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Mac Hardware and Software |OT| - All things Macintosh

XMonkey

lacks enthusiasm.
Just please by quad-core Kaby Lake. That's all I ask.

This fall's going to be expensive.

New iPhone for me and my mom for her birthday/Christmas (selling old ones to recoup costs). New MacBook Pro. Likely a new UHD AppleTV.
It will absolutely not be Kaby Lake, there won't be suitable processor models for the MBP until next year. You're not really gaining much over Skylake anyways.

If they don't announce updates for the MBP and Mac Pro at WWDC then I've lost faith in Apple. It's inexcusable for a company with such vast financial and engineering resources to neglect nearly their entire PC lineup for so long. That they still have the gall to charge the same price for the MBP when they run such outdated hardware is a slap in the face to professional users and a clear sign they don't care about that market anymore.
 

giga

Member
It will absolutely not be Kaby Lake, there won't be suitable processor models for the MBP until next year. You're not really gaining much over Skylake anyways.

If they don't announce updates for the MBP and Mac Pro at WWDC then I've lost faith in Apple. It's inexcusable for a company with such vast financial and engineering resources to neglect nearly their entire PC lineup for so long. That they still have the gall to charge the same price for the MBP when they run such outdated hardware is a slap in the face to professional users and a clear sign they don't care about that market anymore.

Since when? Intel just announced at computex that kaby lake will ship this year. There's no hardware coming at WWDC, so start moving on now.
 

EmiPrime

Member
The current MBPs are more than fine and while the Mac Pro situation sucks, it's easier than ever to build a desktop Hackintosh instead of being limited by the wastepaper bin form factor and expensive Xeon processors.

Give me software.
 

Anion

Member
It will absolutely not be Kaby Lake, there won't be suitable processor models for the MBP until next year. You're not really gaining much over Skylake anyways.

Thats a pretty bold claim lol. I mean I know its apple and they can "get away with it," but they definitely are aware of the competing windows laptops starting to match quality and beat specs.

I have a hunch launch will be end of September at the earliest or end of October at the latest with Kaby lake. I probably will wait until Cannonlake to buy my replacement.
 

EmiPrime

Member
To be honest anyone bemoaning Apple not jumping on Skylake early hasn't been keeping up with news on the Windows side. The Microsoft Surface Pros/Books have had a ton of issues because of Skylake especially with power management. Better to wait for this crap to get ironed out than have a generation of MBP lemons that wake from sleep while in your bag and overheat.
 
It will absolutely not be Kaby Lake, there won't be suitable processor models for the MBP until next year. You're not really gaining much over Skylake anyways.

If they don't announce updates for the MBP and Mac Pro at WWDC then I've lost faith in Apple. It's inexcusable for a company with such vast financial and engineering resources to neglect nearly their entire PC lineup for so long. That they still have the gall to charge the same price for the MBP when they run such outdated hardware is a slap in the face to professional users and a clear sign they don't care about that market anymore.

I haven't seen anything to support your claims myself yet either. Kaby Lake's h.265 and other GPU and video features are really important to me.
 
I'm likely just gonna opt for a MacBook now. I have a 2013 15" Retina atm but it's just too big for what I want now.

Annoying that the MacBook can't be upgraded to 16gb RAM.
 

X-Frame

Member
Honestly I'm beginning to wonder if I even need a top of the line 15" rMBP. The way I use my computer is not intensive at all.

I probably would jump all over a 15" (or 14"?) new rMB if it ever gets released since reliability, battery life, and screen resolution are really all I want. Oh, and ports, not sure what is currently available to supplement the 12" rMB's only 1 port to allow for simaltaneous charging, syncing, and still have USB's for other stuff.

Is a 14" rMB even a possibility at all?
 

Deku Tree

Member
Honestly I'm beginning to wonder if I even need a top of the line 15" rMBP. The way I use my computer is not intensive at all.

I probably would jump all over a 15" (or 14"?) new rMB if it ever gets released since reliability, battery life, and screen resolution are really all I want. Oh, and ports, not sure what is currently available to supplement the 12" rMB's only 1 port to allow for simaltaneous charging, syncing, and still have USB's for other stuff.

