The Online Photographer

Color Management Made Very Simple (for Beginners and Others)

[There were several bad typos in this. Hopefully all corrected now, thanks to Jeff Schewe and Carl Weese and others. If you find something, please let me know. —Mike the Ed.]

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Life used to be simple. You had sRGB and AdobeRGB, and you tailored your workflow to one or the other depending on the final destination of your pictures. Now there's P3 and other interlopers out there.

But we'll get to that.

First, if you are unfamiliar with color space, take a gander at this diagram. I shall then 'splain.

Common color gamuts (courtesy Myndex
Research, CC by-SA 4.0)

CIE 1931 is the big color blob in the background*. It basically graphs all the colors the human eye can see. The triangles superimposed on it represent a number of standard color spaces or gamuts. The CIE, or International Commission on Illumination, founded 1913, is the international authority on light, illumination, color, and color spaces.

Now then—in most still camera menus, if you navigate to "Color" or "Color Space," you'll see you have a choice of sRGB or Adobe RGB. The simplest form of color management, and one which works surprisingly well these days, is to set your camera on sRGB, shoot JPEGs at the best JPEG setting, view your images on a computer monitor that covers 100% of the sRGB color space (so you'll be seeing all of what your camera captured as you edit your pictures), edit in sRGB, and then export your pictures for viewing to the Internet. sRGB is the cookin' color space of the Internet. If you occasionally get a print made by one of the big commercial services, such as Shutterfly, Amazon Photos (I'm an Amazon Affiliate), Mpix, Snapfish, Printique, etc., you're still doing what you should, because all or almost all of those services calibrate to sRGB whether they tell you so or not.

If you don't shoot in sRGB and save your images as JPEGs, then you probably shoot raw. Raw is good. The advantages of raw are greater headroom, for corrections in post (post-processing, that is, in the image editing program), and better dynamic range. So why do we set our cameras to Adobe RGB if we're shooting raw, given that the raw file isn't tagged with a color space? Simply because it affects some of the camera settings, such as the histogram. The histogram and certain other affected settings will more closely represent the raw file if the camera is set to Adobe RGB.

But if we're printing at home, then we take the corrected raw file and convert it into Adobe RGB (or ProPhotoRGB). Or the editing programs we use do so. And here's why that is:

Courtesy ViewSonic

CMYK, as you probably know, stands for cyan, magenta, yellow, and key. "Key" means black, black being the key plate in a printing press, the plate to which the others are registered. CMYK are the basic colors used for the dots in printing presses as well as the basic colors of ink used in inkjet printers. Printer gamuts vary, but the graphs above makes it clear why we use Adobe RGB in preparation for printing. On the left we see typical printer CMYK colors overlaid on the sRGB color space, with the out-of-gamut colors filled in in black; and on the right, the same thing, but laid over the Adobe RGB color space. As this illustration makes clear, Adobe RGB can include many more of the colors available to the printer.

And that's why, if you're printing at home on a good pigment-ink printer like an Epson P900 or Canon Pro-1000, you want a monitor that's capable of showing 100% (or almost 100%) of the Adobe RGB color space. If you're only shooting for the Internet and perhaps Shutterfly et al., then sRGB is where you want to be, and that's when you can get by with a cheaper IPS monitor as long as it covers sRGB.

Color management made simple
Photography is a chain, and it's best to think of it that way. The standard term is workflow, or "the sequence of steps involved in moving from the beginning to the end of a working process" (Merriam-Webster), and I'm sure there are several words that would do as well—the "chain" means "the whole process from which camera you use to the final presentation of your image." The big advantage of specifying your own chain is that if you know where you want to end up, then you know where you have to begin, and what you need along the way.

If you conceive of a chain as a number of essential links, with each link having from two to hundreds of options, then there are many thousands of possible combinations. But let's take a look at two "chains" that reasonably typify two types of photography enthusiast, whom I'll label "hobbyist" and "maven." (Those aren't standard terms. You could make up your own names, such as amateur vs. advanced amateur.)

