Apple’s Spring Loaded logo…

The educational discount thing is easy online; you login with your uni/college etc details, and then you access the ed. discount web pages, where you can see the lower prices. You can pay using any valid card, so it doesn’t matter if the card isn’t in the student’s own name (many parents pay for their kids’ stuff anyway). I think you can go into an Apple store with student/education staff ID, and they’ll do the discount there as well. I do know that it’s easy to get, and Apple aren’t too fussed as long as they make another sale. I’ve always bought using it. Pretty much all Mac users I know, get the discount, and most are nowhere near education! 😉

slightly worried about 512 disc since I have a TB currently but it’s all backed up onto cloud/google/local little NAS bay so less of an issue than it used to be

I think I’m using around 220GB of 1TB storage on my iMac, and have a 2x4TB NAS for backups and main storage. I have another 4TB single disc NAS for music and video files (streamed via Airplay and Apple TV). Video etc can be done using proxies, for faster editing. So I’m not that bothered about onboard storage. I might even get the 256GB version, to save £200. Considering 1Tb SSD’s can be had for £50-60 these days, Apple really are taking the piss with their pricing. The only issue is that you can’t upgrade the internal storage on the new Macs, so you’re stuck with whatever you get when you buy it. That is a pain, but then the performance advantages with the new soldered in storage is perhaps a fair compromise. Reports regarding the other M1 Macs suggest the apparent ‘lack’ of RAM isn’t the issue many think it is, as the M1 chip ‘borrows’ power from other components. I’m probably never going to be needing an über powerful system so the iMac is probably more than adequate.

The only real problem I have right now, is…

…which colour?

So now the new iMacs are out, has anyone got one? Or seen one in the flesh? Probably about to pull the trigger on one, but still cautiously waiting to see if there are any glaring problems, unlikely but still. Initial reports seem to be overall positive; video production seems to be surprisingly good on what is essentially more of a ‘consumer’ type product. If the M1 machines are this good, then the future for Apple looks pretty bright, once the more ‘pro’ spec machines start coming out.

was tempted to get an M1 laptop last week as there have been some great refurb deals about, but then some Googling let me to read a couple of MacRumors articles about how the M1X/M2 chips are pretty close now… there’s talk about a 14″ laptop with the new chip that might be revealed at the software event next month, otherwise probably Sept. (Along with new iMacs). Going to wait personally! I think the currently available M1 iMacs do look good though, if they meet your needs.

What do you use your laptop for? The extra cores in the next chip might not mean much, depending on the use case.

the chip will be smaller/faster/more efficient anyway, but it’s more the increase in possible RAM I’m interested in, and the larger screen.

We’ve just bought an M1 MacBook Air – my it zips along!

And as with all computer stuff there’s always something faster – juuuust around the corner.

was tempted to get an M1 laptop last week as there have been some great refurb deals about, but then some Googling let me to read a couple of MacRumors articles about how the M1X/M2 chips are pretty close now… there’s talk about a 14″ laptop with the new chip that might be revealed at the software event next month, otherwise probably Sept. (Along with new iMacs). Going to wait personally! I think the currently available M1 iMacs do look good though, if they meet your needs.

A friend bought an M1 MacBook Air as an ‘interim’ measure after his MacBook Pro went pop last autumn. He fully intended to buy a new M1/2X MBP when they become available, but has found the MBA so good, he’s not going to need to. Has to do on the fly quick video editing stuff, so you’d imagine a £1000 laptop might not be quite up to the job, but he’s found quite the opposite. Says it’s faster than his old machine, and that was I think quite a recent model, 2018. So I think from what I’ve read/heard, that unless you’re doing some pretty heavy video/3D type work, or anything that requires serious processing power, the current M1 models are probably more than adequate. There’s one review where the reviewer says the new iMac can even handle an 8k video stream, so that is extremely impressive!

I’m now pretty sure I don’t need anything more than the iMac, and that’s going to save me a lot of money. Which I can then spend on other Apple products! 😀

I’d be keen to see if the new higher end macs can handle what used to be memory hungry tasks. I do a lot of work in Photoshop and that needs memory above anything else.

