mac experts...is a mac studio total overkill vs. a mac mini?

[laxu]

Us developers like MacOS because it is a UNIX-style system without the constant "what long command line do I need to type to fix this" of Linux. The move to ARM has caused a lot of headaches for this though. It's still the more practical option for work.

I do agree that Macs are shittier now. MacOS is a lot more buggy to the point that I won't upgrade until maybe 6+ months along the line. The Intel MacBook Pros have been kinda terrible between 2016-2019. Mine runs hot and loud by literally doing nothing more than connecting a 4K display.

Overall for their premium price I feel they should be better. I was happy to recommend Apple to anyone in 2015 and earlier but I feel they are no longer the "it just works" company because the company is run by bean counters rather than an asshole visionary. Classic case of chasing profits over doing what made them successful in the first place.

 

[FAKA!]

Mine runs hot and loud by literally doing nothing more than connecting a 4K display.

Definitely the consequence of having a slick looking machine focused more on looks than cooling. There is a reason apple doesn't use Nvidia anymore lol. I felt bad for a good buddy of mine whos imac stopped working from his nightly minecraft addiction. It got so hot that the solder joints were cracking.

I think the new M1's are better overall for running cool. I use my m1 only for watching netflix/plex when im in the kitchen cooking lol. Its great for that.

 

[paisleywookiee]

I side-stepped the whole 2016 to 2020 problems. I ran a 2014 until I left the job with all the Macs, then continued to use that same Mac until I got the M1. It definitely was a problem, as was the shite keyboards.

 

[jellodog]

I side-stepped the whole 2016 to 2020 problems. I ran a 2014 until I left the job with all the Macs, then continued to use that same Mac until I got the M1. It definitely was a problem, as was the shite keyboards.

Funnily enough, I did the exact same until the M1 stuff came out. I had the original 2016 (?) Retina MBP before that, which was solid, despite one dead pixel.

The M1 has been great though; especially since I've been asking it to do very specific "non-standard" things on ARM that I expected not to work, but they did. I sat out the shite keyboard debacle until they were fixed and I vowed to never pay for the Touch Bar and held out on those things until Apple finally got the message.

Every year I'd send Apple a message that said "fix the keyboard, get rid of Touch Bar, give us mag-safe back".

Apple had a noticeable wobble for sure during those years.

 

[jellodog]

@laxu It's really weird that you think macOS is buggy - I wonder if it is mainly down to your display needs and perhaps Finnish localized builds don't get the love they deserve? It's like you're in a parallel universe! And by that I mean that I've had no significant problems with macOS for years

Not trying to invalidate your experience btw; I totally believe you've been having annoying issues with it.

One guy that I work with that uses a 3rd-party vertically oriented monitor has complained about issues. I use an LG external monitor myself.

And yeah, I love the UNIX underpinnings too

 

[paisleywookiee]

Funnily enough, I did the exact same until the M1 stuff came out. I had the original 2016 (?) Retina MBP before that, which was solid, despite one dead pixel.

The M1 has been great though; especially since I've been asking it to do very specific "non-standard" things on ARM that I expected not to work, but they did. I sat out the shite keyboard debacle until they were fixed and I vowed to never pay for the Touch Bar and held out on those things until Apple finally got the message.

Every year I'd send Apple a message that said "fix the keyboard, get rid of Touch Bar, give us mag-safe back".

Apple had a noticeable wobble for sure during those years.

Yeah I’m thinking of getting a base Air for mobile stuff, and I’m hoping it’s all good with the keyboard now.

@laxu It's really weird that you think macOS is buggy - I wonder if it is mainly down to your display needs and perhaps Finnish localized builds don't get the love they deserve? It's like you're in a parallel universe! And by that I mean that I've had no significant problems with macOS for years

Not trying to invalidate your experience btw; I totally believe you've been having annoying issues with it.

One guy that I work with that uses a 3rd-party vertically oriented monitor has complained about issues. I use an LG external monitor myself.

And yeah, I love the UNIX underpinnings too

MacOS has never been buggy at all, for me. Totally acknowledge Laxu’s points about displays, but with everything I’ve personally thrown at it, it’s been great.

 

[jellodog]

Yeah I’m thinking of getting a base Air for mobile stuff, and I’m hoping it’s all good with the keyboard now.

Keyboard has so far been great on the 2 M1 MBAs I've got here. One of them was bought the week that the M1 MBAs were first released (November 2020).

Is sir aware that the new M2 MBA now has support for high impedance headphones and 96 kHz output? I'm looking forward to trading up to that for use with my HD 6XX.

Use high-impedance headphones with your Mac - Apple Support (CA)

You can connect high-impedance headphones directly to compatible Mac computers introduced in 2021 or later.

support.apple.com

As a music and music gear lover, I thought that you might be interested if you've not seen that already.

 

[paisleywookiee]

Keyboard has so far been great on the 2 MBAs I've got here. One of them was bought the week that the M1 MBAs were first released (November 2020).

Is sir aware that the new M2 MBA now has support for high impedance headphones and 96 kHz output? I'm looking forward to trading up to that for use with my HD 6XX.

Use high-impedance headphones with your Mac - Apple Support (CA)

You can connect high-impedance headphones directly to compatible Mac computers introduced in 2021 or later.

support.apple.com

As a music and music gear lover, I thought that you might be interested if you've not seen that already.

Hmm. Interesting. Might be worthy then to go with the M2.

Even the M1 is nuts though.

 

[jellodog]

Even the M1 is nuts though.

