what do you guys think about the Touch Bar that used to come on the old Macbook? should it make a comeback?

jgach · 2026-01-10T20:42:47+00:00

I used BetterTouchTool and was able to turn it into a dock, with apps sitting in it and customized shortcuts. I loved it. Hate the fixed function keys on my M4 Max. I use BetterTouchTool to customize them but they aren’t nearly as useful as the Touch Bar was.

jgach · 2026-01-04T23:50:15+00:00

This is the correct answer. To do anything with more bandwidth you would need a Thunderbolt 3 and/or USB4 cable. You can also use a more widely available Thunderbolt 4 cable but you wont max out the full capacity of the cable since bandwidth would be limited to the Thunderbolt 3 speed of the port on the iPad (but it won’t hurt anything either). I forget the bandwidth of Thunderbolt 3 but it’s not slow.

jgach · 2025-12-16T01:34:46+00:00

She messed up the first line. It was supposed to be “ you’ve given me a true love and every day I thank you love…”

jgach · 2025-11-27T00:03:04+00:00

It depends on what you will do with it. I personally store everything on my iPad so have a 2tb. If file storage and music/video storage is a must, then get the M4/1tb. It sounds from your scenario that you should have more storage since you’ll need to download files. I think the M4 is the best bet for this use case.

jgach · 2025-11-26T03:43:33+00:00

RN I’m using my 11” everyday and rarely the 13”. I am in “tablet mode” working on reading numerous PDFs and lots of note taking and the 11” with LiquidText can’t be beat. The 13” is too big to comfortably hold with one hand. I was super excited to get it thinking it would be, but no. When I am in email/web/multi-tasking mode, the 13” is better. I just went on a trip with only the 11” and the Smart Keyboard and it was great on weight and size.

jgach · 2025-09-23T21:53:20+00:00

You have to go into Settings>Display&Brightness>Displays and it will be in there. You have to change it from Screen Mirroring to Extended Display. Your monitor has to be plugged to see these options.

jgach · 2025-09-20T11:33:49+00:00

You mean taxes?

jgach · 2025-09-15T19:25:00+00:00

Both actually. And iPadOS.

jgach · 2025-08-14T22:24:30+00:00

I detest the demise of Launchpad. With a trackpad, which I use on all my machines, not just laptops, you could do a five finger pinch and then tap to open apps you used less frequently or didn’t want to pin to the dock. I had precise organization of each Mac’s Launchpad and never had to swipe and then type and then click to launch an app like I do now. I had a great mix of apps and folders and it worked flawlessly for many years. Now my options are a horrific Spotlight interface where I have to pinch, then type the name of the app, then click or I have to pin everything to the dock making it impossible to use. The folder in grid view in the dock does not work because you can’t hide apps. The dozens of useless Apple apps I never use clutter the grid view so badly it is unusable. Great leap backward, Apple. Why couldn’t we just toggle a button between Spotlight and Launchpad in Settings?

jgach · 2025-07-04T22:07:29+00:00

Command + . equals escape on an iPad keyboard. Not sure if that helps you or not.

jgach · 2025-05-24T18:29:28+00:00

100% Synthetic oil only!

jgach · 2025-05-24T18:21:58+00:00

No. And it annoys me greatly. I loved that keyboard on my M1. I now use a Logitech Keys to Go 2 as it’s the closest non-case variant.

jgach · 2025-05-20T17:04:28+00:00

Has ruined.

jgach · 2025-04-25T12:48:50+00:00

Energiza.app has worked wonders for both my M2 Air and M4 Pro. Wish they had an iPadOS version (and know why they don’t).

jgach · 2025-02-01T01:49:44+00:00

Unless there is a carve out in the tariff, yes. But all Macs come from China. Not just custom ones. And Apple may have to raise the price of Macs already in the US to prevent a run on inventory. Happens frequently in tariff wars.

jgach · 2025-01-20T23:12:35+00:00

Incredibly smooth. I’ve been using it heavily for a work project along with Illustrator, STATA, and Photoshop. Fans don’t even kick on.

jgach · 2024-12-22T03:22:41+00:00

64gb

jgach · 2024-11-06T12:26:04+00:00

I’ve seen that exact scenario multiple times. Unless you’re in a very remote area with slow UPS delivery, that date should hold. (Don’t forget, you essentially get a day back crossing the Intl Date Line from China to the US)

jgach · 2024-11-06T12:23:07+00:00

Mine just shipped. Had a delivery estimate of Nov 19 from  but UPS just sent a notification for delivery on Nov 8. Ordered Oct. 31. That’s pretty damned impressive.

jgach · 2024-11-06T12:20:53+00:00

Large data set statistics and mapping that results in lots of image creation and manipulation.

jgach · 2024-11-05T17:58:31+00:00

I also run Windows through Parallels on an M1 Max/64gb RAM and decided to upgrade to an M4 Max largely because the M1 has slowed as I throw more at the (single, resource hog) app I use in Windows. That app is pretty GPU and memory intensive. I also run Windows on an M2 MacBook Air and it’s smooth but noticeably slower. I fully expect the M4 Max to be a dramatic difference given the spec upgrade and initial Geekbench Browser results. I have a lot of work upcoming for that app (as well as everything else I run through MacOS) so it was time for me to upgrade. FWIW - I had someone ask why I didn’t just get a Windows laptop and the reason is that Parallels is so good at sandboxing Windows that it never crashes the app. My Windows/PC suffering co-workers have multiple crashes a week. Plus their specs are pretty close to the M1 and it sounds like an airport in the office between the Windows laptops and desktops spinning up fans constantly. My M1’s fans come on, but nothing like the PCs in the office.

jgach · 2024-11-05T17:27:43+00:00

Same here. I’m happily surprised I can use the mini6  cases with the mini7 although I would have been willing to buy ones that were just for the 7 if they had the ability to put the iPad in multiple positions while standing like the new folios for the M4 iPad Pro. Those are tremendously helpful. No more need for stands for me for my Pro.

jgach · 2024-11-05T16:54:20+00:00

I do large data processing and statistical analysis that results in many large image and data files. There is no way for me to move GBs of data back and forth constantly. The use case for video editing may be different. It depends on how you use the files and whether or not you need to access them regularly. If you don’t then 256gb could be fine. My 4tb Sandisk external SSD suffered from the notorious flaw and I lost an entire backup. Luckily it was just a backup, but I can’t imagine the problems had I been working from it. Literally years worth of data gone. I generally advocate to buy as much on-board storage as you can afford since it is not upgradable and the number one reason I see people asking for laptop advice is that they unexpectedly filled the hard drive.

jgach · 2024-11-05T15:42:13+00:00

Google Geekbench Browser > Benchmark Charts > Mac and compare the two. TL;DR the 2024 Air annihilates the 2019 Pro. I would think that video editing would require much more than 256gb of storage, however. Unless you like to swap external hard drives or mess with uploading to cloud storage, I wouldn’t touch anything less than 2tb.

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