Hobbyist

Camera with APS-C or smaller sensor : kit zoom lens or in some cases a fixed** zoom lens : camera set to sRGB color space : shoot JPEGs set on "High" or "Fine" or whatever the top setting on your camera is : 24", 25", or 27" IPS monitor that covers 100% of the sRGB color space : basic free, low cost, or bundled Photo Editing program such as Corel AfterShot, Adobe Photoshop Elements, Photos for Windows 10, or Apple Photos : presentation through private device-to-device sharing or posting on the Web, augmented by occasionally having smallish prints made by one of the various printing services such as Shutterfly, Amazon Photos, Mpix, Snapfish, Printique, Costco (which still does prints online for members), etc., virtually all of which are standardized to work with sRGB files.

Maven

Camera with FF or larger sensor : selection of good-quality interchangable lenses : camera set to AdobeRGB color space : shoot raw : 27" or 32" IPS monitor that covers all or almost all of the AdobeRGB color space : at-home monitor calibration using a colorimeter such as the DataColor SpyderX : sophisticated purchased or subscription photo editing software that incorporates a raw converter, such as Adobe Lightroom, Phase One Capture One, DxO PhotoLab (which as of v.5 supports Fuji X-Trans files), or Corel PaintShop Pro, working in 16 bits : pigment-ink Canon or Epson home printer, commonly the Epson P900 or Canon Pro-1000 or higher : largish prints on fine papers such as Canson Platine or Epson Exhibition Fiber : stored in an archival clamshell box or museum solander case.

A simple way to control color is to settle on sRGB as your color space and JPEGs as your file type. Those are both camera settings: you choose them in the camera menu. It used to be that these choices sort of horrified the maven, who considered them inadequate. And they were, once upon a time. But that's dated information now. The fact is that JPEGs are very good with today's high-resolution cameras, and offer a reasonable amount of correction and recovery, and yield nice prints. If you need more, you'll know soon enough.

So what the heck is P3?
If you're shopping for monitors, one thing you'll come across is that some monitors don't specify the percentage of Adobe RGB they cover. Instead, they'll give the percentage of coverage for P3. What is P3?

Go back to the illustration at the top of the page. If you look at the P3 triangle, you'll see that it's roughly the size of the Adobe RGB triangle, but offset somewhat. P3 has its origins in DCI-P3, a color standard devised by Digital Cinema Initiatives, yet another group of experts like the CIE or the JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group, which created all the various JPEG standards), this one working for all the major movie studios. DCI-P3 is a standard for digital movies intended to be shown in darkened theaters. 

So then shouldn't P3 be called DCI-P3? Not so fast; it isn't, exactly. Back in the top illustration again, see those little dots labeled "~6300 white point" and "D65 white point"? The DCI-P3 color space specifies a non-standard, slightly greenish white point. Why? To take into account the characteristics of typical xenon-arc digital movie projectors!

Starting with the iPhone 7, Apple allowed for P3 tagging in images and videos, because, you know, video has been infiltrating and effing-up our previously cozy little still-photography universe for some time now. (Ahem. Editorializing, Mike?) But it didn't want a greenish white point. So it created "Display P3," which is DCI-P3 but with a standard 6500K (K in this instance standing for "Kelvin," not "Key") white point. "P3" is short for Display P3. In 2017, Instagram followed Apple's lead and now makes accommodation for P3 workflows.

So a monitor that specifies P3 coverage and not Adobe RGB is just a manufacturer acknowledging that the monitor is more likely to be used for video than for still photography. If you want to know how much of Adobe RGB it covers, it might be easy to find out, or it might not be.

End of P3 digression!