Oh for sure. The M1 is great, and excellent value.

 

[Bob Zaod]

Uhm... but what if you are a gamer?

Then build a gaming system too.

 

[hemmelight]

Yeah, unless you're just using emulators for retro stuff (OpenEmu rules) then just get a dedicated gaming PC.
I've got my PC set up in the living room that is exclusively used for gaming, and an M1 Air for everything else.

 

[paisleywookiee]

Then build a gaming system too.

Yeah, unless you're just using emulators for retro stuff (OpenEmu rules) then just get a dedicated gaming PC.
I've got my PC set up in the living room that is exclusively used for gaming, and an M1 Air for everything else.

I might get crucified for this, but I've just been using nVidia GeForce Now, on my M1. It's seriously cheap, to the point where I'd spend WAY more building a separate gaming rig. And performance for me (500Mb/500Mb fiber) is fantastic. I have zero itch for another gaming machine at this point.

 

[hemmelight]

It's cool that works for you! Last time I tried it was like five years ago, and the latency was pretty gross even with a good fiber connection in downtown Montreal. S'pose they've done some work since then.

 

[laxu]

@laxu It's really weird that you think macOS is buggy - I wonder if it is mainly down to your display needs and perhaps Finnish localized builds don't get the love they deserve? It's like you're in a parallel universe! And by that I mean that I've had no significant problems with macOS for years

Not trying to invalidate your experience btw; I totally believe you've been having annoying issues with it.

One guy that I work with that uses a 3rd-party vertically oriented monitor has complained about issues. I use an LG external monitor myself.

And yeah, I love the UNIX underpinnings too

I never use any app in Finnish if I can help it. The translations are often incomprehensible for any tech terms and pretty much nobody actually uses those terms in real life even if they were to run apps in Finnish.

But MacOS does have a variety of issues big and small, some pretty ridiculous ones you might run into like the save dialog saving into a wrong folder. Here's one guys list of issues on MacOS Ventura: https://mjtsai.com/blog/2022/12/27/ventura-issues/ You might not encounter these on your system. That's the thing with bugs, they are not always something that happen to everyone.

MacOS external display handling is a known shitshow. Apps like BetterDisplay or SwitchResX exist because e.g HiDPI scaling is not correctly detected for many displays. If you have one of Apple's own displays, something with a lower resolution than 4K, a 60 Hz 4K display or the very latest M1 Pro/Max you are less likely to run into issues. But if you add high refresh rates, HDR, OLEDs, oddball form factors, HDMI 2.1 etc into the mix then you are likely to see weird behavior or things not working despite hardware support (e.g DP -> HDMI 2.1 adapters work fine if you run Windows on an Intel Mac but get limited to HDMI 2.0 speeds on MacOS). On 40" 5120x2160 ultrawides even whether you have M1, M1 Pro or M1 Max has an effect on what scaling options are available and good luck getting even the full resolution on some Macs. If all this just works on Windows, on MacOS just the wrong display model can mean it does not perform right.

For work I run a lot of stuff and my top of the line 2019 Intel 16" MBP with 64 GB RAM really struggles with the workload more often than I'd like. Apple just crammed in hardware that its slim design cannot cool properly so it's a noisy, throttling, expensive machine. I'm hoping Apple releases the M2 line soon so I can ask for one of those from my employer and hopefully it will perform better. But it has really made me not want to buy Apple devices with my own money. Even my 2017 iPad Pro is suffering from touch input issues that seem to be common on this, again at the time top of the line model. Don't even get me started on how bad the 2016 MBP I had at my previous job was.

 

[Jarick]

Got my Mac Mini in 2015. Replaced the slow hard drive with an SSD and the performance and reliability were great. No issues from that point on.

Got a base level M1 Macbook Air as a replacement in 2021 and have run that with zero problems ever since. Handles plugins and audio stuff great.

 

[jellodog]

@laxu Fair enough... I never owned the 2019 MBP; but yes, it did look like they tried to cram way too much into a small space and that processor was running stupidly hot.

On 40" 5120x2160 ultrawides

Wow. I have never run a monitor of that size. 27" 5k is the highest I go. I will tread carefully from here on.

 

[paisleywookiee]

It's cool that works for you! Last time I tried it was like five years ago, and the latency was pretty gross even with a good fiber connection in downtown Montreal. S'pose they've done some work since then.

Yeah this is 2022 to present, so I’m guessing the bugs are much more worked out by now.

 

[FAKA!]

I might get crucified for this, but I've just been using nVidia GeForce Now, on my M1. It's seriously cheap, to the point where I'd spend WAY more building a separate gaming rig. And performance for me (500Mb/500Mb fiber) is fantastic. I have zero itch for another gaming machine at this point.

Totally forgot about that. Is there support for AI art programs like Stablebit Diffusion? I play with that quite a bit. Nvidia cards definitely help with that and for encoding mp4 files using the Nvenc codec. Good stuff.

 

[paisleywookiee]

Totally forgot about that. Is there support for AI art programs like Stablebit Diffusion? I play with that quite a bit. Nvidia cards definitely help with that and for encoding mp4 files using the Nvenc codec. Good stuff.

I haven’t the slightest idea. I’ve never heard of that before.

 

[laxu]

@laxu Fair enough... I never owned the 2019 MBP; but yes, it did look like they tried to cram way too much into a small space and that processor was running stupidly hot.



Wow. I have never run a monitor of that size. 27" 5k is the highest I go. I will tread carefully from here on.

It may sound huge but it's basically an ultrawide version of a 32" 4K screen.