Apple and Mac Discussion - Hardware & Software

I use the apple trackpad at home which I really love.

as nice as the trackpad is, get a mouse for long periods of use

Anybody know if BTStack Mouse still works on iOS 8.1.1? I'm replacing my MacBook Pro with my iPad until I can get a MB Air. I figure as long as I can type a paper on it and email it to my university account, it'll do what I need it to. I do miss the mouse, though.

the magic mouse comes highly recommended from me, but it's all personal preference and depends on what sort of work you'll be doing with it. i constantly need side scroll, pinch-zooming and gesture swipes whilst i'm working and i've yet to find a cheaper alternative that does the same job. if you aren't familiar with the magic mouse it's a low profile (which some people probably hate) super sleek mouse (i.e. no buttons) with what's essentially a small trackpad area on the front third or so. this means you can scroll in all directions (as you would with a roller-ball scroll mouse, if they still exist) with more accuracy and gestures such as finger left-right takes you forward/backward in applications like chrome. the pinch-zoom feature is really useful as well. it's about £50 over here, so i don't know what you're willing to spend on a mouse, and it might not be great if you have large hands, but if you're likely to need more than just up-down scrolling i'd recommend it. [img]http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31qb-O7h30L._SX300_.jpg[/img] although the built in trackpad is superb, like .Lain said for longer periods of use you will want a mouse, magic or not.

Seconding the Magic Mouse love, easily the best mouse Apple has ever made. Its not perfect (no middle click) so download [url=http://magicprefs.com/]MagicPrefs[/url] if you want to maximise your mileage.

[QUOTE=Sam Za Nemesis;46622165]My experience with it has been horrible on an iPod Touch 3G, it's laggy (specially if you're clicking and dragging), unresponsive, keeps randomly disconnecting my bluetooth mouse and doesn't support gestures[/QUOTE] I have to wonder if that's the fault of the hardware or the software, though. From what I can find, a lot of people are using the BTStack Mouse & Trackpad utility just fine with iOS 8.1.1.

yeah i was looking at the magic mouse. they are pricey but might be worth it. can't use the mbpr till christmas and its arriving tomorrow so its going to be a tough wait :(

[QUOTE=Over-Run;46623300] can't use the mbpr till christmas and its arriving tomorrow so its going to be a tough wait :([/QUOTE] Oh man, that's just mean.

Yeah worst of all I'm paying for nearly all of it. Parents putting a couple of hundred towards it as part of a christmas present but I have to wait ha. So annoying because I got it today and saw the box and everything and now its just wrapped up.

So I'm thinking I might just get a 13" MBPr, since it's only a .5 pound difference between it and the 13" MBA. It seems like it's better spec'ed than the MBA at the same price points, and it only weighs eight ounces more, so it might be worth looking at. What's the general consensus on the base model for $1500? That's the 2.6Ghz i5, 8GB of memory, and 128GB of flash storage which I'd probably upgrade to 256GB. My current Macbook Pro sits around 120-150GB of storage filled at any given time, and external storage is cheap as chips. It also has Intel Iris graphics, which should be enough to handle the basics. Maybe no games, but I've got a desktop for that. Would it be worth going for that over the MBA? I've priced out an MBA with the specs I would want, and it ends up being well over $1800 for similar specs to the MBP. It kind of seems insane to spend that kind of money just to shave a few ounces. (I'm kind of looking for something soon, probably right after Christmas, because the screen on my current MBP developed a crack in the bottom left corner somehow. I've moved it twice in the past week, and it wasn't there last week, so it literally just sort of showed up there. I don't know where it came from.)

[QUOTE=woolio1;46630278]So I'm thinking I might just get a 13" MBPr, since it's only a .5 pound difference between it and the 13" MBA. It seems like it's better spec'ed than the MBA at the same price points, and it only weighs eight ounces more, so it might be worth looking at. What's the general consensus on the base model for $1500? That's the 2.6Ghz i5, 8GB of memory, and 128GB of flash storage which I'd probably upgrade to 256GB. My current Macbook Pro sits around 120-150GB of storage filled at any given time, and external storage is cheap as chips. It also has Intel Iris graphics, which should be enough to handle the basics. Maybe no games, but I've got a desktop for that. Would it be worth going for that over the MBA? I've priced out an MBA with the specs I would want, and it ends up being well over $1800 for similar specs to the MBP. It kind of seems insane to spend that kind of money just to shave a few ounces. (I'm kind of looking for something soon, probably right after Christmas, because the screen on my current MBP developed a crack in the bottom left corner somehow. I've moved it twice in the past week, and it wasn't there last week, so it literally just sort of showed up there. I don't know where it came from.)[/QUOTE] I'd go with MBPr. I have a MBA and yeah it's nice but I'd love the better screen.

