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I'd like to think that Apple will eventually - now that they're back on board with the notion of allowing tower PCs to exist - just make a regular Mac, to sit between the Mac Mini and the Mac Pro, that can just be a nice but slightly smaller tower, perhaps even with the old cheesegrater front, that can hold a nice i7 or something, a single one of those modules set up with a single, powerful GPU, and one or two extra PCIe slots, and like dual memory channels with four DIMMs. I don't think people would even mind if there was some Apple Tax on this thing, even if they're just going to bootcamp it, because it'll probably still represent better value than a maxed out Mini and an eGPU.
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Jun 9, 2019 14:37
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Just imagine what could be done if they ever agreed that, okay, these things are thin enough now, and we'll deign to make them a millimeter or two thicker in order to accommodate a keyboard with individually replacable caps and a less delicate mechanism or a slightly bigger heatsink. Or a camera array that doesn't jut out from the back of your phone, even.
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Jun 14, 2019 00:07
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If a 13" analogue appears with the non-butterfly keyboard I am super sold, especially if it launches a while after the bigger version. Hell, I'd buy it even if they don't seize on this chance to finally kill the touch bar.
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Jul 31, 2019 14:16
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Face ID on an Actual Computer, let alone a laptop, seems kind of superfluous. Having an actual keyboard makes typing a password a nonissue, and that's what your security is going to boil down to anyway. The only real justification of this seems to be their intelligent anti-sleep feature, which is also going to be largely wasted on a laptop since people are going to tend to manage that manually by opening or closing the lid anyway. On a desktop the intelligent sleep/wake feature would actually kind of rule, but... well, they're not going to put it on a desktop, are they.
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Aug 6, 2019 23:10
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Release a critical security update that prevents hackers from turning your CPU into a bomb and like ten percent of your users are gonna bother. Release an update that adds shiny new emoji like the long-awaited onion and people will be all over that poo poo.
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Oct 29, 2019 23:48
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With this, I'm reasonably satisfied that when my 2014 13" finally gives up the ghost I will happily, rather than grudgingly, replace it.
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Nov 13, 2019 22:19
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Crazy idea: Touch Bar or Physical Function Keys selectable as BTO options. Obviously, the Touch Bar will be the default and the physicals a £50 extra.
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Nov 19, 2019 23:13
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Yeah, the thing that really surprised me about shopping around for monitors is how bright they all aren't. These days the current crop of LED TVs all seem to casually reach 1000nits and stupid contrast ratios without breaking a sweat, while monitors tend to cap out at 500 nits on the really expensive ones. So when Apple started hyping the XDR, it was the brightness that got my attention. I bet Apple could make a hella good ordinary desktop monitor if they were inclined to (which alas they'll probably never be again).
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Dec 9, 2019 17:25
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TBQH a new iMac form factor should just look like a 27" iPad Pro from the front and like the bottom half of a Macbook Pro when viewed in profile. Or maybe the whole thing should just look like the Pro Display XDR except it uses that bulk to house A Computer instead of $5k worth of backlight strobing hardware.
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Jan 28, 2020 16:24
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I'm a very likely buyer of the new Air, I gotta say, even though I was really wating for the 14". I'll give it a couple weeks for the full reviews to hit and the shipping situation to work itself out, but, man, much as I'd like to not have the slight wedge shape and ports on both sides, I don't think I £700 worth of want those things (current 4 port 13" MBP: 4 core i5, 16GB RAM, 512 GB storage, £2199. new MBA: 4 core i5 (tad slower), 16GB RAM, 512 GB storage, £1499). The new Pro will probably work out better when compared at the higher price points where the i7s will really able to work with literally any cooling, but for day-to-day use the Air's gonna have me covered. All that, and it doesn't have the touch bar, which is a feature in and of itself!