Is a 14" rMB even a possibility at all?

You don't. The extra power is not gonna be useful for normal usage over the time frame when you use the computer. Even if that's 5-7 years IMO. Put your money into ram and a PCI-e SSD. Then get the good but not top spec processor. That's what I would at least.
 

nicoga3000

Saint Nic
I need some help with iCloud photo backups and such. Maybe you guys can help! I'm sort of losing my mind at how needlessly complex this all is.

Here's the setup: My wife has a MBA and an iPhone 6S. I purchased the 200GB storage for her iCloud because she has so many photos and not enough space on her computer to keep them all at her disposal.

So I started with turning on iCloud Photo backup on her phone. It started syncing. I want to figure out how she can view all of her photos on her mac. Well, something must have worked right, because a bunch of the photos are showing up. I took a picture of our living room and that showed up a few minutes later. Great!

However, in looking through the photos, there's a specific moment that does NOT have a few photos we took. It skipped over them. It's not syncing them for some reason. I can't figure out why, either. I keep closing and re-opening the app on her phone and her mac, but it still has not synced those 2 photos. Why would this be the case? This is under the Photos tab in the Photos app on the mac.

Also, I am looking at the tab labeled Albums, and there's a section for her iPhone. However, these photos are COMPLETELY out of order. The last photo in the iPhone Album is a recent one, but the one right next to it is from a few months ago. It's a mess. What gives?

Maybe the better thing to do is have someone walk me through how to sync ALL of her phone photos to her computer via iCloud. How can she view those photos? I even went to iCloud.com and looked at the Photos there...Only like 83 were showing up despite significantly more being available on her mac that she never directly synced. I feel like this should be simple, but it's not.

Help?
 

XMonkey

lacks enthusiasm.
Since when? Intel just announced at computex that kaby lake will ship this year. There's no hardware coming at WWDC, so start moving on now.
The Core M version is coming, that's what we know for sure. MacBook Pros aren't gonna be using that.

Intel as of late has not had their entire lineup of chips available at once when a new processor family roles out so the fact that they'll have some out by Fall doesn't mean much. The mobile quad core + GT4 iGPU SkyLake chip (for the 15") just become available in volume in May and the other suitable CPUs for the 13" were only available a few months before that one if I recall. You really think Intel is gonna have the replacements for those chips out in the market much less then a year after releasing the Skylake versions? I wouldn't count on it.

Hell, given Apple's clear willingness to milk old tech I'd say it's more likely they go SkyLake > Cannonlake and Kaby gets skipped altogether, at least for the rMBP.

I'd have already pulled the trigger on the Macbook if they had only released a 13" version, 12" is just too small.
You might get your wish at WWDC.
 
The Core M version is coming, that's what we know for sure. MacBook Pros aren't gonna be using that.

Intel as of late has not had their entire lineup of chips available at once when a new processor family roles out so the fact that they'll have some out by Fall doesn't mean much. The mobile quad core + GT4 iGPU SkyLake chip (for the 15") just become available in volume in May and the other suitable CPUs for the 13" were only available a few months before that one if I recall. You really think Intel is gonna have the replacements for those chips out in the market much less then a year after releasing the Skylake versions? I wouldn't count on it.

Hell, given Apple's clear willingness to milk old tech I'd say it's more likely they go SkyLake > Cannonlake and Kaby gets skipped altogether, at least for the rMBP.


You might get your wish at WWDC.
That was seemingly for a reason with Broadwell and Skylake, however. 14nm issues with Broadwell, then clearly more work to get Skylake quad core + GT4 yields/quality where it needed to be, given the complexity of that offering.

Kaby Lake is for the most part going to be Skylake plus a new GPU architecture. With 14nm and Skylake being relatively mature at this point, they may be able to bring the high horsepower CPU + GPU chips to the market sooner.

I understand I'm being optimistic.
 

giga

Member
The Core M version is coming, that's what we know for sure. MacBook Pros aren't gonna be using that.