In summary
So if you are a phone shooter who wants to get more into photography, or a color photographer who has a good camera but is stumbling around in the dark when it comes to color management (that's been all of us at one point or another, let's not lie), the trick is to start from the final disposition you intend for your pictures and then work backwards from there. If you mainly look at your pictures on a monitor, send them in emails or texts to friends, and only occasionally have a print made by an outside service bureau (as they used to be called and might still be for all I know), then sRGB is for you. Set your camera on sRGB and shoot JPEGs, choose an IPS computer monitor that covers 100% of sRGB, and save your edited pictures in sRGB, and you are the master of all you survey. I would still recommend calibrating your monitor regularly (meaning, every two to six months), using something like the SpyderX. You might think this is excessive and extravagant for your modest mid-range camera and a modest workflow, but it isn't—it's what separates the adults from the juveniles***. The whole Internet is standardized to sRGB, and it's not only how they see you that is affected. How you see them is affected as well! Wouldn't you rather see pictures as professional content providers intend them to be seen? I should think that if you like photographs, you would. A decent-to-excellent monitor without regular calibration is like Bugs Bunny without a carrot. That's why the best monitors come with calibration hardware, in some cases built in.

If you want to print your own pictures at home, on the other hand, then set your camera to Adobe RGB, shoot raw, and have fun with your super-powerful editing program, your beautiful if high-maintenance home pigment printer, and especially, all those awesomely gorgeous papers we can buy now! (But if you can do all that, this particular article has been too basic for you.)

And if you really want color management made VERY simple, as the title of this post promises? Why, then, do what I do—shoot with a monochrome sensor and work exclusively in black-and-white!****

Mike

*Well, the x-y coordinates of it, anyway—CIE 1931 is actually a three-dimensional plot, the Z dimension being luminance. For every point on Z, there is a different and unique x-y.

**A fixed lens is one that is permanently attached to the camera, whether it is a zoom (variable focal length / angle of view), such as the excellent Panasonic LX-100 II, or prime (single focal length / angle of view), such as the excellent Ricoh GRIIIx.

***Formerly "the men from the boys," but no longer gender-biased.

****You laugh, but that may be the only way color management can really be made truly simple. As I said last week, "Color management is a strange subject—you can get by with almost any amount of sloppiness if you're a slacker, but if you want real precision, you can get very far into the weeds with it."

Featured Comments from:

ADDENDUM: As I tried to reaffirm at the end of this piece, color management is actually not simple. But I disagree in substance with commenter Patrick Dodds, who writes, "Somewhere in all of this, the fun starts to dissipate." My experience in photography over many years is that you just do what you have to do in order to do the work you want to do. Cartier-Bresson said that it took him three days to master the Leica. When digital matured, Peter Turnley bought two DSLRs and hired an expert to help him master them; they put in three long days of intense work until Peter knew enough, and then he resumed his photography, picking up where he left off with film. Mark Klett managed to master Polaroid Type 55 Positive/Negative film, a touchy and cantankerous material that offered limited control, making beautiful and distinctive work with it (actually, come to think, he was the only one I know of who did). Richard Misrach  felt he had no choice but to tame Cibachrome by mastering masking technique. It really doesn't matter where the difficulty arises; you just have to master your materials and methods to the degree you feel you need to. The corollary is that you don't have to master what you don't need: learning a great potpourri of techniques you'll never use is just a distraction, a different pursuit than the pursuit of pictures.

Again and again in my life, meeting great and good photographers, I found that most were deep masters of the specifics of their chosen techniques and surprisingly ignorant of others. That extended even to pros—I've written several times (because it amused me) about a studio pro I worked for who had $150,000 worth of pack-and-head strobes and other sophisticated lighting equipment in his studio and didn't know bupkus about on-camera thyristor flash units that mount to the hot shoe—the items most people call "a flash." He didn't use them. He knew nothing about them. He knew what he needed to know.

Almost no matter what "chain" you use, you will encounter specific questions and specific difficulties. You just need to keep gnawing at them until you either understand, or have to give up, or find a workaround. Technique is part of photography. We persist: we keep after it until we get it. Mastery is mandatory. Simple or involved, up-to-the-minute or antiquarian, narrow or broad, prestigious or "low-fi," highly technical or anti-technique—it doesn't really matter. All that matters is the work. Figure out where you want to end up, and then keep learning until you know how to get there. Just my suggestion.