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Mar 23, 2020 15:47
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I pulled the trigger on an MBA too. I kinda wish I'd done it a bit earlier; I thought the long lead time they were quoting was on account of ramping up towards a wider availability date but it keeps creeping backward so I guess they're just taking a couple weeks to ship now on account of All This and there's no sense waiting any longer. I sprung for the 512 and for the 16GB RAM, and at that point I figured gently caress it the i7 can't hurt, I've made stupider purchases in my time. I don't even really need to do much of anything intensive on this (besides Chrome lol) although I will use it for code sometimes. Hyped to have exactly skipped the Butterfly Years; the 2014 rMBP it's replacing was the second last Macbook to not have that goddamn keyboard, and the 2020 MBA is the second Macbook to ditch it.
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Apr 1, 2020 17:52
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Apple did quote me a ship time of two to three weeks but that doesn't make seeing the DHL status remain on "shipping info received" for a full week any less irritating. I figured the delay would be all Apple but I guess DHL isn't having a great time what with All This lately.
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Apr 7, 2020 13:44
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My MBA finally made it out of Eindhoven and arrived at my door within 6 hours of entering the country, and I'm extremely happy with it. This keyboard is seriously lovely, and after I'm done adjusting from the 2014 MBP keyboard I'm sure it'll turn out optimal but I love it already, and I'm delighted to have skipped the butterfly generation completely. Also, having come from a 2014 model with a dual core i7 (I sprung for the i7 MBA, because what the hell) I'm delighted to be able to watch YouTube videos without boiling the CPU and making the fans scream, and also to be able to use Anker cables to charge the thing, finally.
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Apr 16, 2020 17:52
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Binary Badger posted:Did you mean to say you sprung for the i7 on your new rMBA as well as on the old 2014 MBA? Oh, right. Yes, I sprung for the i7 MBA. Also, I was wrong; my 2014 MBP is actually an i5. The MBA has been broadly silent in everything I've done, except when I did my initial dropbox sync, which made it go a bit on account of all those files.
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Apr 16, 2020 18:24
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Okay, could use some guidance here: On my old MBP, I had a boatload of stuff in iTunes that later became a boatload of stuff in Music. It seems I have two folders in ~/Music: ~/Music/iTunes, which contains the said boatload, and ~/Music/Music, which just contains a library file. I've copied ~/Music/iTunes to the new MBA and booted up Music, but it hasn't recognised it. I've still got everything set up on the old MBP so a do-over isn't a disaster, but I'm not really clear what's actually called for here to get Music on the new MBA to recognise my boatload. Music itself is suggesting a "Music Media" folder of ~/Music/Music/Media but that seems to map to only one folder in my old iTunes folder. Advice?
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Apr 16, 2020 20:48
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Ok Comboomer posted:How did you migrate your stuff over? Did you use migration assistant or did you manually move folders over via thumb drive,etc? This was a manual copy. I've been taking the opportunity to do a mostly fresh install but with data retained where possible.
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Apr 16, 2020 21:00
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This has got my music across, but wiped all my playlists and other data, etc. I'm sure I should be able to keep that; my old 2014 MBP has imports dating back to uh... 2004. I'd really like to keep all of that. E: to be clear, since the old MBP is still up and running I'm happy to consider steps that begin with nuking the Music library on the new MBA. Fedule fucked around with this message at 21:56 on Apr 16, 2020 |
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Apr 16, 2020 21:49
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Daniel Bryan posted:Oh. Well, then. On the old Mac, go to iTunes/Music. Go to File --> Library --> Export Library. It will export an XML of your library. Now, open the file in TextEdit or something. Find <key>Music Folder</key><string>file:///Users/yourusername/Music/Music/Media.localized/</string> and make sure the path matches where the music is now. Save it if it needed to be changed, and then import the file on your new Mac by dragging it to Music.app. Should work. Nope! I don't see any sign of that having done anything. I'm going to try re-importing everything again. If anyone knows or can recite a good step by step that'd be great - I've searched a bunch but the terminology confusion is loving everything up enormously. Specific question in the meantime: I've got a bunch of stuff in my iTunes folder on the old MBP: Album Artwork, iTunes Library Extras.itdb, iTunes Library Genius.itdb, iTunes Library.itl, iTunes Media, iTunes Music, iTunes Music Library.xml, and Previous iTunes Libraries. How much of this stuff is the actual pertinent part of my library that I need to copy? I feel like a bunch of it may well be redundant stuff from ages past (remember I've had this library since 2004). Fedule fucked around with this message at 22:26 on Apr 16, 2020 |