Intel as of late has not had their entire lineup of chips available at once when a new processor family roles out so the fact that they'll have some out by Fall doesn't mean much. The mobile quad core + GT4 iGPU SkyLake chip (for the 15") just become available in volume in May and the other suitable CPUs for the 13" were only available a few months before that one if I recall. You really think Intel is gonna have the replacements for those chips out in the market much less then a year after releasing the Skylake versions? I wouldn't count on it.

Hell, given Apple's clear willingness to milk old tech I'd say it's more likely they go SkyLake > Cannonlake and Kaby gets skipped altogether, at least for the rMBP.


You might get your wish at WWDC.
There's no confirmation that the U series kaby lake isn't coming this year. I could see the H series pushed to next year.
 

Moreche

Member
I'm waiting for the new MBP instead of the iPad Pro, I tried the iPad Pro but it's to expensive for what it does just like the new MacBook.
I can justify the MBP price but for the price of the MacBook I can get a Windows laptop that blows it out of the water.
 

XMonkey

lacks enthusiasm.
That was seemingly for a reason with Broadwell and Skylake, however. 14nm issues with Broadwell, then clearly more work to get Skylake quad core + GT4 yields/quality where it needed to be, given the complexity of that offering.

Kaby Lake is for the most part going to be Skylake plus a new GPU architecture. With 14nm and Skylake being relatively mature at this point, they may be able to bring the high horsepower CPU + GPU chips to the market sooner.

I understand I'm being optimistic.
I look at how hard it was for Intel to get GT4e in the quad core going right and I can't see how they're going to get a new architecture so spot on that quick. The early reports are that the 580 Pro already has to throttle a fair bit under continuous load. They'll need to move some of those chips first before introducing a new one, imo. I'd love to be wrong, but Intel's own admission that they can no longer keep to a tick-tock cadence doesn't inspire hope in an aggressive schedule.

There's no confirmation that the U series kaby lake isn't coming this year. I could see the H series pushed to next year.
True, Intel's likely to have the U available as well, but Apple doesn't use those for the 15 so you're still missing half the line. The U would have gone well with a new Air, but that's dead, so you're really only looking at Apple using CoreM and H going forward.

It was easy to see why a MBP release in March wasn't possible due to delays with Intel. But that doesn't work now. The chips are ready. Maybe they're waiting on Polaris, but everything I've read says AMD is on track with the launch and should have mobile chips soon enough. They could announce the new MBPs at WWDC, say release date is beginning of July, dGPU is either ready then or Apple can say dGPU model coming in August. Most people are going to end up with the iGPU version so delaying the dGPU is not a big issue. Apple can make these things happen now, they've just chosen not to. Instead it seems they're trying to move as many units of old hardware as possible with this Beats promotion since Mac sales probably were lower than even they anticipated given the lack of updates to hardware. That's how I see it and the complacency is disappointing from a company with their history and abilities, especially given the asking price for their PCs.
 

Ninja Dom

Member
To all Mac users who installed an SSD...

I've got an iMac with a failed hard drive. I ordered a Samsung 1TB EVO 850, all the tools and a 2.5" to 3.5" HDD caddy (so the SSD fits in). So I should be good to fit this over the next few days.

Now, SSD drives don't have a port where a temperature sensor plugs in, like most 3.5" HDD's do. So when I install the SSD the temperature sensor cable on the iMac won't be plugged in to anything. As a result the fans on the iMac will spin at full speed.

What do people who've fitted an SSD do about the temperature sensor? Did you use a hardware modification or a software tool? I think I'll use a software tools. What were the results?

Also, what will be the impact of having the fans spin at full speed while I reinstall OSX and restore the iMac?

Lastly if I use Migration Assistant in OSX to cherry pick what I want restored off the Mac from my most recent Time Machine backup, can I choose to bring over my iMessage's?

Thanks all
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
Did a recent update ruin everyone else's battery life in sleep mode also or something? I can't figure out what the hell is going on. I used to be able to close my Macbook before I went to bed and wake up to it at basically the exact same percentage, but now leaving it asleep through the night drains basically my entire battery. Its incredibly strange. I've checked and there doesn't seem to be anything odd running in the background
 

jcutner

Member
To all Mac users who installed an SSD...