Featured Comments:

Ernest Zarate: "Re '…the trick is start from the final disposition you intend (for your pictures) and work backwards.' In my 67 years, I have found that this approach works in many situations. Have used it for decades, and found very satisfying results. I stumbled upon it when I noticed a lot of people worked the other way: they’d get something and then try like hell to figure how to get it to do what they wanted. A very frustrating experience. Good article, Michael, with a terrific way of making a lot of this accessible."

Phil: "Thanks for this, Mike. It fills in several gaps in my knowledge about colour spaces, etc. And now I'm convinced, I really should get a calibrator for my monitor."

Mike replies: You really should. There's a reason many of the best monitors come with calibration hardware, or, in the case of the upper-range EIZOs, have it built in. The trouble is that there's not a lot of positive reward; it merely prevents a negative penalty. So there's not a lot of reinforcement for what feels to most like an excessive expense.

Monitors really run the gamut, no pun intended. Bad ones are remarkably horrible (well, for photography anyway), and good ones can be impressively wonderful. I'm working to write an article about how to buy an inexpensive monitor, but, after composing a list of minimum requirements, I've struggled to find a specific model that encompasses them all. Each one seems to have one little area where they skimp to an unacceptable degree on something—color space, bit depth, resolution, something. Different models skimp in different ways, but none of them quite come all the way up to my chosen minimum standards. Then I'll find one—only to discover that it isn't exactly cheap! I've been calling manufacturers and reading spec sheets till I'm bleary-eyed. It's really hard.

Niels: "Thanks! Now I don't feel as bad shooting JPEG only. I always get shamed if I mention that on an online forum. I didn't see the benefit of shooting RAW, only storage cost and wasted time in front of the monitor, so I stopped a few years ago."

Mike replies: I believe Ken Rockwell shoots JPEG-only as well. I've shot raw since Bruce Fraser's book came out many years ago, and still do, but I think JPEG in most camera is a much better option now than it was then.

David Haynes: "Many comments on this post mention ProPhotoRGB, which is the largest color space available in Photoshop and most other photo editing programs. I fit best in the 'Maven' category and shoot raw, use DxO PhotoLab to develop the raw files (exporting to ProPhotoRGB 16 bit), use ProPhotoRGB while editing, then convert to AdobeRGB for printing or sRGB for online uses. Photoshop is my primary editing tool, but my workflow includes quite a few other programs or third-party filters (Escape Motions, Topaz Labs, and so forth). I have found that using ProPhotoRGB while editing allows the tools to output the widest range of color, even though some may be 'out of gamut' for both the screen and printer. Converting to AdobeRGB for printing, or sRGB for the web, takes care of that. Perhaps I am going overboard and not really gaining anything by using ProPhotoRGB. However, the workflow works for me, and that is the bottom line."

Moose (partial comment): "Color management is fairly easy, if you don't care about absolute accuracy. Were I a catalog photographer, this would be crucial knowledge and skill. My employers would not want returns; 'Not the color in the catalog.' An argument may be made for photographing art for reproduction. But, do I want to have the reproduction in a book to look like the original in the quite dim, oddly balanced lighting in many museums these days? Or perhaps in the lighting in which, for which it was originally painted? In the bright lighting museums used to use, to make the art pop. Same problem with color portraiture. Hold up print next to subject; but our skin colors vary, with age, time of day, health, and so on, and is it in the light in which the photo was taken? Who can know exactly what color that dahlia, that house, that goldfinch, those fall leaves, that water, actually was? The answer is no one. Then (sigh), if you follow recent developments in human vision, it becomes clear that we see color in a very different way than do cameras. It is far from the neat, three color model we tend to imagine.

"It seems valid to me to adjust the photo, including color balance, saturation, etc. to reproduce what I saw in my mind's eye, even as I knew the camera would not capture than, but would capture the raw material for creating something close to it. So, sure, a reasonably well calibrated monitor, and decent printer profiles, etc. are useful, but not worth obsessing about."