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Apr 16, 2020 22:22
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Okay. Progress. What I did was, I copied my entire iTunes Media folder from the MBP to the MBA, and also the iTunes Library.itl file. Then I held down Option while starting up Music. This prompts Music to initialise and request to either create a new library or import one. I then pointed it at my .itl Library, and Music then converted it into a .musiclibrary file. All of my stuff instantly showed up in Music, complete with all stats and history and artwork and playlists. Lovely! I feel like this is what should have happened when I followed Daniel Bryan's advice above and in retrospect I can see how that absolutely should have done that, because this is just importing a Library file, but I guess Music is just kind of a fucker about it and won't take XML as an import? ...except, Music has once again set every goddamn thing to its stupid lovely Playlist view instead of the Songs view that's actually loving usable, and has reset all my columns again so I again have to set every loving playlist one at a time to use the Songs view and have the columns I actually want. What the christ, Apple. How have you hosed this up so completely?! E: Also, I am missing my four most recently added albums. That's pretty specifically weird. Oh well. For retaining 16 years of library history, I'll take it. Fedule fucked around with this message at 00:05 on Apr 17, 2020 |
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Apr 16, 2020 23:44
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Oh god oh wait I figured it out, I think; the MBP already has a .musiclibrary library, the .itl version I still had kicking around is just another one of those redundant vestigial artifacts that it hasn't cleaned up yet! The four missing albums were the ones I added since converting to Music. How is it that iTunes/Music lets you configure where your Media folder is, but not where your Library is?! E: the missing albums are restored BUT NOW IT'S EATEN MY ALBUM ART COME ON- All album art is still visible on the files but isn't showing in Music. Any ideas? E2: Also; now, whenever I play a track, Music moves it from ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/iTunes Music/Artist/Album/track to ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Artist/Album/track. What the hell is going on? Fedule fucked around with this message at 00:44 on Apr 17, 2020 |
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Apr 17, 2020 00:30
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I ran Consolidate Library and it moved everything from ~/Music/iTunes Media/Music into ~/Music/iTunes Media. Okay! Now whenever I play something, Music moves it back to ~/Music/iTunes Media/Music! Apple Music! What is it doing! E: On closer inspection, whenever I play something that's in iTunes Media, which allegedly is my media folder, Music will pause for a couple seconds, then play a seemingly random track from somewhere in iTunes Media/Music, before moving the track I chose and like the 50 or so tracks after it in the display order into iTunes Media/Music. Then the fans blare for a minute. What the christ is even notionally happening here. I can see AMPLibraryAgent running away in the background; I gather it's working through the boatload of music I've just added. I've heard some people say the missing album art issue resolves itself after a while once Music has gotten its poo poo together. Can anyone confirm this? Captain Apollo posted:No but really can you please post your temps. I need to see if my MacBook Air is an anomaly. Later! Fedule fucked around with this message at 01:22 on Apr 17, 2020 |
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Apr 17, 2020 01:07
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I solved the album art problem, mostly. It turns out that between iTunes and Music they changed where they store Album Artwork but in the grand tradition they don't clean up the old files, so I just copied over the big obvious Album Artwork folder in my installation like a moron rather than doing the obvious thing of looking in ~/Library/Containers/com.Apple.AMPArtworkAgent/Data/Documents and copying that across instead. Duh. Anyway that fixed most of the art except a handful that got eaten for reasons I still don't understand but it was all of an hour's work to fix those. Hooray? Christ I hate Apple Music but it's the only repository I have and I like the fact that I can still see the exact order I built it in up to 2004 (and I know for a fact I have data before then but it all got flattened when I was young and stupid and ported it from an outgoing Pixar iMac to an Aluminium G4book so now we can never know when I got all those rips from Galbadia Hotel.
