Apple Operating Systems (macOS, iOS, watchOS, & tvOS) Catch-All

Just got an iPhone SE for $320 while trading in my 6S. I use old iPhones as a phone for wind down music, bedtime stories through Calm and meditation through Headspace, etc. so I don't bring my main phone into my bedroom. And because I don't like the form factor of the iPod Touch.

Anyway, I'm fairly excited to have a device for this that should be supported for 6, 7 years with the guts of an iPhone 11. It really flies. They did well with the new SE, even if the size is bigger.

I've been thinking about getting it to replace my 1st gen SE, but I can't find a good reason to upgrade It's still performing perfectly fine, I have no storage problem with it, the camera is good enough for my needs, and I don't mind the fact that it's small.

I have a 2 year old 8 that I can get $170 for. I'm thinking of just buying the SE outright and then giving it to my son next year if I want to upgrade to the 12. He has my old SE and he loves it.

PaladinTom wrote:

I have a 2 year old 8 that I can get $170 for.

This tempted me to make a very bad joke.

What about Apple DOS?

That WWDC presentation almost convinced me to buy an Apple Watch (fitness) and the Air pods (device switching).

And I have convinced myself to get a new iPhone SE. Being self employed, I should be able to pass it as a business expense, and get a relatively good price on eBay for my old SE.

I was considering getting a new Mac this year as well, but I'll wait for the new processors.

I was considering the new iPhone SE as well, but I'm having a hard time climbing down from my grumpy old man mountain of still enjoying having a headphone jack on my phone (an iPhone 6S).

I do have a nice wireless headset that I use with the phone often these days, but I did use the headphone jack as recently as this past weekend, when I went for a long skate -- with a helmet on -- precluding the use of my wireless headset.

I personally made my peace with it. I bought a couple of $10 dongles and I just keep them attached to my headphones. I haven't thought about it since then. Otherwise I'm wireless.

I have an SE (as a secondary device for music at night) and it's super fast and lightweight.

WolverineJon wrote:

I was considering the new iPhone SE as well, but I'm having a hard time climbing down from my grumpy old man mountain of still enjoying having a headphone jack on my phone (an iPhone 6S).

I just ordered it, and I'm picking it up from the Apple Store tonight. My first generation SE still fetches a good price on eBay, so I figured I should sell it now while it still receives new iOS updates. It might be harder to sell once it's no longer supported.

I forgot to add the adapter to my order, but I should be able to buy one at the same time.

Did anyone else think that finally installing Mac OS 11 would have been a bigger deal? I'm digging the changes for the most part, though I haven't done much but some light FCP work and a little moving files around.

I just replaced my OG iPhone SE with a 12 mini. So far it doesn't feel like a radical change, which is exactly what I wanted. It's a little bigger, but not significantly so. Having the screen stretched to the edges is nice. Also it gets a reliable connection to the lightning cable, which means it should charge reliably. I'm really looking forward to that.

Anyone have any good case brands they recommend?

I need to stick to Mojave for 32-bit support. But I only have a 2014 Mac anyway.

I’d love to upgrade from my iPhone SE. Need to convince the extended family to switch providers.

Big Sur was a non-event for me after upgrading, in a good way. I like the aesthetic changes, but don't really have much more to say about it.

I'm tempted to trade in my Macbook Pro from last year for one of the new ones with the M1 processor. I'll wait for reviews of the new hardware to come out first, of course.

I'm currently debating whether I will install Big Sur. Not now, for sure. I've read reports of the update bricking some MacBook Pros. Granted, according to the report, they were from 2013 and 2014 (my MacBook Pro is from 2015), but still, that does not inspire confidence. Whenever I do decide to go ahead, I think I will do a complete reset, there's five years of accumulated crap on that thing, and since I made the mistake of buying the model with only 128 Gb of HD space, it is getting tight.

The question I'm pondering at the moment is whether I should just sell the damn thing altogether. I've mostly moved to my Windows laptop now, and don't really need the MacBook anymore... or rather, I won't need it anymore as soon as the Windows version of Astropad is available (since I use that as a substitute for a graphic tablet).

Anecdata: I've installed it on both a 13"and 15" 2015 model, and both have gone fine.

Migrating to a new phone, on the other hand, has broken my Watch unlock for both Catalina and Big Sur machines.

Kurrelgyre wrote:

Anecdata: I've installed it on both a 13"and 15" 2015 model, and both have gone fine.

Migrating to a new phone, on the other hand, has broken my Watch unlock for both Catalina and Big Sur machines.

It did this for me, too! I’m running Mojave. Series 3 watch worked fine before the WatchOS upgrade.

I’ve had that happen before with past upgrades, to be honest. I’m not sure it’s exclusive to the newest OS. Sometimes an update causes AirPods and the watch to get into a funky state in terms of its registration with Apple.

I’ve had to completely de register my Apple Watch and set it up from scratch to fix this before.

