[sgiitk]

I found my Catalina to go to ..4 took very little time, I doubt if even 500MB was installed. But .. 15 took normal time. Both updates were about 2.7GB

Two developments (as per ZDNet)

Apple is switching to Arm, from Intel but the latter will continue for some time. The eco-system is on Intel at the moment.

More disturbing, now the model may be from iPhone to Mac. So are we dinosaurs?
Like Olympus discontinuing cameras, are we headed the same way.

[tilt]

Originally Posted by sgiitk

*SNIP*

More disturbing, now the model may be from iPhone to Mac. So are we dinosaurs?
Like Olympus discontinuing cameras, are we headed the same way.

My Late 2013 27" iMac has been obsoleted; will not run Big Sur. My Late 2018 TouchBar 13" MBPro is still in the running for Big Sur, so no problems.

Obsoleted only means no Big Sur. Security updates will still be provided for Catalina for a while.

Meanwhile, my Mid-2010 17" MBPro is stuck on High Sierra, my Mid-2006 White Plastic Macbook Core Duo is stuck on Snow Leopard, and both are still going strong. No updates, security or otherwise, but still working well.

So, becoming dinosaurs does not really affect you that much

Cheers

[sgiitk]

@tilt; Should I plan on moving back from Mac to the PC. Remember I also said the Intel systems are Ok for now with Apple.
at
Remember I went to the Mac only about five years ago. My main platform LabVIEW is no longer on Mac. LabVIEW gave me two editions of a book, which together had about twenty printings. LabVIEW was born on the Mac, Win did not have a stable GUI.

You are right Apple OS is stable so no rush to switch. What bugs me is that Apple will henceforth have the iPhone as the base platform, with Mac the tail.

[hema4saran]

After lot of speculations and considerations, I bought myself a MacBook Pro 13 latest edition. I had no plans to buy this since my Thinkpad T450 is going strong for the past 5+ years. Ever since the work from home came into picture, I need to use my Thinkpad for office Remote Desktop connection and I was in need of another laptop for personal use. So why not get the Mac to go with my iPhone and iPad.

Coming back to MacBook Pro, Here are the specs.

MacBook Pro 13.3 inch Space Grey,
10th Gen Intel i5 Quad Core Processor,
16GB Ram,
512GB SSD,
4 Thunderbolt Ports,
Updated Keyboard (Apple calls this as Magic Keyboard),
Apple Care for 3 years which costs $267 extra (Needed with 2 year old kid at home).

All inclusive I paid around $2030 with taxes . For this kind of money, I could have bought 5 PC laptops during Thanksgiving for good configuration. But looking at longterm perspective, I believe MacBook Pro will serve better compared to other PC laptops at lower end. The same reason why I bought Thinkpad back in 2015 and it didn't disappoint me till now. I am slowly getting used to the MacBook and I am happy.

Only thing that I miss is the glowing Apple symbol on the back of laptop which is iconic for Macs.

[tilt]

Originally Posted by sgiitk

@tilt; Should I plan on moving back from Mac to the PC. Remember I also said the Intel systems are Ok for now with Apple.
at
Remember I went to the Mac only about five years ago. My main platform LabVIEW is no longer on Mac. LabVIEW gave me two editions of a book, which together had about twenty printings. LabVIEW was born on the Mac, Win did not have a stable GUI.

You are right Apple OS is stable so no rush to switch. What bugs me is that Apple will henceforth have the iPhone as the base platform, with Mac the tail.

Your choice of platform should always of course depend on your use case. If Macs do not serve your purpose/workflow/app support etc., and any other OS does, then of course you should move to that.

Yes I like Apple, but I am never an "Apple über alles" person. Horses for courses.

If you need to use Windows just for a couple of applications then you could still use VMs to do that (if Apple suits your other general requirements) - there's no need to suffer a financial ding just for that.

Also please remember, it is not as though Apple were abandoning the Mac immediately or in the short term. It will take a while, by which time I am guessing your use case will no longer exist.

I am sorry, I am unable to give you a firm yes or no to this - you are the only person to evaluate this.

Good luck and cheers

[ranjitnair77]

Originally Posted by hema4saran

All inclusive I paid around $2030 with taxes . For this kind of money, I could have bought 5 PC laptops during Thanksgiving for good configuration.

I got the same model with the same configuration without apple care for Rs. 1.75lakhs which is roughly $2300 or so. I had to pre-order and wait 15 days for it.

Incredible machine but the prices are bordering on insanity here

[ast.ggn]

Hello everyone, I have a primitive resolution HP laptop which works on Windows 10 and a Mac 27" running on Catalina. Can Mac be used as extended monitor for a Windows laptop? Laptop has a HDMI output and Mac uses Display port. Though there are adaptors available in market, I haven't come across any reliable information, if it can work. Most people who are doing it have their Mac running on Windows. Only purpose is to have a better resolution screen for Laptop. Expert advice needed. Thanks in advance.

