Apple Event - October 2023

[richard]

@The_Hawk

I don’t know, I’m just extra grumpy today.

You are!

[Oldmacs]

@Dambo101

I wouldn’t have too much buyers remorse having your M2 over a similar spec M3. The cheapest you can get an M3 pro chip with 36GB and 4TB is AU$5899.
According to leaked benchmarks it’ll only beat yours by about 14% single core and 6% multi core.

I’m not too worried about missing the performance jump since it’s minimal, but I am more worried about in the future Apple cutting off M2 devices earlier than M3 devices with software support - since it’s mostly completely arbitrary these days and OCLP will most certainly be less of an option in the future.

I got my Mac with education pricing as I work in a school - so the comparable model would cost $5,399.00 - I paid $250 less - so very slightly more expensive.

@The_Hawk

…although as more and more people opt for laptops and everyone (including grandmas) have gone digital for photos and video I do wonder where people store all this stuff. Clearly Apple want to sell you iCloud, Google want Google Drive and Microsoft want OneDrive, but getting a 1TB of photos (let alone video) is getting easier and easier. And call me crazy, but I don’t trust anyone to keep my photos in iCloud (or anything else) and not on my computer. I want a copy here, in my house that I can touch.

I’m the same - I like having a centralised copy on my laptop, which then gets backed up places. Means I always have a local copy in case and I’m not forever looking for HDDs or waiting for iCloud downloads - which is why I have 4TB of local SSD storage

@The_Hawk

Apple could have expanded the TimeMachine to do this as a local backup of iCloud… but that’s sort of un-Apple-like to need a thing… or maybe it’s not when they could charge you for it?

Do you mean have Time Machine do a copy of iCloud data, or have Time Machine back up to iCloud? I’d be in favour of both!!

@The_Hawk

Apples upgrade pricing is horrendous as you move up at all, especially for products that provide zero upgradeability in the future making you choose more now (or face upgrading sooner rather than later).

Definitely - I reckon I would have gotten only 4 or so years out of my 2012 MacBook Pro if it was non upgradable!

[The_Hawk]

@Oldmacs

Do you mean have Time Machine do a copy of iCloud data, or have Time Machine back up to iCloud? I’d be in favour of both!!

Modern backups to iCloud seem to have settings and user data where TimeMachine (as I understand it) was a full system backup. I don’t think the full system needs to uploaded to the cloud.

What I was thinking was it would be good if your local TimeMachine device kept a full local copy of the iCloud data which then in turn synced to the cloud. The benefits are that those on slower connections could have their devices backup very quickly, then push the data onto the cloud over time. Bonus points if a security conscious user could * choose * to only have a local copy of their data (although I understand that completely undermines the services revenue approach Apple have).

Also when it comes to recovery it’s that much faster. Bonus here is if this local copy also gets version history (like TimeMachine does) to the capacity of your device including deleted history more than the 30 days that iCloud provides.

@Oldmacs

14" MBP with M2 Pro, 32GB RAM and 4TB SSD

With the M3 that looks like $600 for the RAM and $1,800 for the 4TB. When local retail prices for those items are about one third of those costs. I know it’s special and not directly comparable, but it’s still insane.

I was talking to a friend over the weekend talking about a new laptop for his daughter, and we ended basically agreeing that while the Apple was probably built better and would last longer than an equivalently specced Lenovo laptop (which also had touch screen which still isn’t available on the Mac range), it was also twice the price for what is the low end configuration (16GB/512GB).

Even if the Lenovo only lasted three years (and the Mac six years), you could literally buy another brand new Lenovo with specs three years newer and get that shiny new feeling a second time and STILL only spend the same amount of cash.

Again, there is a lot of good things in the Apple ecosystem, it typically all works seamlessly, but damn that premium is getting more and more out of hand.

[kerr]

@The_Hawk

$300 for 256GB storage or 8GB RAM? They could at least buy you dinner first!

I watched a video this week about Apples “ladder pricing” which makes you say to yourself… well, I already upgraded this much, what’s a little more before you end up spending waaay more than the “starting from” sign that got you in the door.

Don’t get me wrong, plenty of other laptops start with too little RAM and storage, but at least they come with a price to match.

In many respects, it seems we have all agreed that 16GB RAM and 512GB storage is about right for most people…

This from Apple Explained just yesterday:

Apple's RAM Scam

[kyte]

@The_Hawk

don’t know, I’m just extra grumpy today.

I’m grumpy every time I look at the Apple Store. I’m wanting to upgrade my iPad (still battling on with an Air3 and bright spots above the home button) my Watch (still using a Watch5 with a dying battery) and my Phone (SE2020 is OK but I have a desire for a larger screen and better camera)…. And I cannot afford even one of those objects because council rates, gas an electric bills, yada yada yada. And the prices just keep going up. Should have expected that Tim would take us back to the days of elitism, he’s an accountant after all. Yeah… grumpy me.

[The_Hawk]

My wife is using an 11" iPad Pro from 2018 and it should be very similar to the Air 3 with them both running the A12 (although the Pro is the A12X). She has a 256GB model and is sitting on the cusp of 128GB so 256GB is still the right answer… and sadly still a step up from the modern base mode.
She’s still happy with its performance, but the screen has a little spot with some dead/stuck pixels and the USB-C charger only works in one direction and will only charge at a slower speeds (never switching to faster charging), I assume there are some broken connectors in there somewhere. It’s holding on enough that it won’t get replaced unless it dies given the modern replacement is so damn expensive for a device that isn’t a laptop and is still more of a companion device.

She likes the FaceID which pretty much screws me… that and her 2nd gen pencil rules out the 10th Gen iPad and the 5th Gen Air still is only touch ID. So it’s $1,829 for the 256GB iPad Pro 11" w/cellular or $1,499 for the Air in the same spec. (less the $75 trade in Apple offer for the 2018 iPad Pro )

The 11" cost $70 / month through Optus back when, it also came with a $20 / month device credit, so really it cost $50 / month + $25 for the data SIM. That worked out to be $1,800 for two years of service and the device itself.

The equivalent today is $96.20 / month or $2,308.80 over two years. Factoring in the demise of the device credit and it’s actually pretty comparable… Still bloody expensive and something we can put off for a little while yet.