First instinct would be to pay off mortgage, buy a Porsche and book a luxury ski holiday…

After pondering it for a while I’d be thinking how I could make an ongoing, positive change to the quality of life for me and the family, in which case it might be more along the lines of working a shorter week. I’d also take a long hard look at my retirement planning.

That said, when the kids are bigger/older this house is going to feel small and noisy, so maybe a house move would be on the cards…?

In truth, I don’t know the answer to the OP’s question :lol:

hammy it’s one thing to store docs that are accessible from “anywhere” and lots of services do that, but I’m talking about collaboration which means sharing and working on docs with others. Google Drive does this superbly and all that is required is a browser; the OS is irrelevant. I use Google Drive and Google Docs without trouble across Apple devices, Windows and Chromebooks. It’s not just cloud storage. I’m reliably told Microsoft do this pretty well too, although I’ve not much experience.

Apple have only relatively recently launched their Collaboration (and even then it’s still in beta) and it only works with their latest apps. So, for instance, if I create a Pages (their Word equivalent) doc and share it for others to work on with me, it will merrily send them a link in an email. If they’re on the latest, greatest Mac they will be able to open it in Pages and all will be fine. However, share it with someone on a Windows PC and they will just be frustratedly clinking on links that do nowt (trust me I’ve tried).

Walled gardens are a great idea and have benefits as long as you’re not trying to work productively with those outside your garden walls. Don’t get me wrong, I love Apple stuff, but I’m not so much of a fanboi that I don’t recognise when the competition does something a lot better.

yes

In OS land there is no better these days

Limited to the OS in isolation of any other devices I’d agree with you. macOS or Windows 10? 6 of one, half a dozen of the other.

However for many people that’s no longer the world we live in. The solutions for many IT problems – sharing and collaboration is the obvious example – come from outside the sphere of the OS. It has to, otherwise how does Bill on his PC work with Steve on his Mac? This is where Dropbox, Google Drive, Box and so many others have really succeeded where the OS-specific solutions like iCloud are failing (in my opinion etc etc)

Apple haven’t got much except for devices, have they?

iCloud, Apple Music, the App Store, I’d say they have a fair chunk. Their services revenue for Q3 was more than the iPad and more than Macs.

[EDIT] this is very telling actually. Apple can make a load more valuable recurring revenue from selling Joe Public more iCloud storage for all their selfies than they can selling a few thousand units of <insert niche piece of hardware here>

I think some people mistake simple process with user-friendly. I can very easily copy and paste some text into a Terminal command line on my Mac, but knowing how is secondary to understanding the what and the why.

The steps might be easy to follow, but knowing they’re the right steps, understanding them and appreciating the damage you can cause if you cock it up is what makes it anything but user-friendly.

who cares about ‘enterprise sharing’?

You creative types aren’t the only ones who want ease of use and lack of faff, you know :-) . In my line of work, sharing and collaborating on documents is important and, just like you, I want a machine I can plug in, turn on and use with minimal hassle. Apple are way behind the likes of Google and others when it comes to this kind of stuff. Will they catch up? Do they even want to? Are the “creative types” even a relevant market for Apple’s growth anymore? Judging by this year’s launches all their target market want is easier ways of using even more emojis.

For the record, I have Apple stuff cos it’s nice looking hardware and it makes me smile when I use it. The software and OS itself are less and less relevant as most of my day to day stuff is done in a browser. Am I their target market?

I saw some mention of Cortana so didn’t think it was relevant to my problem

Which one is possible? the Skype thingy or the “bings”.

Irrelevant anyway. Who uses Windows Phones?? :lol:

I think some of the small things make a big difference. Here’s two things that would at the very least reduce my irritation :-)

1. Synchronised notifications for things like Skype. In this day and age of cloud computing and sync’d data services, would it really be that hard for Skype to sync their notifications so that I don’t log in on my Windows laptop and see a load of notifications of “new” messages that I’ve already responded to on my Mac?

2. I only need one “bing” when I’m sat at a desk with my computer and my phone. I don’t need both binging to remind me to do the same thing. Come on Apple, this is the kind of stuff you’re usually good at.

Isn’t this why a lot of people grumbled about the new MacBook Pros i.e. the fact you could not upgrade them to the kind of RAM necessary for running multiple VMs?

surfer, I agree about Apple when it comes to collaboration. It’s a new thing for them and I can’t see them making an impact against the likes of Google. As for Sharepoint, my experience of sharing and collaboration is poor compared to Google. Issues with incompatible browsers, incompatible software versions (e.g. Word) and an awful search tool make it a pain to use. Google Drive “just works”.

