Ears to the ground

pds

pds

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This might not be the right spot for this - but being on top of the stack is where you get the eyeballs.

There are people here with their ears to the ground and their noses to the grindstone. What do you informed, noseless people think about the appearance of an M4 mini? I a ready to retire my 2013 imac (eol for safari upgrades and other little bits). I want to go dual monitor set-up with a mini. I don't want to be bleeding edge but don't want to backseat myself too much. So if an M4 mini appears in October, rev b maybe January? With (ugh) Chrome, the iMac should hold out that long.
Or do I bite the bullet and get the m2 now - don't need the pro, basic but 2nd level ram is fine.
 
Do you already have 2 monitors? If not, why not go iMac and a 2nd monitor?
M1-2-3-4 isn't critical. My MBP with M1 still flies!
 
I do have the iMac set up with a second monitor and have a third here in a box. Enough Heads for the mini.
The problem is more and more websites won't work with Safari and I am maxed out on the upgrade.
And - could be a compatibility issue and it really isn't much of a problem, but the imac has a monitor glitch every 1/2 hour or so. Just a quick zebra stripe like it is re-sync ing something. It is not often, less than a half-second, sometimes only visible out the corner of my eye. But I do worry that it could be the video card. It doesn't do it without the second monitor.
 
Irregardless of which machine, you obviously need the latest OS; 14.6.1. To accomplish that, you need a more modern machine.
As to Safari not opening some sites, you must have security set too stringent. You may find Firefox more to your liking.
 
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10 yrs from my iMac - and it is still fine for basic work - no complaints from me. Mostly it just doesn't like to go to the bank. :)
So - to buy or not to buy, that is the question. Waiting for the next thing is a sure fired way to do nothing, as is FOMO. But I will wait a month to see if there is such a thing as an m4 mini in the near term.
 
pds said:
What do you informed, noseless people think about the appearance of an M4 mini?
Click to expand...

Apple Likely to Launch M4 Macs in November
https://www.macrumors.com/2024/09/01/apple-likely-to-launch-m4-macs-in-november/

I'm looking forward to purchasing an M4 mini also. I plan to pair it with a 43-inch 4K monitor. I want a 1TB SSD, and I still haven't decided between 8GB or 16GB of RAM. The former is likely more than sufficient, but the latter will make the computer last longer due to less writing of metadata to the drive.
 
Randy Singer said:
Apple Likely to Launch M4 Macs in November
https://www.macrumors.com/2024/09/01/apple-likely-to-launch-m4-macs-in-november/

I'm looking forward to purchasing an M4 mini also. I plan to pair it with a 43-inch 4K monitor. I want a 1TB SSD, and I still haven't decided between 8GB or 16GB of RAM. The former is likely more than sufficient, but the latter will make the computer last longer due to less writing of metadata to the drive.
Click to expand...
Then take this advice with M4 Mac Mini think about only using Universal or Pure Silicone with newer M4 Mac Mini and use these apps:

Video Colororing not Adobe Subscription look at Pixelmator Pro.


For Office applications look at pure silicone application LibreOffice

To keep your Mac running great try using the free application Onyx! Just run the' Maintenance' tab routine about once every 2-3 months to keep you Mac running almost like new!
 
Satcomer said:
Then take this advice with M4 Mac Mini think about only using Universal or Pure Silicone with newer M4 Mac Mini
Click to expand...

The Apple Silicon Macs won't run any Mac apps that aren't universal or specifically for AS.

The advantage of running apps that are specifically for AS is that they will run faster than apps that require Rosetta 2, but also that one's SSD takes far less of a hit and will last longer.

Unfortunately for me, I have a ton of legacy apps.

Satcomer said:
and use these apps:

Video Colororing not Adobe Subscription look at Pixelmator Pro.
Click to expand...
I don't use any Adobe apps. If I needed one of Adobe's apps, I'd probably go for one or more of Affinity's apps instead. They don't require a subscription and they are a fraction of the price of Adobe's apps, while still being high-end and compatible with Adobe file formats:

Affinity
https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/
Satcomer said:
For Office applications look at pure silicone application LibreOffice
Click to expand...