Mike replies: That's very true. But if your "chain" of equipment, materials, and methods are giving you fits, and actively frustrating you, such that you're not able to "adjust the photo, including color balance, saturation, etc. to reproduce what you saw in your mind's eye," then rudimentary color management might be the thing that makes things easier. All a matter of balance, though, I agree.

D'Oh! (Two Little Extra Notes)

Just two little extra notes to the foregoing about monitors...I feel rather like a dope, but I'm going to mention it, just in case anyone out there doesn't know it already. The downward-facing ports on the back of my NEC monitor were really hard to see and even harder to get at with the monitor set up in its usual position. Which bothered me. Until I realized, while watching a video tonight, that the monitor turns to a portrait orientation. Once turned, the ports are all on the side, and become easy to see and easy to access.

Ahem. Now you know, in case you didn't.

And secondly, if you are interested in the Datacolor SpyderX Pro Colorimeter so you too can experience the joys of a calibrated monitor, it's on sale at Amazon for $40 off. At B&H too. I assume by "Holiday Savings," they mean Thanksgiving, Homer said sternly!

Homer Mike

NEC, We Hardly Knew Ye

I'm very late catching up to this development—I hadn't been paying attention. But it looks very much like NEC has fled the field, in that it is no longer making wide-gamut color-corrected monitors for photography.

Mine is an NEC PA272W-SV. That model is now discontinued, and when I tried to recommend its replacement a couple of days ago after I mentioned it, I found that...there isn't one. There is no proper large-gamut replacement in the NEC lineup. The rep I spoke to when I called the company sounded resigned and fatalistic when I asked him about monitors for photography. He tried gamely to find a current NEC monitor that matched the specs of mine "most closely," but the one he found wasn't very close—it covers only 73% of AdobeRGB. Mine covers 99%. (See below.)

Alas. Even the formidable NEC PA311D that PetaPixel reviewed so favorably just last year is already gone.

Withdrawn
NEC—Nippon Electric Company before 1983—used to be the largest maker of PCs in Japan. "Once Japan's major electronics company," Wikipedia says, "NEC has largely withdrawn from manufacturing since the beginning of the 21st century." The division that makes monitors is now owned by Sharp. As recently as when I bought my PA272 back in this month six years ago, NEC seemed to be a clear go-to for wide-gamut monitors. No longer.

The "SV" in the model name of my monitor stands for "SpectraView," meaning that a hardware calibrator (called a colorimeter) and native software for it comes with the monitor. It's easy as pie to use—just turn the lights down low, drop it through the top hatch (really, there's a hatch in the hood for it), position it, and tell the app to go. It does everything itself. Takes less than 10 minutes and Bob's your uncle—completely calibrated.

Colorimeter doing its thang on Tuesday night

I admit I like having the colorimeter built in, but it's a luxury—all you really need is this $129 accessory, a DataColor SpyderX. Datacolor makes a full range of color management tools, all the way up to screen-to-print profiling with custom color patches (which include a fade indicator!). Color management is a strange subject—you can get by with almost any amount of sloppiness if you're a slacker, but if you want real precision, you can get very far into the weeds with it.

If you want to see something very nifty, check out this extremely short video showing the way the built-in calibrating sensor on the EIZO monitors works. Don't blink or you'll miss it!

Here's part of the report of Tuesday's calibration—the colored area is what the monitor will show; the faint orange triangle shows AdobeRGB, the color space I use to edit color photographs. (I convert to sRGB for posting on the Web.) There's a wee slice of colors down at the lower left hand corner—you can barely resolve it here—that is out of gamut in Adobe RGB on this monitor.

