Been discussing a new desktop for my wife. Looks like the new Mac Mini M1 will be it.

Then, once the Man Cave is completed, the server will probably be relocated to it, and I'll have one for my desktop, too.

Really looking forward to the integration with our iThings.

quote:

Originally posted by sjtill:
Lefty Sig, that's a pretty hefty price for that monitor; you can buy a regular 4K LG monitor for hundreds less. Is it worth it for the convenience of having the Thunderbolt connection?

It's a dedicated Mac-only monitor that is fully integrated into the MacOS feature set and control settings, and more or less equivalent to an Apple Retina display. I have a 27" Retina 5K iMac. If I had a Mini I would get the LG, but that's me.

I was a dedicated Windows user since the days of DOS 3.11. Thru years of various upgrades I blundered into using Vista OS.

I switch to Mac and will never go back.

quote:

Originally posted by x0225095:
If any of you mimi Mac guys want to give me a suggestion for a monitor I’m all ears.

About to pick one up in the next month or so to replace my 2008 and 2009 iMacs.

If so, you may want to wait as there are rumors of an M1 iMac coming soon - most likely the replacement for the 21" iMac. Don't know if it will be a new form factor or not. Reduced bezels & a 24"screen occupying the same general size has been rumored.

Unfortunately I couldn't wait & had to replace my 2008 Mac Pro with an M1 Mini. I was hoping to hold out for the revised iMac, but the Pro finally gave up the ghost.

Cons:
There have been some issues with the new Mini - mostly display & Bluetooth issues.
Mac Mini Display Issues
Mac Mini M1 Bluetooth Problems

I've got both issues. The Bluetooth problem depends on the peripheral involved (Apple Trackpad & Sony headphones work w/o difficulty, Anker headphones requires deselecting then reselecting output to work). The "pink squares" display issues go away after a few minutes & reinserting the HDMI cable.

Pros:
This thing is ridiculously fast, even using Rosetta 2.
Some apps still do not work - see Is Apple Silicon Ready? and/or Roaringapps list of apps ready for Apple Silicon for lists of compatible apps.
It's quiet - real quiet.
Did I mention it's fast.

The Apple Silicon chips have changed chip architecture & memory use, it's why the M1 Macs are so energy efficient as well as fast. Having been a computer geek for decades, I was of the belief that a minimum of 16 GB of RAM is a minimum. I have the 8/256 M1 Mini & have yet to reach greater than 50% memory pressure despite running multiple apps. Read "Why Is Apple's M1 Chip So Fast?" for a good explanation of how Apple did it.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: mrbill345,

Great article—I sort of understand it. So this is a huge deal. We’re used to claimed jumps I speed that are not noticeable to the average user. Apple is showing us visibly crazy performance increases with a small computer that doesn’t even break a sweat. Even more amazing than I thought.

It's great to bring brought up to speed with these newer MacBooks. I'm confident that another MacBook pro is in my future at some point, they just work. I've had my tank-like built late 2013 15" MacBook pro retina for almost 8 yrs now. Back then they were using the SSD and i7 processor. I've never had any issues and still runs great, although heavy as a tank, and built like one. It's taken some 3' falls and still running like a tank.

I definitely could see a switch to the MacBook air in my future, especially performance wise these new M1 chips. Thanks for the MacBook update and enjoy your new Air!

quote:

Originally posted by r0gue:
I have a 2017 Macbook Pro and the battery is starting to bulge. Debating new battery or new Air. I hate the keyboard on this pro. How is the Air's keyboard n comparison?

You may want to check and see if that is under warranty. I seem to recall that a series of Pro's in that general time frame had battery issues (bulging)
and Apple issued a recall with free battery replacements.

I second checking with Apple Support. It's pretty easy to get a chat going.
When I had a bulging battery on my '07 MBP, they sent a free battery. With a non-removable battery you may get a refurbed MBP.

As far as the M1 keyboard is concerned, it's fine.

The thing that is limiting with the Mac Air is you have only two ports. And there's not enough power in the ports to run (as I found out yesterday) an Elgato Video Capture device.

When I replace my '17 MBP it will be with an M1 MBP, but will wait until software compatibility issues get sorted out. EDITED to add: New MBP 13 inch has just two Thunderbolt 3/USB 4 ports; so will probably need a powered Thunderbolt dock.

I found out my Olympus Capture software (that allows tethering the OM-D to the computer for digitizing slides) is not compatible with Big Sur. I will probably have to have a separate bootable USB with an older macOS version, High Sierra or Mojave, to continue to run it. I doubt Olympus in its current state will update that software to 64 bit.