I've got an iMac with a failed hard drive. I ordered a Samsung 1TB EVO 850, all the tools and a 2.5" to 3.5" HDD caddy (so the SSD fits in). So I should be good to fit this over the next few days.

Now, SSD drives don't have a port where a temperature sensor plugs in, like most 3.5" HDD's do. So when I install the SSD the temperature sensor cable on the iMac won't be plugged in to anything. As a result the fans on the iMac will spin at full speed.

What do people who've fitted an SSD do about the temperature sensor? Did you use a hardware modification or a software tool? I think I'll use a software tools. What were the results?

Also, what will be the impact of having the fans spin at full speed while I reinstall OSX and restore the iMac?

Lastly if I use Migration Assistant in OSX to cherry pick what I want restored off the Mac from my most recent Time Machine backup, can I choose to bring over my iMessage's?

Thanks all

yea, I had to use a software solution for this, a fan controller that launches on boot for an iMac.
 

Granadier

Is currently on Stage 1: Denial regarding the service game future
Fans are fine to run at full speed. You can install MacsFanControl once you're reinstalled in order to manage the fan speed.
 

The Real Abed

Perma-Junior
Lastly if I use Migration Assistant in OSX to cherry pick what I want restored off the Mac from my most recent Time Machine backup, can I choose to bring over my iMessage's?

Thanks all
I don't know if it's that fine tunable. But you can always manually bring that over later. Just don't erase the backup or replace it until you're done. I forget where it's stored but I'm sure Google knows.

If only it was as easy to do it on iOS. FFS (Yes I know we've had this discussion before.)
 

EmiPrime

Member
I thought any temperature sensor was a stick on affair; Apple can pull the disk's temperature from the SMART data over SATA.

Most are I think. I put an SSD in an iMac a little while ago and it was a stick on thing for the temperature sensor which meant the fans behaved themselves.

If you have a physical plug directly on the HDD for temperature you need a utility like SSD Fan Control to tell the computer to use the SMART data over SATA instead.
 

Ninja Dom

Member
Thanks everyone. It looks likely that I'll opt in for a software based fan controller.

I've had a thought, what if I go to the expense and effort of changing my HDD for an SSD, and my iMac still doesn't work?
 

Ninja Dom

Member
Right I've installed my Samsung 1TB SSD in my iMac. I tell you, putting an iMac back together is far more difficult than taking it apart to begin with. The display panel has 8 screws but I only managed to put 4 back in. I've also had to tape the SSD to the inside-back of the iMac as the 2.5" to 3.5" caddy I bought is total shit. A bit of a patch job.

I tried to do a clean OSX install from my El Capitan bootable USB but the verification process kept failing. So I've restored from a Time Machine backup (8 hours). A 10.11.4 backup rather than the .5 backup which is where all my problems started.

Hope all goes well.
 

X-Frame

Member
You don't. The extra power is not gonna be useful for normal usage over the time frame when you use the computer. Even if that's 5-7 years IMO. Put your money into ram and a PCI-e SSD. Then get the good but not top spec processor. That's what I would at least.

Agreed Deku!

I just really want a 15", so the rMBP is really all I have to choose from unless they end up making a 14" or 15" rMB in the future, which may defeat the purpose of them wanting it to be so small and thin.

Otherwise yeah I'd want to max the RAM and get at least a 500 GB SSD, but def don't need to max the CPU for my needs.
 

Fuchsdh

Member
Do we expect new Mac-Mini's? i'm thinking of buying one for Pages, Safari and some Apple music. Schoolwork mostly.

Whenever the new notebooks come out. Traditionally the Mac minis have followed the MBPs, as the innards of the mainline models have basically been the 13" MBP (with the low end being a Macbook Air, and then some higher-end 15" MBP options, although that wasn't a real option with the last revision.)
 

EmiPrime

Member
Do we expect new Mac-Mini's? i'm thinking of buying one for Pages, Safari and some Apple music. Schoolwork mostly.