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Apr 17, 2020 18:33
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Captain Apollo posted:Post your temperatures while: Okay fine but I don't have Zoom and never will. Recap: 2020 MBA, i7, 16GB All of these were taken from Intel Power Gadget after two minutes of doing whatever thing: (°C) Idle: 43.2 Discord, WhatsApp, Messages, News, Safari (5 tabs), Music playing: 54.7 As above, but with added 1080p YouTube: 53.5 As above, but in Chrome instead of Safari: 72.0 As above but 4K YouTube: 99.7 Geekbench 5.0 CPU benchmarking: 99.6 Geekbench 5.0 Metal benchmarking: 78.6 4K YouTube is definitely still not really a happy situation on this device, although I'd sure love to know if that's because of 4K YouTube itself or because it's happening in Chrome.
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Apr 19, 2020 08:34
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Actually that's a point. Does Netflix/Prime/Whatever support 4K video in Safari or is it just YouTube that's using the codec Apple won't support? It's basically academic on any current 13" Apple but it might be useful to test. (God it sure would be nice if Netflix would ever just let you straight up choose or even let you see your streaming resolution)
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Apr 20, 2020 16:42
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Looks like it's Shift+Ctrl+Alt+D to see the info, on Windows and Mac both. Fascinatingly, it seems Chrome only supports up to 720p on any platform.
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Apr 20, 2020 17:49
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EmmyOk posted:Ah that makes sense. I am waiting till payday at the end of the month so might hold on a little to see if the pro is mentioned. I don't like to treat benchmarks (check the multi-core) as gospel but in this case they tell a pretty straightforward story. The 100 to go from the dual core i3 to the quad core i5 gets you a very nice ~30% jump compared to the base model. The 150 to go from that to the i7 gets you another jump to about 40% of the base model. That's not nothing, but that's quite the diminishing return. The CPU itself probably is, in a vacuum, enough of an upgrade to justify the price, but in the MBA with its ultracompact cooling, when you try and do anything very CPUish with it it can't maintain that performance for very long before it starts throttling. In practice, you'll only see that performance increase in full in very short bursts. What this means in context for something like video editing is that when scrubbing around a timeline the i7 might be a bit better at keeping your preview current than the i5 but when time comes to encode you won't see much of a drop in runtime.
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Apr 20, 2020 21:55
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Incidentally, has there been any complaining about Magic Keyboards on the newest models? The 16" has been in the wild for a few months now. I certainly haven't had any trouble with my Air after a week; it's a complete joy to type on.
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Apr 24, 2020 17:53
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Little 2020 MBA Trip Report: the thing obviously starts very quickly heating up when under literally any pressure, but seems to cope quite well with being hot and doesn't need to blare the fans even when working at like 90°C. The use case I had going was, AirPlaying a 1080p twitch stream and its chat (in separate windows in one fullscreen view), unmirrored, to my (4K) TV using an ATV, while also having Discord and a couple websites open in the usual spaces. Little i7 was pulling around 8W from the battery for hours and running constantly at around 85°C. Silence from the fans the whole time. At one point I did crack open Music and it decided to do a check of all my album artwork and according to Power Gadget this briefly caused a power draw of about 250W. Sure that's fine. Anyway after a week and a bit of daily driving plus a handful of this kind of test I'm quite happy with how this thing is holding up. One thing I wasn't prepared for, having skipped the entire Butterfly Years, is how good the force touch trackpad is. I'd heard the rumours, but god drat. This thing really is magic. Fuckin' science, man.
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May 4, 2020 04:04
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I see they're still doing the weird thing where they keep the two cheapest models on last years processors and only update the two most expensive ones.
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May 4, 2020 13:54
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Actually, now I take a closer look (I think the Apple Store App has been weird and piecemeal about updating specs) it looks like the low end models have been updated with the Magic Keyboard, just not with any new chips since last year. And we're still running the 2-port/4-port class line, but that's just kinda expected at this point (though I do wish they'd switch it so the 2-port models had a port on each side). Wonder if the old-chip models have much in the way of reworked internals beyond the silicon, since its now in a magic keyboard chassis. Reviews will be interesting!