[QUOTE=Doritos_Man;46633794]I'd go with MBPr. I have a MBA and yeah it's nice but I'd love the better screen.[/QUOTE] Yeah, I think I'll just go with the MBPr. Eight ounces isn't enough to worry about, the laptop only weighs a little over three pounds. Compared to my 15" unibody which weighs five and a half, there's a sizable difference there.

[QUOTE=woolio1;46633903]Yeah, I think I'll just go with the MBPr. Eight ounces isn't enough to worry about, the laptop only weighs a little over three pounds. Compared to my 15" unibody which weighs five and a half, there's a sizable difference there.[/QUOTE] If you want it to be truly portable, go with the 13'. I have the 15, it's a heavy beast.

i love how portable my 13" is. i take it with me to and from school and lots of other places every day and it fits in most backpacks perfectly

[QUOTE=.Lain;46640195]i love how portable my 13" is. i take it with me to and from school and lots of other places every day and it fits in most backpacks perfectly[/QUOTE] I'm pretty sure I would have been just as happy with the 13' as the 15' tbh.

i don't think the 15" is worth it unless you need the i7, or a 750m. the display is nice being a bit bigger, but the 13" is pretty great as it is. the 13" is just a lot more portable and suited for some

After I felt the 13 and 15 I really couldn't tell the weight difference. Both are super light if your a buff dude and have been carrying around Lenovos for a while

[QUOTE=.Lain;46640299]i don't think the 15" is worth it unless you need the i7, or a 750m. the display is nice being a bit bigger, but the 13" is pretty great as it is. the 13" is just a lot more portable and suited for some[/QUOTE] Iris vs Iris Pro is still a performance consideration. Quartz debug shows that the 15" is significantly smoother than the 13" under scaled resolutions.

err, i suppose, but it's not like that's a considerable thing to the majority of people buying macbooks i haven't really noticed any lack of smoothness in mavericks, some in yosemite betas however. windows 10 being rather animation light runs quite nicely

[QUOTE=Autumn;46621897]the magic mouse comes highly recommended from me, but it's all personal preference and depends on what sort of work you'll be doing with it. i constantly need side scroll, pinch-zooming and gesture swipes whilst i'm working and i've yet to find a cheaper alternative that does the same job. if you aren't familiar with the magic mouse it's a low profile (which some people probably hate) super sleek mouse (i.e. no buttons) with what's essentially a small trackpad area on the front third or so. this means you can scroll in all directions (as you would with a roller-ball scroll mouse, if they still exist) with more accuracy and gestures such as finger left-right takes you forward/backward in applications like chrome. the pinch-zoom feature is really useful as well. it's about £50 over here, so i don't know what you're willing to spend on a mouse, and it might not be great if you have large hands, but if you're likely to need more than just up-down scrolling i'd recommend it. [img]http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31qb-O7h30L._SX300_.jpg[/img] although the built in trackpad is superb, like .Lain said for longer periods of use you will want a mouse, magic or not.[/QUOTE] too bad it's a bit of a pain in the ass to get working on Windows, although I think they fixed it in Windows 8.1, it doesn't have as many mouse options as OS X, which is kinda funny.

[QUOTE=OogalaBoogal;46640186]If you want it to be truly portable, go with the 13'. I have the 15, it's a heavy beast.[/QUOTE] That's what I was thinking. Base model 13", maybe throw in an aftermarket SSD since it's a half-mini PCI-E this time. Or just pick up a 2TB external. I do wonder about Iris vs Iris Pro, though. Iris should handle web browsing, 1080p video, and the standard office stuff, right?

[QUOTE=woolio1;46641762]That's what I was thinking. Base model 13", maybe throw in an aftermarket SSD since it's a half-mini PCI-E this time. Or just pick up a 2TB external. I do wonder about Iris vs Iris Pro, though. Iris should handle web browsing, 1080p video, and the standard office stuff, right?[/QUOTE] Yes. Iris is more than capable for most things, Apple just decides to have it render anywhere between 4 and 7MP, the latter of which it's not very good at so you can have some UI issues.

