Everything Apple (the Mac heads thread)

Anybody need a 2m Thunderbolt 3 Pro Cable? It’s only £129.

I know there's been a bit of storage/back-up chat in the last few pages so bear with me.
Like @Muppetteer I need to pull and store a load of files. I currently use Dropbox and I have just enough space on there that I could upload to it, but then that doesn't leave me much room for regular working. I'm up for buying 2TB icloud but I've never used it before.
Can you use it like Timemachine to make staged backups rather than working from it like dropbox? Does anyone regularly use it from a PC? I know you can, just wondered if it's a pain.

Secondly, I've been using a Surface Pro as my main machine for the last few months, and rather like it. Currently using with an external screen, keyboard and mouse, but I do also use it a lot for drawing on. I haven't ever used it in tablet mode. I'm going to have to give it back, and wondered about getting an iPad Pro or replacing the Surface Pro. Any thoughts?

I've always had MBP as my main personal machine but used to using whatever. I like being able to draw on the screen more than I thought I would, and it's pretty essential for WFH now. I mostly use Office plus Adobe PS/InD/Illus. Is it ok for that? I'm currently in Microsoft 365 world - and the desktop apps are better for Windows, but don't know if that will continue. Can you Bootcamp/Parallels an ipad? I've never had to do it on any machine, just wondering in case I need to use Revit...

I use the full msft suite on my iPad Pro, all works well

I didn't realise this was the case, I thought it was just the mobile apps on iPad which, although better than they used to be, are a fair way from full versions.

Any idea if it's all iPads or just iPad Pro, I can't find much online.

Hmm, they might be cut down, honestly I can’t tell - they do look a little different, but I can do everything that I need to do, so to me they’re the same.

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Actually sounds great. It's probably active somehow. Passive one wouldn’t get such high speeds beyond about 15-20 inches. An Amazon job would bottleneck / fray.

Also braidz.

Can you Bootcamp/Parallels an ipad?

Nope. iPad is still iOS/ARM so not possible to run Windows

You'll be able to run full (/iPad) Office apps on Pro and normal iPads though - just you can't use the posh keyboard with normal iPads.

In the end I got the Dropbox 2TB to put all the files and bought an external 1TB drive (recommended above) which is for backups etc. As far as I know, you can put whatever you want onto Dropbox, but I think there are limitations to the file size? I can’t remember if Timemachine backs up as one file (which will be massive) or creates a clone of your system with the full structure?

I’m also using an iPad Pro 12.9 as a second machine along with a 13” MacBook Pro. I use the iPad Pro as a second screen for the MacBook Pro as the screen size is almost identical and Sidecar works seamlessly between the two. And I switch between the two devices individually, using the Magic Keyboard with the iPad Pro. I’ve never tried the Surface Pro, as I’m more in Appleverse. And I use the iPad Pro a lot in tablet mode for annotating artwork changes / editorial amendments with the pencil, which is a really good workflow and is far better than on the MacBook Pro.

I also use Office plus Adobe PS/InD/Illus, but mostly use Adobe on the MacBook Pro. There are iPad Pro versions of PS and Illus but not Indesign (but it’s apparently coming) and I’ve had a play but haven’t had time yet to fully work out my workflow. And Office 365 is quite good on the iPad Pro. There’s a few limitations, but it does work really well. And I don’t use Parallels on the iPad, but do have a virtual PC desktop through VMWare which works fine.

The iOS Office suite is cutdown, but I think for the majority of users, they wouldn’t notice the difference. There’s only been a few times when I’ve had to save a document and reopen it on a laptop to get to the feature/function I need. The copy and paste needs a little work too. It’s still a bit iPhonesque but it works much better in the Apple Apps than the third party ones.

Ah, that's the app version still. It's missing quite a lot for my use, pivot tables being the major thing.

but not Indesign (but it’s apparently coming)

Really? I’d be very interested to see that. I remember looking into it a while after the first iPad Pro came out and there was a software designer or some such from Adobe on the Adobe forums saying it was impossible for some reason I can’t remember. Hopefully that’s changed

You are quite correct, somewhat shamefully as I do use pivot tables quite often and I’d not noticed

Anybody need a 2m Thunderbolt 3 Pro Cable? It’s only £129.

Erm, yes actually.

It's hard to get that length with the full feature set of the cable... and that makes that cable quite reasonably priced.

2m is about perfect for putting a dock under a sit/stand desk so the desk is perfectly clear of all cables and clutter and the laptop is connected to everything in a tidy way.

I know there's been a bit of storage/back-up chat in the last few pages so bear with me.
Like @Muppetteer I need to pull and store a load of files. I currently use Dropbox and I have just enough space on there that I could upload to it, but then that doesn't leave me much room for regular working.

Have more than one machine? Got a NAS somewhere? Run Syncthing!

https://syncthing.net/

Syncthing is like Dropbox, but way more powerful... and you run it on all your machines (like the Dropbox client), and it's free, 100% free.

There is no cloud component, each machine connects to the other, etc. But if you have a NAS then put Syncthing on that, and it becomes your always available cloud available instance.

The sync is peer to peer... so when you're on the same network you sync at the speed of the local network.

You can also set up multiple sync directories with entirely different criteria and choose which ones are available to which machines... and that is the killer feature. Have your larger machines sync everything, have smaller machines only sync their working set, hell... I have my mobile phone run Syncthing for it's Downloads directory which makes my mobile downloads instantly available on my laptop.

Basically... Syncthing kicks ass, but is absolutely incredible if you have an always on computer to run it on, like a NAS.

*squints at my 2014 MBP and Surface Pro and shoebox of small-scale storage*

I think you've over-estimated my home set-up...

Yeah I'm used to using Dropbox for day to day and will keep doing so, just thinking about having icloud as 'backup'/storage as well.

My MBP is still on Sierra, I guess I need to look into updating that. Just trying to decide - with increased WFH - whether I'm better off with ipad pro or surface pro... connecting between the two machines might be a nice bonus, but otherwise I'm slightly wary of which will go out of date quickest (lack of support and accessories) and being hemmed in by apple extras.

Active Thunderbolt 3 cables are expensive, this isn't a bad price for what it is.

What is an "active" Thunderbolt cable?

It's like activated almonds, but a cable

40Gbps transfer upto 2m.

Basically bastard fast.

Normal / passive are half that at best.

for the salad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_cable

What is an "active" Thunderbolt cable?

I have the same question! I’ve a 2m Thunderbolt 3 cable which came with the LG UltraFine 4K Display. The screen costs £629, but it doesn’t say if the included cable is “active” or not? If the Apple cable is £129 separately, then er, does this make the LG display a bargain?

See mine and @CYOA aboves posts...

You definitely don't have an active cable - no need for one to connect a display (at least not a single 5k one).

Scratch that; the 5k display does come with an active cable. 5k display uses 22Gbps of bandwidth so over the passive cable rate.

They're for extremely fast and consistently fast data transfer - copying terabytes at a time. Cables that fast will in most cases be hobbled by what they're connected to.

Ah, I see, thanks!