Each of the USB 4/Thunderbolt 3 ports on the M1 Macs is on a separate bus; which means that each port is capable of 40 Gbps.

I picked up an OWC 1 TB NVMe TB 3 external drive on a pre-Christmas sale to use as a Time Machine backup & scratch drive that runs on 1 TB 3 port & had an old TB 2 dock (w/ Apple's TB 2 to TB 3 adapter) for extra ports - including 2nd monitor. Now I can watch NHL games on 1 screen and try to work on the other.

sjtill - There are rumors of 12 core Apple Silicon Macs coming soon w/ 8 High Performance cores & 4 High Efficiency cores, but I'm not sure if there will be a 13" MBP (I doubt), or 14" & 16" (more likely w/ thinner bezels - more likely. I've seen time frames ranging from 1st quarter to fall. Apple usually does an event in March.

Also if your OM-D is TWAIN compliant, you might try Apple's Image Capture application.

quote:

Originally posted by straightshooter01:

quote:

Originally posted by r0gue:
I have a 2017 Macbook Pro and the battery is starting to bulge. Debating new battery or new Air. I hate the keyboard on this pro. How is the Air's keyboard n comparison?

You may want to check and see if that is under warranty. I seem to recall that a series of Pro's in that general time frame had battery issues (bulging)
and Apple issued a recall with free battery replacements.

Thank you for the advice. I ran the SN# and no dice. ut it's worth a call to Apple support to ask for an exception.

quote:

Originally posted by straightshooter01:

quote:

Originally posted by r0gue:
I have a 2017 Macbook Pro and the battery is starting to bulge. Debating new battery or new Air. I hate the keyboard on this pro. How is the Air's keyboard n comparison?

You may want to check and see if that is under warranty. I seem to recall that a series of Pro's in that general time frame had battery issues (bulging)
and Apple issued a recall with free battery replacements.

Keep in mind that if you have any, and I mean ANY keyboard issues with your 2017, it’s probably eligible for a replacement keyboard for free from Apple. When they replace the keyboard, they replace the keyboard, top deck, touch pad, and battery. I have a stack of 2017 and 2016 MacBook machines with brand new keyboards and 1 battery cycle because of how terrible the butterfly keyboard is/was.

quote:

Originally posted by mrbill345:
<snip>
Pros:
This thing is ridiculously fast, even using Rosetta 2. <snip>

Very glad to hear that. I use an ancient, but wonderfully useful, programming language, SPITBOL (an enhanced form of SNOBOL4). I doubt that it’ll be revised to run on the M1 processors.

An article about Rosetta 2:

www.google.com/amp/s/www.compu...ilicon-macs.amp.html

quote:

Originally posted by Veeper:

quote:

Originally posted by straightshooter01:

quote:

Originally posted by r0gue:
I have a 2017 Macbook Pro and the battery is starting to bulge. Debating new battery or new Air. I hate the keyboard on this pro. How is the Air's keyboard n comparison?

You may want to check and see if that is under warranty. I seem to recall that a series of Pro's in that general time frame had battery issues (bulging)
and Apple issued a recall with free battery replacements.

Keep in mind that if you have any, and I mean ANY keyboard issues with your 2017, it’s probably eligible for a replacement keyboard for free from Apple. When they replace the keyboard, they replace the keyboard, top deck, touch pad, and battery. I have a stack of 2017 and 2016 MacBook machines with brand new keyboards and 1 battery cycle because of how terrible the butterfly keyboard is/was.

Now THAT is how I should have approached this. I already have an appointment for the battery. I'll call and cancel it and reschedule for a look at the battery and keyboard. If they quote the battery, I'll just tell them no, just do they keyboard! haha

mrbill--

quote:

Also if your OM-D is TWAIN compliant, you might try Apple's Image Capture application.

I may look into that. The software is not just for image capture, it actually controls the camera completely from the computer; that allows e.g. careful, magnified focusing on the video monitor.

Thanks for the advice on the rumors. I should wait then, since I will have my '17 MBP back to use until later in the year.

I prefer the smaller form factor but might well plump for a 16 inch for the video editing of years of family videos I am currently digitizing. Rendering is soooo slow, would love a great big boost in speed there.

I just got my MBP back from Apple repair--overnight. They replaced the logic board, upper case, and battery, which I believe also means the keyboard but they didn't mention it. They noted battery life was too short, so even though that wasn't in my repair request, they fixed it. For flat rate of $630.

