TWELVE: The Twelve Links of Christmas 2022: Apple Mac Studio

Apple Studio computer

This kicks off a list of a dozen beautiful, useful gifty-ish things in the spirit of the season. Starting with the Apple Studio which I want one of. That's not a grammatical sentence but.

It's a computer made especially for us: graphic arts and photo and video people, in the grand old Apple tradition, same as it used to be. I've talked enough about this before, but the Studio is the long-missing "model in the middle" for people who prefer to choose their own monitor or don't want to re-purchase another monitor every time they upgrade, which you have to do if you buy iMacs. For a long time we had the choice of the mini or the trashcan Pro—low end and compromised versus high-end overkill and with a Hefty-bag price to match. The studio splits the difference. It's got everything: small footprint, M1 chip(s), big fans, UHS-II SD card slot and a couple of ports on the front (be still, my beating heart), gobs of RAM, SSD drives, and I won't go on—you can read spec lists.

The Mac Studio, as I have also mentioned before, is one of the few examples in history of a manufacturer actually coming out with exactly what I thought it ought to. I'd be churlish not to be grateful. It will be my next computer, I hope. Bravo, Apple. Beautiful, functional, and elegant.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2022 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

darlene: "The Apple Studio is lovely. I work with my 27" iMac and will continue until the sad day appears when I must buy a new computer, and then it will be an Apple Studio or whatever they are producing that is similar. I do love my iMac."

Wes Pittman: "I recently upgraded from an iMac Pro to a Mac Studio and could not be more pleased. It's everything I hoped it would be. The best part: not getting another Apple keyboard."

SteveW: "I just got a Mac Studio about a week ago to replace my Mac Mini 2018. It's awesome and has solved every issue I had with the Mini, especially processing Fuji RAW files in DxO PhotoLab with Deep Prime noise reduction. A single file would take 90 seconds or more on the Mini; it takes 5–9 seconds on the Studio. Best computer I've ever owned. It is pricey but I'm feeling sure it will last me a long time. I usually get five years out of a computer. I will hope to go longer this time."

Comments

[John Krumm]

What, no CFexpress slot?!

This is on my lust list. My iMac has been feeling pretty slow lately.

[DavidB]

My next desktop computer will probably be the Apple Mac Studio paired with the Studio Display.

These will replace my MacPro5,1 (mid-2010) and Apple Cinema Display (2006). Both still work quite well.

[Keith Cartmell]

I'd love to get a Mac Studio and display. In Canada, what I want ends up being $5300 plus GST. Gulp. I'd settle for a 27 or 30 inch iMac with an M chip, because it would likely be half the price of a studio and monitor.

I will continue to use my late 2015 iMac, which is now at least 1 and maybe 2 OS behind (10.15.7 Catalina) and a Lightroom version behind, and at least one Negative Lap Pro version behind.

Why? It all works. I read too many stories of upgrades going badly. I'm retired so I don't have to be in a rush.

[Stephen Jenner]

I don't think that one can beat separates.

Unlike my last iMac 27, where the display was moderate and went downhill from there. Since 2013 I have had the trashcan and an NEC PA272W display. It was bought by my friend's brother who is a trolley dolly for BA, so I even got it at the US price, £500 less than the then UK price. I gave him a couple of hundred quid for his effort, and we were both pleased.

I have stripped the trashcan of its case and cleaned the air intake thoroughly just once, reassembled and on she goes. It still edits photos faster than I can supply them. Since the cleanup it is almost silent again.

The only fly in the o, is the internal SSD which refuses to allow me to update from Big Sur, says it has errors, but the price of 512gb replacement, its nearest equivalent, is extortionate. I could upgrade the OS to an external SSD, but I suspect that I will not see an improvement.

It says I need a new SSD, but for this old man, the price for what is these days, a tiny amount of storage looks like a bad deal, so I will opt for the strip-down and clean up for as long as I can. Especially, if it only needs doing once every 9-10 years!

Mind you, it helps that I started as a computer operator in 1974 on IBM 370's, which between the three of them took up around a quarter of an acre of floorspace, and contained one mega-byte of memory each, until a couple engineers flew in from Rochester MN to upgrade them by knitting an extra half MB onto each machine. They were so heavy that I lost a toenail while helping them manoeuvre one of the modules into place.

I don't see the problem in waiting an extra millisecond for my edits to complete, I am still running behind trying to keep up.

Er... Having said that I have just re-searched, and found a suitable SSD for £80!

I am expecting delivery tomorrow.

[Phil Aynsley]

The Studio is great! But be aware that (at least for me) it won't mount any SATA external HHDs. I have both a OWC ThunderBay IV and a Voyager Dock that will not mount drives (apart from one HHD in the TB4 that is set up as a Time Machine back up). Intel Macs (my previous 27" iMac and current MBP will mount the HHDs no problem. OWC couldn't provide an answer. Apple support likewise so far.

USB connected HHDs do mount ok.