[sgiitk]

Installed Catalina 10.15.6 on my Mac. Took time as of old. I wonder what made Apple go from .5 to .6 so soon. Some major issues! I was expecting the next OS here. So are they just completing the Catalina suite.

[narayans80]

Originally Posted by sgiitk

I wonder what made Apple go from .5 to .6 so soon. Some major issues!

Am not surprised. Catalina has been a miserable release since day 1. Its not until 15.4 my sleep mode and NAS drive connectivity problems were resolved. It was so bad, I had to clean install (first time I had to clean install a Mac since its purchase in May 2013) Mojave until 15.4.

I am on 15.6 now, Time machine is taking ages to reconcile an old backup. This is the first time am seeing such a behaviour.

[vharihar]

Is there a lightweight minimalistic editor on the Mac? (Even as rudimentary as Notepad on Windows)

I need something that loads in an instant, like Notepad or Notepad++ on Windows

I have tried TextEdit (and a few more, TextWrangler I think) on my MBP. They're too slow, take a good 1-2 seconds to load.

[roamer012]

Originally Posted by vharihar

Is there a lightweight minimalistic editor on the Mac? (Even as rudimentary as Notepad on Windows)

I need something that loads in an instant, like Notepad or Notepad++ on Windows

I have tried TextEdit (and a few more, TextWrangler I think) on my MBP. They're too slow, take a good 1-2 seconds to load.

The stock Notes app works fine for me with added advantage of note syncing across iOS devices.

EDIT:

Originally Posted by vharihar

I've used that. But that's slow too.

I need something as a scratchpad sometimes, just to write something down (a tele# cited by someone while I'm on the phone and working on the Mac,

Hope this helps - Stickies

This is Mac version of sticky notes

[vharihar]

Originally Posted by roamer012

The stock Notes app works fine for me with added advantage of note syncing across iOS devices.

I've used that. But that's slow too.

I need something as a scratchpad sometimes, just to write something down (a tele# cited by someone while I'm on the phone and working on the Mac, for eg, for subsequent saving on the phone; Or cut/pasting some info I found on the web, etc). So I don't necessarily need syncing to the server on such occasions. Hence looking for an ultra lightweight editor. Like Notepad on Windows. It puzzles my why Apple didn't provide this pre-canned.

Notepad is superfast. Once I create a shortcut for it on Windows Taskbar, you click it and it opens in a nanosecond!

[woof]

Originally Posted by vharihar

I've used that. But that's slow too.

I need something as a scratchpad sometimes, just to write something down (a tele# cited by someone while I'm on the phone and working on the Mac, for eg, for subsequent saving on the phone; Or cut/pasting some info I found on the web, etc). So I don't necessarily need syncing to the server on such occasions. Hence looking for an ultra lightweight editor. Like Notepad on Windows. It puzzles my why Apple didn't provide this pre-canned.

Notepad is superfast. Once I create a shortcut for it on Windows Taskbar, you click it and it opens in a nanosecond!

I use BBEdit - found it very useful. In fact, the app is always open on my MacBook.

[Anjadekar]

Originally Posted by vharihar

Is there a lightweight minimalistic editor on the Mac? (Even as rudimentary as Notepad on Windows)

I need something that loads in an instant, like Notepad or Notepad++ on Windows

I have tried TextEdit (and a few more, TextWrangler I think) on my MBP. They're too slow, take a good 1-2 seconds to load.

You can try giving Drafts a shot. If you end up liking it then Macsparky's Field Guide will come in handy to get the most out of it.

It so happens that the latest episode of the excellent Mac Power Users podcast is about note taking apps.

[tilt]

Originally Posted by vharihar

I've used that. But that's slow too.

I need something as a scratchpad sometimes, just to write something down (a tele# cited by someone while I'm on the phone and working on the Mac, for eg, for subsequent saving on the phone; Or cut/pasting some info I found on the web, etc). So I don't necessarily need syncing to the server on such occasions. Hence looking for an ultra lightweight editor. Like Notepad on Windows. It puzzles my why Apple didn't provide this pre-canned.

Notepad is superfast. Once I create a shortcut for it on Windows Taskbar, you click it and it opens in a nanosecond!

When I need to do someting like that and cannot wait for an app to be fired up, I just use the Spotlight popup.

Just press Cmd-Space (⌘ Spacebar) and start typing.

Once I am done, I can "select all" (⌘A) and then do the usual copy-paste into any app I want.

Yes, I know this doesn't exactly answer your question, but it can serve as a workaround until you do find something else satisfactory.

Cheers