I got my wifi network set up with it's own name and password. Is there anything on the iPad side of things that I need to edit to make sure everything is secure? I don't want to miss anything.

[QUOTE=woolio1;46641762]That's what I was thinking. Base model 13", maybe throw in an aftermarket SSD since it's a half-mini PCI-E this time. Or just pick up a 2TB external. I do wonder about Iris vs Iris Pro, though. Iris should handle web browsing, 1080p video, and the standard office stuff, right?[/QUOTE] Apple nerfed aftermatket SSDs because of security reasons. Spec a bigger one!!

[QUOTE=OogalaBoogal;46645562]Apple nerfed aftermatket SSDs because of security reasons. Spec a bigger one!![/QUOTE] I don't think it's security as much as support and stability. Can you imagine how annoying it would be to try and have some guy RMA his laptop with an aftermarket SSD in it? It's just such a waste of support people's time. Similarly, OS X is heavily optimized for the controllers Apple uses, and just putting in whatever Marvell, Sandforce, etc. drive is just going to cause issues there. That being said, I would prefer that they support them. They're not obligated to though, and I don't know why people get so upset about it. Apple's SSD upgrades are actually right in line with what you pay for a good PCI-E SSD. It doesn't work out as well with the 13" model because the tiers suck and start at 128GB, which means moving to 512GB is like $500. But if you have a 15" Retina then you pay as much for an aftermarket 480GB drive as just paying apple to take you to 512GB, so I don't see the point there. [editline]5th December 2014[/editline] Actually you know what you are right that one can argue using a third party one introduces security issues relating to FDE because Apple uses a mix of encrypted and un-encrypted volumes, but that doesn't have anything to do with TRIM so the TRIM thing is really just crippling them so people don't use them.

Goddammit Kaabii, I can't even pretend to be smart when you are around.

[QUOTE=Kaabii;46645850]I don't think it's security as much as support and stability. Can you imagine how annoying it would be to try and have some guy RMA his laptop with an aftermarket SSD in it? It's just such a waste of support people's time. Similarly, OS X is heavily optimized for the controllers Apple uses, and just putting in whatever Marvell, Sandforce, etc. drive is just going to cause issues there. That being said, I would prefer that they support them. They're not obligated to though, and I don't know why people get so upset about it. Apple's SSD upgrades are actually right in line with what you pay for a good PCI-E SSD. It doesn't work out as well with the 13" model because the tiers suck and start at 128GB, which means moving to 512GB is like $500. But if you have a 15" Retina then you pay as much for an aftermarket 480GB drive as just paying apple to take you to 512GB, so I don't see the point there. [editline]5th December 2014[/editline] Actually you know what you are right that one can argue using a third party one introduces security issues relating to FDE because Apple uses a mix of encrypted and un-encrypted volumes, but that doesn't have anything to do with TRIM so the TRIM thing is really just crippling them so people don't use them.[/QUOTE] Yeah, the fact that an extra 128GB is $200, and I don't want to lug around a 15" laptop is really killing it for me. The Air's out of the question, because it's just priced too high for what you get in the 13", and you only end up saving about eight ounces. I guess I could just grab an external hard drive or something, or make use of different cloud services, but I don't understand why they can't just have reasonable upgrade prices on the 13" MBPr. Really, the worst part of all of this is AppleCare. I can't buy a Mac without it, and it's $250 now. I swear it's gone up. But now, even with the midrange 13" model, I still end up paying $2000 with tax. That's a lot of freaking money, and I need a laptop, but I'm not really sure I can afford that without destroying my little safety net of student loans. And I can't go back to using a non-Apple laptop, because that'd be a miserable experience. I might just end up getting a job. Anybody know a newspaper that's hiring?

[QUOTE=woolio1;46646265] I might just end up getting a job. Anybody know a newspaper that's hiring?[/QUOTE] Get hired at a tech website and get free MacBooks and iPhones and iPads and stuff from Apple, that's what I did.

cheeky

[QUOTE=Kaabii;46646621]Get hired at a tech website and get free MacBooks and iPhones and iPads and stuff from Apple, that's what I did.[/QUOTE] Working on that. Right now, I write for a food magazine and get paid in groceries and food equipment. It's pretty swish, outside of the no money thing.