So what is the real replacement for my NEC? As you've gathered by now, it's not an NEC. Keith B., in the comments to the "Worst Lighting" post, said that based on specs it's the 27-inch EIZO ColorEdge CS2731. (Here it is on Amazon.) Two others that get mentioned often are some of the new upscale photography-centric models from longtime downmarket monitor providers; these include the Dell UP2720Q (B&H Photo) and the BenQ SW321C (B&H Photo). Of course the Leica of monitors is the Apple 32-inch Pro Display XDR, but you don't need that. 

At the other end of the price scale—well, not all the way to the end, but as far as you want to go—something like the 25-inch Dell U2520DR would work well. Those get recommendations from respectable sources around the Web.

What are you doing?
The real trick in choosing a monitor is deciding what level of precision you actually need. It's up to you to decide what that is. To me, if you're a color photographer, you need a monitor that supports the color space you typically work in. If all you ever work in is sRGB, then buying a monitor is easy. And you need a way to calibrate the monitor, so what you create stands a chance of looking the way you want it to look to other devices. Glare resistance and consistency at different viewing angles were issues that were important to me. And you have to keep in mind what you want to do with it—you do not want a gaming monitor for photography, for instance. Those are TN monitors with poor color accuracy.

A good IPS/LED monitor stands an excellent chance of lasting for ten years, so maybe the best way to look at price is to take what it costs and divide it by ten to get a yearly cost. Then decide if it's worth it to you to sit in front of something worse every day of your life. I guess I'll keep my "old" NEC for as long as I can. So far so good. I'm sorry the go-to is gone, but we'll adapt.

Mike

Featured Comments:

Brian Stewart (partial comment): "Earlier this year I also discovered the exit of NEC from the serious monitor field, when my 12+ year old EIZO CG222 died. I struggled justifying another EIZO, and the pain was prolonged when there were supply issues with the models I was considering. I eventually bit the bullet and bought another EIZO that, if I was really honest with myself, I couldn't justify given my current usage. But it's comforting to have a monitor that self-calibrates and that I can trust."

Jeff: "For me, the ‘Leica of monitors’ is one of the EIZOs (with built-in calibration). Each prioritizes optimal viewing for photographers, albeit at a premium cost. My 2009 NEC, with SV, is due for an upgrade, and it’s EIZO I’ll soon be buying."

Ronny A Nilsen: "I have the EIZO CS2740 that I love. Having a display with more resolution (4K) is important for me (in addition to calibrated colors and light intensity) when editing photos and getting a feel for the sharpness of the image. The added resolution is also very good when surfing the net and reading as well, higher resolution renders the fonts more accurate and makes reading more pleasant."

Mike replies: I would also get a higher resolution model if I had it to do over again. The higher-res model of the EIZO Keith recommended is the CS2740. Text at that resolution is kinda tiny, but you can scale it to a lower resolution in the "Displays" pane of the System Prefs for larger text, and at least you can see images in high res when you want to.

Ger Lawlor: "My NEC Spectraview Reference 2690 has been retired. The illumination got quite uneven across the screen. I calibrated it with a Colormunki using the spectraview software, which, following an update, wouldn’t see the Munki, so I had to use an old version. I’ve been losing confidence in them for a while. Couldn’t find another NEC monitor for replacement. I’ve upgraded to an EIZO CS 2740 27" and Calibrite Display Plus. Holy smoke! The results are phenomenal. 4k means no zooming in on most jobs and the acutance means no oversharpening. (I’m on Windows 10. Upscaling text apps to 150%). Customers have commented already on an improvement in images. Better ‘pop’ and easier to fine tune skin tones, highlights and deep shadows. My second monitor is a Dell U2713hm. No comparison."

TT: "Oh yeah, I remember when I got my PA272 years ago. Was blown away how gray...? the grays were. Never seen a monitor so neutral and accurate before. Now times have progressed and I've settled on a BenQ and a SpyderX. But you still remember your first kiss/quality monitor most fondly."

