Apple / Mac new hardware discussion

[wakka]

Love the setup fuse, and the glimpse into your paradise of games.

That Mac Mini looks a lot smarter than my gaming PC. lol

We got a convert boys.

[speedlolita]

We got a convert boys.

Maybe if I grow out of PC gaming.

That said I haven't used my PC for games in 3 weeks now!

[fuse]

Been some mention of it over in off topic already, but the Apple event just last week showed off a bunch of new phones and watches.

My phone's getting a bit long in the tooth so I've ordered a 15 Pro, but perhaps more radically I'm giving serious consideration to trying out the Watch despite being fairly anti-smartwatch for some time. I'm deep in the Apple ecosystem so another brand isn't really a consideration, but the main thing I'm interested in is the heart / pulse / ECG tracking. Think I've figured out a suitable band (can't stand the look of the silicon ones, not into fabric either) but I feel like this is something I really need to poke my head into a store for to try on before I throw money at it. Anyone using / used one and have any strong feelings?

Still haven't done much in the way of gaming on it, but continue to be delighted with the M2 Pro Mac Mini. Did try to download Baldur's Gate 3 for it the other day only to find that it was still in early access for Mac, and had all kinds of glitchy **** / screen tearing going on, which was a shame.

[CMcK]

I’m using a five year old Apple Watch still runs well and battery has held up surprisingly well too. The main things I use it for are paying for stuff, fitness tracking, discrete notifications and timers. Seems to be pretty accurate reading your pulse but I can’t comment on the ECG stuff as I’ve never felt the need to use it. Being able to change bands so easily is a really nice feature.

[MartyG]

I have a bunch of those same Ikea CD/DVD/Tape/Game shelves - nice thing is they don't bow in the middle.

[wakka]

Not an Apple Watch user myself but it’s strongly rumoured to get a major overhaul and redesign this time next year. May be worth waiting for (or at least bearing in mind).

[fuse]

Wasn't even aware of it until earlier in the day, but there was another Apple event today.

M3 chips! Only in 24" iMacs and MacBook Pros for now.

[wakka]

Yep - a pretty straightforward upgrade for both the iMac and MBP (on the latter, black tax is back, though!).

A few key takeaways:

- Long gone are the days of waiting years between Mac chip upgrades that we had in the Intel era. Great that Apple are keeping their Pro machines cutting edge.

- The event was hyped surprisingly heavily for what are a fairly staid set of upgrades. The switch to an evening (US time) event and distribution of goody bags to streamers ahead of time were particularly unusual. My read: a test of how much this improved US-based viewership ahead of next year's all-important Vision Pro event(s).

- Zero announcements of new gaming deals. IMO this seriously calls into question Apple's commitment to proactively supporting a pipeline of AAA games to Mac/iPhone following the excitement from some about the Capcom deal and its iPhone 15 Pro compatibility. We are just a month out from the 15 Pro launch and we have brand new, even more powerful Mac chips. This would have been the perfect moment to throw in an announcement of a deal with another publisher for more games for both platforms and yet - nada.

[fuse]

New iMacs, Mac Minis, and Macbook Pros!

I could've foreseen there being newer and faster Mac Minis, but I did not expect the M4 models to somehow get even smaller? I am still over the moon with my M2 Pro, but it is very exciting to know that they are still doing more new things with the product line.

[wakka]

A strong update and the redesigned Mini looks really cool.

One thing I would say is that, in terms of user upgrade cycles, Apple kinda designed themselves into a corner with how capable these M series chips are for general usage. I have a three year old M1 Pro chip with 16GB RAM and I can't see myself upgrading any time soon at all. Maybe in another three years at the soonest.

[Nu-Eclipse]

The new Mac Mini looks amazing....and I totally didn't expect the cheap entry-level model price!!

I never thought there would be a day where I could have more justification for purchasing a Mac Mini over a MacBook Pro or Air, but here we are...even then, I don't see how I'd personally use a Mini for anything other than a fancy media server!

[wakka]

I just got a new keyboard for my Mac after my eight year old Magic Keyboard gave up the ghost (a grouping of keys, including the rather crucial letter 'P', stopped working).

I got the Keychron K3 Pro. My first ever mechanical keyboard and wow, it feels really great to use. I'm still just getting used to the increased travel versus the Magic Keyboard but considering it's the exact same price - Apple's accessories being, as always, terribly overpriced - this is a massive uplift in quality. I got brown switches, for the record.

It is definitely on the noisy side but since I work at home and live alone, that doesn't matter too much. Might annoy my dog I guess

It's setup for Mac out of the box, which I think is the same for all Keychron's gear, and pleasingly it has very similar dimensions to the Magic Keyboard, so doesn't take up too much space on the desk. I really like the handful of additional keys you get too. There's a dedicated single key shortcut among the F keys for the Cmd-Shift-4 command for screenshotting an area of the screen, which is nice cos I use that multiple times a day.