Nice to have 4 Thunderbolt ports again.

quote:

Originally posted by Pipe Smoker:

quote:

Originally posted by mrbill345:
<snip>
Pros:
This thing is ridiculously fast, even using Rosetta 2. <snip>

Very glad to hear that. I use an ancient, but wonderfully useful, programming language, SPITBOL (an enhanced form of SNOBOL4). I doubt that it’ll be revised to run on the M1 processors.

An article about Rosetta 2:

www.google.com/amp/s/www.compu...ilicon-macs.amp.html

“…
What’s notable is the performance of the Rosetta2 run of the benchmark when in x86 mode, which is not only able to keep up with past Mac iterations but still also beat them.
…”

www.anandtech.com/show/16252/m...ni-apple-m1-tested/2

Latest rumors that new form factor M1 MacBook Pros will arrive in 3rd quarter of 2021.

I did have a recent big issue with my M1 Mini that I believe came from the use of the Migration Assistant, perhaps even too often (when replacing HD's & restoring from backups) on the Mac Pro. It took me 3 days to recover. It started with a kernel panic & on reboot the M1 Mini would be searchng for a wireless signal (I use wired Ethernet) & then would crash & reboot. The M1 Big Sur uses a new recovery option that requires holding down the power on button for ~10 seconds, then an options screen shows up with the usual recovery options. I ran disk first aid on the SSD, then reinstalled Big Sur & used Migration Assistant from the Time Machine Backup. This lasted a day & then the issue recurred.

The second day (time), I was unable to recover at all & I was forced to admit defeat & call Apple Support. I don't believe the initial techs believed me when I described the issue as well my experience with Macs & Apple (1st Mac was a Mac Plus). After being guided to repeat the previous day's attempts (several times); I got bumped up to the first senior level tech who suggested that instead of using Migration Assistant after nuke & paving, that I manually pull the settings (email, etc) from the TM backup & manually reinstall all my apps - which seemed reasonable. This I attempted to do.

Apparently Big Sur & the APFS filesystem has security that links you to your Mac. Neither of the techs recognized the need to completely reset the filesystem & it took finally getting to a new senior tech to recognize this (apparently reading the notes from my case number) & successfully guided me through restoring the Mini. As the reinstallation of the system took time - I was provided with her email & she called several times to check on the status of the restoration.

Anyway, if you've read this far I have several points:
1. Customer Support was fantastic.
2. I don't know how much of the issue was caused by remnants of the previous systems, but I've had no issues since.
3. Media migration had mixed issues (stored on an external drive & has backup). Music was essentially flawless save for a few missed tracks which I had to manually transfer. As to video (movies/TV/etc), that was problematic as the TV app import function didn't recognize the metadata from the files. I was saved by an app from the App Store called iVI 4. The only issue with it was it searched on title names which meant that movies & TV episodes with the same (or nearly the same) title has to edited to make the correct choice. This was preferable to manually editing a couple of thousand videos.
4. YMMV, but I think that the repeated use of Migration Assistant, probably with the new filesystem (APFS) contributed to my woes.
5. Still love the M1 Mini!

 
I've been following the M1 forum on MacRumors very closely, and I believe I'll hold off until the next version of the M processor. For one thing, only 2 TB ports? My 2018 Mini is running along just fine, and has 4 TB ports (with 3 in use). A problem reported often has been with monitor support on the current M1 (mostly with Dell monitors defaulting to YPbPr color space rather than RGB, with no way to change it to RGB). Also, monitors not waking from sleep (which is not an issue for me as I never sleep any Mac), and not being able to choose certain resolutions. Lots of good reports, too, but I still think I'll hold off.

mrbill--
I haven't used Apple's online support until recently, and now I've had three or four chat sessions and a phone call. They seem to move you up the list of more senior advisors until you get one who can resolve your issue.
One of my issues was lack of free space on the HD when trying to erase and reinstall. The senior tech advisor talked me through finding and deleting a second Data container in APFS. This is all new to me.
However, like you, I have had a Mac for ages--since 1984, in fact. Before that we had an Apple II (not the Plus) we bought for our two boys in 1979 when they were 6 and 8.

Latest rumors: AppleInsider

• New form factor iMacs with an advanced M1 processor. Form to resemble the Pro Display XR; possibly with 24" & 30" screens.
• 2 new Mac Pros. One w/ the current form factor (possibly w/ Intel chip) and a smaller form "invoking the G4 Cube".


sjtill --
My only issue was that after being escalated to a senior tech advisor on the first call was being sent back down to the basic level; even though on the subsequent calls; even though there was case documentation.