I don’t even see the huge advantage of a charging mat over one of these which you just drop your phone in

In my car I have a (magnetic) phone holder on the dashboard. I get in my car and whilst I’m putting my seat belt on with one hand I put my phone on the holder with the other. Every time I do this I wish that the holder charged the phone, but instead I have to plug an unsightly wire in.

As in your phone just charges from radio waves wherever it is, rather than having to sit it on a charging pad?

Not quite but nearly. I interpreted the rumours as still requiring some sort of charging device to be plugged in, but the phone needs to be nearby rather than actually on it. I’ve tried to find the article but no luck.

I think some don’t want to believe that this stuff is actually real. I too completely doubted it when I saw it, but that doesn’t make it less horrific. If anything it’s too horrific to believe someone would do it.

Agree with Google Now/Cortana/Siri/Alexa to actually work

My kids don’t do what I ask them, so I have little hope of this :lol:

Over the air charging, proper wireless.

Rumour has it this is exactly what Apple is working on.

One place for all content.

Isn’t this the intent of their new TV app they launched last week? Obviously there will be licensing issues preventing it being ALL content, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Sharepoint

Which leads my train of thought onto…

What I’ve seen over the years – and is perhaps the big change in IT – is that it can be rolled out much more easily if the requirements are relatively basic, especially if provided as SaaS via a browser. Sharepoint is (not) a great example of this. It’s a toolkit that, in the right hands, can build a great infrastructure for document creation, sharing, collaboration etc. However it’s an infrastructure that is still needs “building” to get even the most basic of those requirements working as well as something out-of-the-box like Google Drive and Google Docs. I’ve worked at businesses that really struggle to get people to adopt Sharepoint because people want to use the tools that make their life easier, not harder.

Which comes back to the point some have made above, which is that for many small businesses, hardware and software is available that doesn’t need extensive IT skills to deploy and support. Apple cottoned on to that benefit long before anyone else.

cost of ownership

I heard something interesting on a podcast about this. If people bought product (like electronics and white goods) on (cheaper) cost of ownership rather than cheaper ticket price it would of course mean fewer devices and appliances being made. The CO2 saving as a result of less manufacturing would be equivalent to taking half a million cars off the road across Europe.

The facts may not *quite* be remembered right but they demonstrate the point.

This was undoubtedly horrific and totally avoidable. A family’s life is pretty much ruined. Horrible, horrible stuff. I hope it is used as an unpleasant example of how any distraction when you’re driving a big lump of metal at speed can have terrible consequences. This lorry driver could have been rifling through the glove box looking for a CD; this is not just about mobile phones.

We all have our own experience of “it just works”. For me, Google Drive is the best solution to the problem of creating, sharing, collaborating on and filing the kind of files I work with (spreadsheets, docs, presentations etc). Apple have only recently got into this “collaboration” game, but you can only collaborate with others in their walled garden. Google Drive is OS and device-agnostic and “just works”.

I buy Apple stuff because it is lovely hardware that is a pleasure (mostly) to use and I accept I pay a premium for that. They’re not (in my opinion and experience) great at services and they’re not great at software, making iterative “improvements” that often take away as much as they give as well as playing catch up. The changes made in Cook’s tenure certainly point to having a more open system for other developers to get into the Apple (hardware and OS) infrastructure and I suspect they have their eye on the recurring revenue from the APIs those 3rd parties use. Wasn’t there some Microsoft software used in a recent demo?

I’ve got some ideas where Apple might be going, but I’m not filled with confidence they’ll get there.

And I’m their target market.

Therein lies the crux. I don’t think you’ve been Apple’s target market for some time.

The only problem is, he doesn’t have the innovation, creativity, vision or the cajones to take risks

I think removing the 3.5mm headphone jack was universally acknowledged as quite risky ;-)

I too was underwhelmed by last week’s Apple launch; is there really such a huge market of people wetting themselves about Emojis?!

At the same time, Microsoft launched something that looks very cool…

PS on behalf of Peak District MTB[/url] members who have personally invested ridiculous amounts of time into this Rushup campaign, I do hope some of you can come and show your support.

Cake toppers. I thought you’d said poppers. Now i understand.
<no longer confused>

Happy birthday Rushup. I hope you have a lovely day xxx

I tell you it’s a struggle some days…

I do find this stuff fascinating though. Technology, for most people, has matured way beyond their needs. As evidenced on this thread, many of us are still only using our computers for word processing, email, spreadsheets, browsing and perhaps some light photo editing. This is stuff that – functionally – was nailed years ago. Now the tech companies are looking for those marginal gains, those minor improvements to usability that help people adopt feature/functionality.