@hot_fiat
I have an iphone 12 in a quadlock case, it will charge wirelessly, but seems a little sensitive to exact placement on the (non magsafe) charging mat.
Edited for spelling.

Well, I also use PS a fair bit, so have been looking for how it performs on the new machines and many indications suggest it’s better on the M1. This guy has been testing a base model 13″ M1 MBP against other machines, and it performs pretty favourably, especially considering it’s just the 8Gb RAM version, and a fraction of the cost of other machines.

https://photoshopcafe.com/photoshop-new-apple-m1-macbook-pro-13/

I think the M1 native version of Ps is going to be the difference. And once the ‘pro’ Macs emerge, we’ll get a much better picture of how far forward Apple have moved the game.

Has to do on the fly quick video editing stuff, so you’d imagine a £1000 laptop might not be quite up to the job

actually, I wouldn’t, and nor would anyone else who hasn’t been living under a rock 😂 The ARM-powered Apple stuff is fantastic for video editing, even my original iPad Pro does a decent job and that’s an almost 6 year old tablet! 😃

I remember trying to edit some video footage about 20 years ago, with an original style iMac DV. A whole hour miniDV tape translated to about 12Gb of data. The iMac had a 20Gb hard drive, but with loads of other apps, files etc on it. I think I used up 19.5Gb. Then it came to outputting the whole project..

It is astonishing just how capable computers really are these days. Hence my own decision that I really don’t ‘need’ the power of a MacPro or similar. Those things are capable of proper professional compositing, 3D special FX etc. I think many people get hung up on ‘power’, without realising that mostly, they will never use their computer to anywhere near its real capabilities. A bit like bikes then…

Has to do on the fly quick video editing stuff, so you’d imagine a £1000 laptop might not be quite up to the job

I had a bit of a surprise last month when I had to do some editing in the hotel room with my creaking and groaning 10 year old 2 core i3 windows PC. Only upgrade has been an SSD.

Found some editing software that actually ran, and ran well!

Useful for anyone who wants to edit on an older/slower laptop. No idea if it runs on a Mac, so not the most usefully bit of info for you guys.

https://www.nchsoftware.com/videopad/index.html

Is there any news on running VM Ware virtual machines on M1? I need to run a Red Hat linux machine for some statistical software. I’m running a nine-year old Quad i7 MBP (bought used a couple of years ago) with 16GB and SSD, and it’s fast. But I’d like faster and lighter.

I’d also really like a 15″ MacBook Air. I don’t need Retina as I can’t see well at the best of times!

Is there any news on running VM Ware virtual machines on M1?

VMs aren’t my thing, but apparently this is a popular subject. You can run Parallels on M1 Macs now, but Google suggests VMware is still some way off. Personally, I cannot understand why you’d ever want to run a different OS, as Macs come with the best OS there is and always has been, but to each their own. I once had to run Windows for some specific bit of software that wasn’t available on Mac, and it wasn’t a pleasant experience.

Personally, I cannot understand why you’d ever want to run a different OS

You may have answered this one yourself.

I once had to run Windows for some specific bit of software

Although it sounds like VMware are planning to release M1 software that will emulate Windows for ARM. Which sounds a bit silly. People need VMs for the rare software that’s not available natively on their Macs. Windows for ARM has probably less app support than M1 Macs and doesn’t look likely to gain support rapidly. The only thing VMware for M1 is going to solve is apps that are not on Mac OS (M1 or x86 via Rosetta2) but are on Windows ARM. That’s a Venn diagram with very little overlap.

You may have answered this one yourself.

Lol! True. It was a very painful experience that took all day to set up, with numerous attempts to get the Windows build to load properly, as it then needed ‘updating’ which spannered things, requiring starting all over again. Hateful. Fortunately I only needed it for a short while, then happily deleted it for ever.

Not tried it as don’t have an M1 Mac, but as above apparently Parallels works fine (and VMWare are “working on it” but it’s a low priority they say). I do use Parallels occasionally on an Intel Mac to use some specific software, never had any problems.