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May 4, 2020 14:12
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Nice. But hey, that's a copper heatsink. That means it's safe to try this with Conductonaut, right?  (  )
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May 6, 2020 18:32
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Shaocaholica posted:Oh its the (not) metal paste from Grizzly. Right, I meant, you could totally have done this with the metal one, because that would have been a good and sane thing to attempt and not at all silly.
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May 6, 2020 18:48
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It kind of reminds me of the recent blowup over Sonos, except the difference there is, Sonos was poo poo because following the recommended guidelines for offloading your device led to it being bricked, while with Apple, not following the recommended advice will get it bricked. It's maybe a little suboptimal that Apple don't offer a way to obtain permission from the owner after the fact (I don't know I've only been on the case for four minutes but this seems to me to be the same process as a "someone's trying to change your password" email) but ultimately you can't really blame Apple for offering people some good locks and then people selling their laptops with the locks still on. And I presume a store would refuse to take an Apple laptop that's locked anyway?
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May 12, 2020 15:35
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As a not really a counterpoint but just like kinda a parallel point to the above I will state that I remain delighted with my 2020 Air, probably exactly because I don't use it to run Final Cut and Logic and Zoom. I continue to find that even with a bunch of apps all vaguely backgrounding and like twenty tabs in Safari and some downloads running it does get a little warm but also keeps silent. The only time I've ever heard the fans go wild was during my initial import into Music and when I tried 4K video in chrome. In other news I've finally (somehow) managed to land a single tiny scratch on the edge of the monitor casing, so that's going to bother me incessantly for the next five or so years.
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May 15, 2020 14:53
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buffbus posted:Yes This isn't quite as bad as it looks. The vents on the MBA are tiny. That piddling little fan is hooked up to the entirety of the exhaust port right behind it, so while it's blowing, air is being pulled in through everywhere else in the case with a gap on it, towards that fan. Most of it will be coming from the intake vent, in the same position on the opposite side of the case. This means the current will pass directly over the heatsink. This isn't an Optimal Cooling Situation. But, in this machine, with this 10W processor's thermal situation, in this machine's intended use case, it does the trick. Cooling isn't about keeping temperatures minimal, it's about keeping temperatures from exceeding certain safe thresholds. And of course if that chip's getting hotter, it's gonna cool faster for a given ambient. Apple don't care if your MBA spends most of its time at 80°C, they care that it doesn't go above 100. The reason I'll bat for the MBA is because nothing in my daily driving other than the one time I attempt to use Youtube in Chrome has ever caused audible fan noise.The marketing is what it is but that's what this machine is for; if you want to run Final Cut or any video game other than Disco Elysium literally ever, you buy a Pro. Yes, a couple other laptops with similar profiles and prices do better with regards to sustained loads, but that's because they're not charging an Apple Tax, and that's a problem with Apple that's bigger than whether or not the MBA is a good pick in the context of the whole range.
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May 16, 2020 01:46
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Yeah I mean you'll not convince me that an aftermarket MBA cooler is a sensible purchase for anyone in particular but I'll still think it's neat af if you build and install one and it turns out relatively stable.
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May 16, 2020 03:05
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I wonder if the coming ARM age will be when Apple finally just release a Mac to go alongside the Mac Mini and the Mac Pro. Bring back the Cube you cowards
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May 21, 2020 22:06
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I've made this joke before and it was only half a joke then, too; Apple could add a physical function row as a BTO option on MBPs and charge £€$50 for it and reap a harvest of cashmoney.
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May 22, 2020 18:04
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Apple reportedly has a policy of letting people use their stuff in shows and movies but only if the bad guys never use them.
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Jul 3, 2020 03:49
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Is it possible to get a trade-in kit while buying a refurb product? I'm eying up an iPad mini 5 to replace my 4, which isn't really dying but is just kind of not satisfactorily snappy anymore, and I don't really need to replace it, and I definitely don't £400 worth of want it, and they quoted me £125 for the mini 4, and £340 as the cost of a refurb mini 5, so if I could combine those...? I don't see the option to add a trade-in kit when looking at the refurb store pages, so I don't know if this is supposed to be possible or what. I only see the prompt when buying new.
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Aug 27, 2020 12:13
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