I find Free Office to be significantly superior to Libre Office:

FreeOffice (free)
https://www.freeoffice.com/en/

Satcomer said:
To keep your Mac running great try using the free application Onyx! Just run the' Maintenance' tab routine about once every 2-3 months to keep you Mac running almost like new!
Click to expand...

I find Onyx to be bloated and too confusing for ordinary users. It can get some users in trouble with features that they don't understand. The same developer offers Maintenance, which is also free, and which only has the features that one needs for routine maintenance:

Maintenance (free)
https://www.titanium-software.fr/en/maintenance.html
 
I have red reports of a lot of problem with Intel only applications ! They seem to eat RAM like crazy and try to kicks plugins that Intel use to use and are no longer in Mac M systems! like the old classic program at the start of OS X transition from classic days had the same problems! and it will disappear IIMHO by 2026 and classic programs will dye will happen again!
 
So talks abound about the M4 Mini at the end of the month. 16gig base model! Front and back ports!

Smaller - eh.

Only tb/c ports probably ok

Hope it’s not plastic. (ala aTV)

Checkbook is at the ready...
 
Randy Singer said:
The Apple Silicon Macs won't run any Mac apps that aren't universal or specifically for AS.

The advantage of running apps that are specifically for AS is that they will run faster than apps that require Rosetta 2, but also that one's SSD takes far less of a hit and will last longer.

Unfortunately for me, I have a ton of legacy apps.


I don't use any Adobe apps. If I needed one of Adobe's apps, I'd probably go for one or more of Affinity's apps instead. They don't require a subscription and they are a fraction of the price of Adobe's apps, while still being high-end and compatible with Adobe file formats:

Affinity
https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/


I find Free Office to be significantly superior to Libre Office:

FreeOffice (free)
https://www.freeoffice.com/en/



I find Onyx to be bloated and too confusing for ordinary users. It can get some users in trouble with features that they don't understand. The same developer offers Maintenance, which is also free, and which only has the features that one needs for routine maintenance:

Maintenance (free)
https://www.titanium-software.fr/en/maintenance.html
Click to expand...

I am puzzled with FreeOffice proposal. For me it may have a slight edge in the interface, but lacks quite a lot of tools that are available with LibreOffice, in particular Drawing, but also Database and Math. And for the little story LibreOffice is open source and does not require registration to be used, but that's probably a detail.
 
chevy said:
I am puzzled with FreeOffice proposal.
Click to expand...

I use Office in a work environment. The Microsoft Office file formats are the de facto standard in the business world. For me, if I get a file sent to me and it doesn't render PERFECTLY in the Office app that I'm using, then that program is less than worthless to me. Time is money, and I can't spend my time trying to fix the formatting in files that I receive.

I've tested all of the OpenOffice-based programs (NeoOffice, Apache OpenOffice, LibreOffice) and not a single one of them does what I would consider a really good job rendering existing Microsoft Office files that contain complex formatting. They've had many years to get this right, and their translators don't seem to have been improved AT ALL in all that time.

When I first heard of FreeOffice, I didn't hold out much hope for it being better. First thing that I did when I downloaded it was load up my Microsoft Office California legal pleading template. None of the OpenOffice-based programs have ever been able to render it close to correctly. FreeOffice opened it..and it was PERFECT! Finally, an Office alternative that can be counted on. And it's FREE!

If you are only using LibreOffice to write letters to friends, then it's probably fine for your needs. If you need your Office program to reliably work with Microsoft format files, I haven't found anything that comes as close as FreeOffice. FreeOffice also has a very nice interface that doesn't appear to be a bad rip-off of an old Windows version of Office. It doesn't have all of the features of Microsoft Office (nothing else does), but then it's FREE. It may be all that you need. I use a genuine copy of Microsoft Office on my main desktop machine. However, on all of my other Macs (e.g. my laptops and on the machines of my support staff), I run FreeOffice, at quite a savings over installing Microsoft Office on ever single machine.
 
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