Mac heads thread)

wait lion isnt due out till summer so might have to wait even longer.

Waiting for an OS, is in no way worth it. Lion's going to be pretty iOS-esque apparently, so get Snow Leopard while you can.

The hardware update that comes in March - April is worth the wait.

will wait - thanks :)

There is rumours of an update in weeks... so defo wait... but then rumours are rumours...

but if you're spending £1,500 i'd want to know it would be current for longer than a month, and have the best spec possible.

There are no secrets about the new specs as it's so open in terms of Intels current movements, and you would be throwing money away if you opted for the current, stocked, models.

hardly throwing money away - it will still do exactly the same things. The new version will only be marginally quicker at everything (you probably won't be able to notice any discernible diff unless you're really pushing it's limits). All the "20% faster" is just marketing stuff - the average consumer (or pro) won't notice any difference.

I used to think like you, but to be honest - a computer is only ever 'current' for about 2-3 months these days so that mentality is flawed. My attitude has changed to one where if I need something, I'll only be buying another one in 2 years time regardless.

Basically I'd rather buy an 'older' mac just before the 'newer, better' ones come, save the difference in money and spend £100 on 8GB of new RAM - which will give you a much bigger improvement in performance than a processor thats .333333333% faster.

My MBP (July 2007) still runs brilliantly. Having said that, if the screens on the 13" are upgraded to 1440 x 900 in the next versions...

hardly throwing money away - it will still do exactly the same things. The new version will only be marginally quicker at everything (you probably won't be able to notice any discernible diff unless you're really pushing it's limits). All the "20% faster" is just marketing stuff - the average consumer (or pro) won't notice any difference.

I used to think like you, but to be honest - a computer is only ever 'current' for about 2-3 months these days so that mentality is flawed. My attitude has changed to one where if I need something, I'll only be buying another one in 2 years time regardless.

Basically I'd rather buy an 'older' mac just before the 'newer, better' ones come, save the difference in money and spend £100 on 8GB of new RAM - which will give you a much bigger improvement in performance than a processor thats .333333333% faster.

Granted on your points there, but it's not just a CPU that clocks a bit faster. It's a brand new chipset, which handles RAM differently, and a far improved graphics handling to name a couple of points.

Also, I said earlier, that the difference wouldn't be huge for the 15" but the 13" will have a massive overhaul, as the core 2 will be dropped for an i5 (I think, maybe an i3). The performance jump from core 2 to i5 / i7 is a pretty major one.

Add to that the fact that apple doesn't pass that £100 saving onto you, I don't get your point. The new computers will come in at the same prices point as they always have with this sort of processor update.

quite often there is a difference in the price the month before they upgrade them - it varies between £60 and £100 - but given the £70 is enough to buy a 8gb ram set from crucial it's a good difference.

Either way, I stopped caring a long time ago. My attitude is just "buy what you can afford when you need it and put as much ram as possible in it" .. I work my macs pretty hard and I just view them as a tool really. Tools wear out, you buy new ones

I've been keeping an eye on it. I don't work my MAC as hard as I used to, but yes, it's a tool for me too.

If only mac books still carried FW I'd get one of them. All my external Hard-drives and my sound card are all FW so I'm hamstrung. Buss power is also necesary for when I am out and about doing some recording.

When the update's this close I think it's worth holding on just a little bit longer. The old MAC's holding on just about, and it's not as if I have to have it stable for work tomorrow, otherwise, like you, I'd just buy what's you now.

exactly -if it was stopping me from working i'd buy one even if they were a week away from bringing out one that was 2x faster - just because in that week of work I could recoup the costs for the whole thing and afford to make a loss selling the shitter one on ebay or whatever.

Alright team, I'm wondering if the more technically minded of you might give me a heads up.

15" late '08 Macbook Pro, backing up wirelessly via Time Machine to a 2TB External Drive, partitioned in half.

Basically, my Mac told me the external drive was full, and after adding the file sizes together I was coming up about 400GB short. I've had a fiddle and this is basically all taken up with a hidden* HFS+ Private Directory*. Apparently, from a quick Google, this deals with hard-linked files and is fairly important for the running of your Mac. However, whilst some people are saying 'don't fuck with it', [ame="http://www.pinoymac.org/forum/showthread.php?t=24128"]this guy[/ame] had pretty much exactly the same problem as me and he was fine. Now, I've been told it's an immutable root file on laptops for a good reason, but is there anything stopping me from deleting this fucking space hog out of my external hard drive? I want almost half of my space back, god damn it! I've got Blazing Saddles in HD and it's taking up valuable space on my laptop. I need that space for my Chas and Dave covers project.

Thank you!

Just bought a Macbook Air. Whoop Whoop.

It's for travelling etc when i'm away from my iMac so no need for anything too powerful.

11.6" screen. Only thing I did was upgrade the RAM. I would't normally do that but it's not user upgradeable and 2Gb was only ~£50.

I like the idea of that site but a good product's a good product at the end of the day. I aim to keep my MBP (7 month old unibody) running for 5 years, and an imminent update's not going to fast-track it's obsolescence. Err, motherfuckers.

I like to buy previous gen models once the new ones are out, usually save 200 odd quid on a product that was cutting edge the day before... refurbs are a good bet.

So you don't like my old BJ then motherfucker?

^what Chris said. Amazing how quickly something becomes 'past it' - and the gains are only marginal

So you don't like my old BJ then motherfucker?

LOL.

No, it looked great, real nice clearances too, perfect for the track, with mudguards and 28's...

Try not to get caught up in the marketing hype and you can always get a bargain... I have my eyes peeled for an old AppleTV atm...

I'll consider that a formal declaration of beef. We'll speak again, expect me.

it depends if you are buying the product to own it for eternity or to upgrade in a few years, if you upgrade often not having the latest version is less of an issue.

anyone who expects to own a computer for longer than 3.5-4 years is either being unrealistic or just planning on using it for Word and a bit of lfgss.com and therefore won't notice the difference anyway

iMac G5 lasted me 5 years, and they was power-using

desktops is different init

A relevant example...

I picked up a MBP, iPhone and a 23inch Cinema display (before they ruined them with the gloss finish) for less than an entry level MBP all because they were the generation before current.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzmmwwNRWAg&feature=related

p.s. extra ram, new OS and a new HD have brought said 3-4 year old MBP back to life...

ordered some ram from crucial and it got to london in less then 24 hours. Identical ram as the original that came with the mbp, which apple sells for £491. I paid £70 shipped. both manufactured by hynix. now I got to sell this 4 gigs of ram. what a waste. anyone with an imac want to speed up their mac let me know. forgot to mention that this code CRUPROMO7 gave me 7% off my total. good till march.

I think yasi got the wrong big cat.

Don't those who buy a mac near the time of a new release of the OS, get a substantial discount on a new version? I always just nicked my disks of a friendly mate.

pf - it'll just be a 25 quid upgrade..

no it will not be a £25 upgrade if the new OS comes out soon after purchase.
i can't remember the cut off point but i had a snow leopard upgrade disk that IIRC cost a nominal charge (think payment is needed to enforce end user agreement) of £1 for the disk. i purchased a macbookpro just before it's snow leopards release.
the upgrade disk was not machine specific like the disks supplied with the laptop so it could be used on other machines :-)