Take this piddly little first world problem surrounding connecting to hotspots. The Android way is, in terms of button clicks, just as simple as the Mac way. However, what Apple have realised, is that the method of connecting the MacBook to an internet connection should be the same whether it’s a phone hotspot or a wifi router. If I’m in a hotel room and want to get my laptop online, surely I should do that the same way regardless of how that internet connection is being provided.

It’s tiny little “user experience” distinctions like this that can make the difference between new technology being adopted and new technology failing. I do geek out about stuff like this a bit, but there are some fascinating (to me) examples of how businesses spend huge amounts of money on consultancy to make sure their “user journey” results in people actually signing up and using their products and services. Some good examples in this book, for example.

Some tips on that article molgrips posted earlier regarding be on the right OS version etc.

Was it already enabled?

without having to go into my iPhone settings to enable the hotspot.

Have I pedalled (pun intended) some lies on here before? Why the doubt?

Screen Shot 2016-10-20 at 19.57.25 by stilltortoise[/url], on Flickr

[edit] ah, you’re being funny. I think :-)

craigxxl I can assure you I’m not making it up and, just to eliminate all doubt, I am posting this on my MacBook whilst connected to my iPhone hotspot, without having to go into my iPhone settings to enable the hotspot.

I should add I also have a Chromebook too. Impressive, but for different reasons. I’m not sure i’d recommend one as an “only laptop”, but they do a job and do it very well…and cheaply.

Like in Gofasterstripes’ picture?

Nope, nothing like that. I’m on a Mac for starters :-)

Picture the scene…
I’m in a hotel room and my iPhone is connected to 3/4G
I open up my MacBook and want to get online
I click on the little Wifi symbol that is ever-visible top right corner of my Mac
There are no “normal” wifi networks available so I select “iPhone”
My iPhone automatically enables the hotspot
My MacBook is online

I’m sure Windows/Android does something equally effective, but it does please me how elegantly simple this process is, since it is the same “journey” as if I was connecting to the hotel’s wifi.

yes. The point being that I don’t have to enable the hotspot on my phone before attempting to connect to it from my MacBook. The attempt to connect to it is what turns the hotspot on.

I don’t need to turn on the hotspot to do that. It turns on automatically when I connect to the iPhone wi-fi network.

What do you have to do?

Go to the top of my Mac where I can select Wi-fi networks and select “iPhone”.

Plus I didn’t want to look like a fanboi

That was my number one criteria for purchase :lol:

There are some seriously useful things about having all Apple kit. The ease at which I can use my iPhone as a mobile hotspot for example, and the way I can use my Mac for answering and making calls via my iPhone. This whole Apple “Continuity” thing sounds a bit of a gimmick on paper, but in real life it’s actually genuinely helpful.

Do Windows/Google computers and phones do something similar? Genuine question borne of genuine ignorance.

I use an iMac, a MacBook (the 2015 retina one) and a Windows 10 Dell laptop. In terms of hardware quality and screen quality the Macs win hands down, but they cost a lot more money. The Macs are also much nicer pieces to hardware to use, as subjective as that sounds. In my experience no one has come close to Apple with multi-gesture trackpads. The reason Windows machines have touch screens is that no one has perfected a trackpad for Window (IMHO etc).

That said, for business use I do sometimes find limitations or other annoyances in Office for Mac that aren’t in Office for Windows. Office is good on a Mac, but it’s better on Windows. If you need to work with others in your business and they are in a Windows environment, don’t fight it.

My MacBook is superb for travelling. It weighs so little. Downsides? Only one port. This is a pain if you need to do a presentation and you have no USB-C to HDMI adaptor.

I could go on, but my top tip is to buy something that is the same operating system as those you work closely with…

…unless everyone uses Google Docs in which case pick the laptop that looks nice :lol:

thanks. I’ll have a look later.

budget?

£300 for a pair, give or take, but certainly don’t want to be getting near £400.

Hope’s website suggests 29″ Crest are not available :? Evans suggesting the same. Even Merlin seem to be out of stock of a few 29er rims. I think I’ve lost interest already.

Thanks for the suggestions so far…

Shaving weight and being tough aren’t things that usually go together.

If your starting point is something cheap and cheerful, chances are you can get something lighter and stronger. If you’re already well down that upgrade path it’s diminishing returns.