If that's all you need it for it's worth considering a second hand 2012 Mac Mini. If you either get one with an SSD already installed or just install one yourself, you won't be disappointed.
 

Deku Tree

Member
Whenever the new notebooks come out. Traditionally the Mac minis have followed the MBPs, as the innards of the mainline models have basically been the 13" MBP (with the low end being a Macbook Air, and then some higher-end 15" MBP options, although that wasn't a real option with the last revision.)

Well new notebooks tend to come out every year. Recently the Mac Mini has been on a two year upgrade cycle. But it was last upgraded in 10/2014. So it could be due for an upgrade in Fall 2016.
 
while i was planning to upgrade in june, this october thing has annoyed me.

i think i'm gonna become one of these 5 to 8 year apple dorks who still rock iBooks before i upgrade this late 2013 mbpr.

if microsoft releases a surface laptop i'll jump ship to that immediately as OS X has been pathetic past few years.
 

Ambitious

Member
btt38ulh.png


Gamechanger.
 

Deku Tree

Member
I somehow got routed to a spyware website on my iPad. It keeps popping up an email telling me to call 844-851-4610 which they claim is apple support to remove my spyware.

Clearly scam.

But now I can't use my safari browser. No way to close the page. Keeps doing an email pop up. Totally froze my Safari. Quitting and restarting doesn't help. Also closing the browser window in another device doesn't help. The window is stuck open and freezes use of any onscreen buttons. Ugh.
 
I somehow got routed to a spyware website on my iPad. It keeps popping up an email telling me to call 844-851-4610 which they claim is apple support to remove my spyware.

Clearly scam.

But now I can't use my safari browser. No way to close the page. Keeps doing an email pop up. Totally froze my Safari. Quitting and restarting doesn't help. Also closing the browser window in another device doesn't help. The window is stuck open and freezes use of any onscreen buttons. Ugh.

Turn off wifi, close safari from multitasking. Without internet it shouldn't be able to load the ad again, and give a page error. If that doesn't work, keep wifi off and turn off the iPad and back on, try the same thing. If THAT doesn't work, keep wifi off and clear cookies and cache in safari settings, then try the same thing

One of those three always works
 

Ninja Dom

Member
Good news for me. My installation of my SSD in my iMac was successful. The whole computer is so fast now. Boot up time is around 15 seconds from off.

I had to download SSD Fan Control to control the fans spinning at full speed. I've stuck it in my Login Items. I also enabled TRIM on the SSD (Samsung). So far so good!! I'm back in business.
 

The Real Abed

Perma-Junior
Yeah those scams are the worst. I feel bad for anyone who has fallen for them. I've had one in Firefox once that I couldn't close until I turned off JavaScript which I had to do by opening a new window and going to a non-gui settings window. Stupid. But it worked. Those pages rely on JavaScript to cancel the page closing. Personally I think that function does more harm than good and should be completely removed from the JavaScript spec. Nothing should ever prevent me from closing a tab or window. Save the contents to cache if you have to but do not stop me from closing a window.
 

Deku Tree

Member
Conflicting rumors keep coming in...

http://www.macrumors.com/2016/06/08/new-macbook-air-pro-june-unveiling-rumor/

Updated MacBook Air and MacBook Pro With USB-C May Still Be Unveiled in June

The report, citing "a reliable Chinese supplier," mentions earlier rumors that Apple will discontinue the smaller 11-inch MacBook Air to focus on 13-inch and all-new 15-inch models, although it is unclear if Mac Otakara's source is independently corroborating them. All of the new MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models are expected to be equipped with Thunderbolt 3/USB-C ports, while USB-A, MagSafe 2, and Thunderbolt 2 ports found on existing models will allegedly be removed.

Mac Otakara said it is unclear whether Apple plans to announce the new MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models at WWDC 2016, but multiple reliable sources have indicated that it will effectively be a no-hardware event. Apple could still make a non-WWDC announcement in June by way of press release, as was the case with the new 12-inch MacBook in April, possibly indicating only minor updates.

I personally find it hard to believe that Apple will redesign the Mac Pro and remove a bunch of ports and only do a press release.
 
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