Tag: MacBook Pro

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Time Flies

Today, Apple held its annual developer conference, where the company announced new versions of iOS, macOS, and iPad OS along with hardware that includes 15-inch MacBook Air. Any other year, I would have watched the keynote and downloaded developer builds of the new platforms. Instead, I cancelled my annual developer subscription that was about to renew.

How time flies. In December 2022, I started a complete fruit-logo exodus. This morning, Samsung emailed that my iPad Pro had been received for credit towards the Galaxy Tab S8+ acquired last month. My smartphone is Galaxy S23 Ultra, replacing iPhone Pro 13. I gave up the 16.2-inch MacBook Pro for Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio.

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I Tipped Over the Apple Cart

During December 1998, I walked into CompUSA and walked out with my first Apple computer, the original Bondi Blue iMac. Appropriate timing, perhaps, December 2022 brought that chapter of my digital lifestyle to a close. I have moved on from the company that Steve Jobs’ vision built and which Tim Cook turned into an empire.

Since that winter’s day 24 years earlier, I primarily used fruit-logo hardware, despite additionally running Windows PCs for many years (since Microsoft was my beat as a reporter). The biggest gap came with my enthusiasm for Chromebook, starting in 2011 and 12. If Google still sold something as luxurious as the Pixel or LS successor, I likely would be typing on a Chromebook now.

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Not Hello, But Goodbye

My 16.2-inch MacBook Pro—Apple M1 Max chip with 10-core CPU and 32-core GPU; 32GB unified memory; 1TB SSD—is gone. This morning, an associate professor and his wife purchased the laptop, which will become her go-to machine for video production. The monster machine will be missed.

On Christmas, parents bought my wife’s 13.3-inch MBP for their college student son. Same day, our daughter inherited my iPhone 13 Pro, which gift I already regret giving because of bad behavior on her part this evening (You don’t need to know, but I do need to remember). Samsung gave great trade-in amount for Annie’s smartphone. She and I now own the Galaxy S22 and S22 Ultra, respectively.

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16.2-inch MacBook Pro is a Tank

From writing-technology past—yesterday’s post about the discarded L.C. Smith typewriter—we go to the present-future: The 16.2-inch MacBook Pro that replaces my 23-month-old 16-inch MBP. Apple announced the new laptop, and its 14.2-inch sibling, on Oct. 18, 2021 and started taking orders for October 26 availability. I considered a customized configuration for the smaller model but couldn’t decide based on the information available—particularly considering my current computer’s beefy specs: 2.3GHz Core i9 processor; 32GB RAM; 8GB AMD Radeon Pro 5500M graphics; 1TB SSD. As my indecisiveness increased, so did the ship times for any new MacBook Pro. As they slipped into late November and early December, I abandoned the idea.

But I clung to interest in the new models because of the M1 chip, for which my experience already was quite positive from using 11-inch iPad Pro and buying my wife the newer 13.3-inch MBP. Apple offered generous trade-in for my late-2019 MacBook Pro, while supply chain constraints, rising prices, and burgeoning inflation made case for upgrading earlier than previously planned and future-proofing my investment. So I decided, after long consideration: On the 26th, if local Apple Store stocked the larger laptop, I would make the purchase. If not, I would keep the 16-incher for another year.

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Rustic but Rusted

My handwriting is notoriously bad. Teachers told me during elementary school years and no amount of sincere effort improved my penmanship. I was relieved at the age of 14 to inherit a manual typewriter; I don’t recall why the family owned one or how it came to be in my possession but the thing became my go-to for homework and personal writings. If I rightly recall, Royal was the brand.

I will always be fond of typewriters, even if my typing long ago transitioned to computer keyboard. The appeal grows with age and nostalgia for archaic technology. So I was both delighted and disappointed to see that someone left an old L.C. Smith model in a nearby alley—and I don’t recall which one. As you can see, this old machine is rusted and presumably beyond meaningful repair—although the thang would fit properly on appropriate movie set showing decay and dystopia.

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My 16-inch MacBook Pro Dilemma

Three years ago today, I purchased the first-generation 15.4-inch MacBook Pro with the much-maligned Butterfly keyboard and Touch Bar. The laptop has been a fine friend, whose time in the Wilcox household soon ends—maybe. I always planned to keep the beast at least through the end of its Apple Care warranty period. But about four months ago, several keys started misbehaving—letters “B”, “C”, and “X” and the spacebar among the offenders. I never imagined how widely used is “B” until it stopped rendering or started repeating. Autocorrect made matters worse, when compounding mistakes with new ones.

I keep my computer fairly clean and figured that the Butterfly’s particle problem wouldn’t affect me. That was true for more than 30 months use. Believing rumors that Apple readied a 16-incher with new keyboard, I hobbled along, waiting for its release rather than taking my MBP in for warranty repair. Backing up data, wiping the disk, and restoring macOS is a pain. Why interrupt my workflow twice? So when the fruit-logo company finally announced the newer model, 14 days ago, I ordered one hours later. The laptop delivered a week ago, but I didn’t complete the switchover until last evening.