I'm tempted to trade in my Macbook Pro from last year for one of the new ones with the M1 processor. I'll wait for reviews of the new hardware to come out first, of course.

I'd hold of on that for a bit. Especially if you use things like Photoshop which won't be ported over to native M1 for some months.

The good news is the M1 onboard gpu is a hair better than a 1050ti or rx560. That is far worse than discrete gpus but pretty amazing for onboard. For my frame of reference, it is better than a 7870 which is a 1080p card at mostly high settings. So definitely game worthy.

Apparently it fairs well against intel based macbooks. But of course gets smoked by AMD 4000 based laptops. Though again, you are trading CPU performance for significant GPU performance.

The other downer is the lack of ports. (only 2 usb-c) Well and the price. $1300 will buy you a hell of a AMD laptop these days with a discrete GPU that will smoke the M1. (plus upgradeable ram and storage, ZING)

I get the feeling next year the second rev of M1 based macbooks will be much better. Plus during that next years we may get news of rdna2 based APUs and laptops. I still think someone putting the guts of an Xbox into a laptop is both feasible and drool worthy...

My watch 5 made it through the phone switch pretty smoothly. It did give me one "connection interrupted" error when it was trying to migrate, but a simple "try again" and it worked. It was kind of a slow process, but I just turned on Desert Bus and left it alone.

I'm cautiously optimistic about Apple's chips, but I'm also glad I got the excellent 16" Intel MBP last year...

fangblackbone wrote:
I'm tempted to trade in my Macbook Pro from last year for one of the new ones with the M1 processor. I'll wait for reviews of the new hardware to come out first, of course.

I'd hold of on that for a bit. Especially if you use things like Photoshop which won't be ported over to native M1 for some months.

Yeah, I checked what I'd get for trade-in from Apple for my current MBP and it wouldn't offset the price of a new M1 Pro by enough to really make it feasible for me. I'm just getting caught up in the hype, really.

Still exciting to see the new hardware out and I'm looking forward to reading the reviews today.

fangblackbone wrote:

The good news is the M1 onboard gpu is a hair better than a 1050ti or rx560. That is far worse than discrete gpus but pretty amazing for onboard. For my frame of reference, it is better than a 7870 which is a 1080p card at mostly high settings. So definitely game worthy.

That sounds good but the majority of my Steam collection is already 32-bit only. I wonder how many will make the leap to M1. I guess the 64-bit games can run using Rosetta 2 but then performance becomes an issue.

You know I am more hyped for M1 than I expected. I'd never buy a MBP for myself but I'd certainly love to use one if its what work uses or buys for me.
I wonder if I can hope for a ipad pro with M1 or whether they will want to keep the product lines (and OSes) more distinct.
I did see some benchmarks that showed M1 being a good 40-50% better than last generation. EXCEPT they tossed in the MBP 16in and it performed better across the board. The MBP 16 has in integrated 5600M which isn't remarkable and it outperformed the M1 noticeably in the only game tested, Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

Has anyone here gotten a non-white or black iPhone before? I have to admit that I'm really tempted by the mint green iPhone 12. The first time I've seen a non-neutral color phone and wanted one.

I'm curious if in practice you get sick of it or if it obviously doesn't look professional (for when we go back to offices someday).

You can always get a case if you become board with it or think it looks unprofessional.

I always put a case on my phone so I never saw much point to the colors. I do like the green one but since it is in a case anyway I didn’t see any reason to hurt resale value down the road.

LeapingGnome wrote:

I always put a case on my phone so I never saw much point to the colors. I do like the green one but since it is in a case anyway I didn’t see any reason to hurt resale value down the road.

That's my trouble. I really like pastels and I end up buying interesting looking cases instead. So I generally get a white phone and just have fun with case colors. This is one of the rare times I really like a phone color.

I always use a case, so I'd never see the actual phone color. In your circumstance, I'd buy basic white or black, but then try to find a case that matched the nice green.

FWIW I've never looked at someone's phone and thought "that's unprofessional" but I've definitely seen someone's phone *case* and thought "that's unprofessional".

DSGamer wrote:

Has anyone here gotten a non-white or black iPhone before? I have to admit that I'm really tempted by the mint green iPhone 12. The first time I've seen a non-neutral color phone and wanted one.

I'm curious if in practice you get sick of it or if it obviously doesn't look professional (for when we go back to offices someday).

I haven't, but I very well might have if the dark green finish had been available for the Mini. Instead I got the black I've ordered a case in a similar shade. I do like all the other blues and greens they have this time out. They aren't colors that I'd want my personal phone to be, but I'll certainly admire them if I see them in the wild.

T-Prime wrote:

FWIW I've never looked at someone's phone and thought "that's unprofessional" but I've definitely seen someone's phone *case* and thought "that's unprofessional".

That's why I wear mine on my belt so everyone can see how professional it is.

I've gotten the red iPhones the last couple times around and really like them. I don't use a case, so it stands out in a nice way. The other colors don't typically appeal to me, but that's a subjective thing.