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My Personal Tech Kit 2019

I start the new year in a very different space, and with turnabout attitude, than 2018. About six months ago, I surrendered my digital lifestyle to Google, abandoning Apple as primary platform provider. Trust brought me to the Apple way. Distrust drove me away. Choosing between priorities privacy and security, in an increasingly dangerous Internet, the latter matters more. The Alphabet subsidiary truly has its ABCs ordered in ways that the bitten-fruit company doesn’t. I can trust that Google, being native to cloud computing and depending on it (mainly by way of search-related advertising), will secure my content and devices better than Apple, which is at best a cloud computing resident alien and more typically behaves like an immigrant who doesn’t speak the language well nor understands local culture.

Sure, I surrender some privacy but that would happen anyway, because privacy is a fiction. If you use the Internet or connected mobile device, you have none. Google is motivated to protect me (and you) because we are the product that generates ad revenue. Between marketers and hackers, it’s easy choice which I’d prefer to have my personal information. Granted anyone can debate which is, hehe, more criminal. But marketers aren’t likely to clean out my bank account or steal my identity. Or yours.

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My Last Trip to the Apple Store Genius Bar

Yesterday, the local Apple Store emailed that my wife’s former 13.3-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar was ready. We picked up the laptop hours later. If you haven’t heard about specks of debris causing MBP keyboard failure, I can confirm from our experience that such problem occurs. In mid-June 2018, Apple initiated a free repair program, which we used last week with surprisingly positive results.

I purchased the custom-configured MBP in mid-November 2016, and right out of the box the spacebar occasionally skipped. The malfunctioning worsened over time, and, coincidentally (or not), reached crisis a few days after Apple admitted to problems with the Butterfly keyboard. The spacebar became stiff to touch, requiring considerable pressure to push, sometimes working but more often not

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Quick Update: My Apple to Google Switch

Doubt disturbed my commitment to give up the Apple Way for the Google lifestyle two months ago (yesterday). Preparing to pack up my wife’s 64GB white iPhone X, I was taken aback by how pretty it was. She kept the thing in a case, which protected from damage but also obscured beauty. For fleeting seconds, I wondered why switch. Product design that generates joy is another benefit—and one transcending any, and every, feature.

But the moment passed, and I boxed up Anne’s smartphone along with my 256GB black iPhone X. Google gave great trade-in values, which dispatched the hassle of reselling the devices on Craigslist. Eight weeks later, writing this post on Pixelbook i7, I don’t regret the decision. Confession: The transition isn’t quite complete, but we’re getting there. 

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OK, Google, I Surrender

They say the devil you know is better than the one you don’t. That sentiment is root of a change in progress: Abandoning Apple for Google, choosing one digital lifestyle over the other—and not for the first time. If you’d ask me on May 30th about giving up the fruit logo company for the search behemoth, the response would have been a chuckle. Yeah, right. But, correcting Apple co-founder Steve Jobs’ grammar, in less than 30 days I think differently, which whys this reflection explains.

Like many other decisions, this one didn’t just happen. Like suddenly blossoming Spring, change had been budding for many months, as the cold winter ways of my thinking responded to nurturing warmth and water. I was never really satisfied giving up my Pixel lifestyle—whether Chromebook, smartphone, or tablet—but did so somewhat reluctantly in March 2016 for three simple reasons that today aren’t as important. 

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My Personal Tech Kit 2018

I am a big believer in change, as being beneficial, and I will occasionally switch computing platforms to shake up habits and my digital lifestyle. Watching Google’s advances with Assistant, and anticipating release of a new Pixel Chromebook, I expected to swap out my Apple gear before end of the year. But that isn’t the case. I start 2018 pretty much as I did 2017—looking at that bitten-fruit logo on my major personal devices.

There is the 15.4-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar that I purchased during the last week of November 2016. The other three gadgets released last year and replace like gear: Apple Watch Series 3 LTE (Stainless Steel); iPad Pro 10.5 LTE; iPhone X. Additionally, there is an Apple TV 4K in the living room. 

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My Best Office Ever

The workspace in our new apartment is something for me to be immensely grateful for this Thanksgiving. While the smaller of two bedrooms, one benefit is larger: The expansive window that looks out onto the street. Hehe, the cats and I share the view, which is on the same side of the building as our living room wrap-arounds. The dimensions offer better usable area than the larger room from our old flat.

The Featured Image, captured at 5:27 p.m. PST yesterday, using Leica Q, shows the view from the doorway. Vitals, aperture manually set: f/2.8, ISO 2000, 1/60 sec, 28mm.  My vintage Guerciotti bike, held upright by Saris “The Boss” stand, is in the foreground. Looking straight down from the roadster to the wall is the Casabelle Mail Center, which I purchased from Pier 1 Imports in late-Spring 2009 for use as my primary writing place. I now mostly use the handsome piece for storage and as pseudo-standup desk.