Quickie Tests

I did a few quickie tests with that Apple 20W power adapter and USB-C-to-Lightning cable that I talked about the other day. Charging my third-generation iPad Air, the new 20W charger took it from 52% charge to 57% in just seven minutes, whereas the old 13W charger and USB-A cable was able to get it from 66% to 68% in the same timed seven minutes. So 5% vs. 2%.

On the newer iPhone 13 Pro, the 20W charger and USB-C cable took the charge percentage from 31% all the way to 48% in exactly 10 minutes, whereas with the old 13W charger and USB-A cable it went from 48% to 52% in the same timed 10 minutes. So that's 17% of charge vs. only 4% in 10 minutes.  

You don't have to pay "the Apple tax." Amazon sells a pair of  generic 20W power adapters that are very inexpensive. But don't forget to get the right cable. Be sure to look for that MFi certification.

The new charger/cable combo really is a lot better if you're scrambling and need to add a little juice in a hurry.

Mike

'Golden Oldie' Books o' the Week

I was going to link to The Life of a Photograph by National Geographic ace Sam Abell, the book version of Sam's video talk we've been discussing, but guess what? Sold out since we mentioned it the other day. You can still score one of the few remaining copies of the 4-volume Sam Abell Library from 2013, but buy it directly from the publisher—they still have it at the $75 publication price (I called them in Santa Fe to check), and Amazon is already charging four times more. We need a reprint of Sam's classic Stay This Moment!

This book link is a portal to Amazon. You're very kind use our links, as they help support the site.

B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 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.)
Featured Comments from:

Larry Gebhardt: "Your tests should be from the same starting point. As batteries get more full they charge slower. It's possible some of the slow down from the lower power charger is actually due to the battery not being able to accept even that lower rate of charge."

Mike replies: Okay: starting at 68%, I charged for a timed 10 minutes using the 13W power adapter and USB-A cable, and reached 70%.

Then I ran the phone back down to 68% by playing Dave Chappelle videos, and charged for 10 minutes using the 20W adapter and USB-C cable, and reached 76%.

Same outlet, same temperature, about 14 minutes between the two tests, and it was the same phone.

Print Sale Update / Ctein's Thoughts on Mac Studio

I'm still working on the Baker's Dozen, I haven't forgotten. Very wrapped up in this piece I'm trying to put together for that other outlet. I might submit it tomorrow, so that'll be that one done.

Ctein wrote to say that all the infrared prints from the sale have shipped. If you haven't gotten either your print(s) or a notification from USPS that it's on the way, please contact Ctein at ctein@pobox.com.

I invited him to write a column giving us his thoughts about the new Mac Studio, and below is what he replied—written as a casual email, mind you. I have his permission to share.

Ctein: "I wouldn't mind writing something about the Mac Studio, but at this point I have nothing coherent nor useful to say. My thoughts are too muddled. I need to straighten them out before I'll have anything worth adding to the chatter.

"The two things that are most messing with my head (there are others) is that, first, I have little interest in the M[x] chips. The switchover, in fact, will cause me problems when I'm forced into it. Which is, hopefully, not going to happen any time soon.

"The second is that I am unreasonably fond of the 27" 5K iMac. And I do think it's unreasonable. My last-year's 16" MacBook Pro runs rings around my now-ancient (2014) iMac, along with providing me with a dual monitor setup (I have the LG 5K 27" monitor), which has better color and a larger gamut. Plus having twice as much RAM as my maxed-out iMac. There is no sensible reason why I should prefer working on the iMac. Well, I'm allowed to have my idiosyncrasies, but I don't understand this one and it makes it hard to write usefully about the New Apple Order.

"The likely reality is that if my iMac were to give up the ghost tomorrow, I'd go out and buy the final-generation 27" iMac, either refurbished from Apple or used from one of the reputable dealers, in the minimum RAM configuration, populate it with RAM from Other World Computing, and I'd be spending half as much as a Mac Studio would cost me. And that would likely carry me for another 6–8 years... or until Apple decides to stop supporting the Intel chips entirely."

Note that Ctein does professional printing and restoration, so he falls into the pro user category. I believe he paid top dollar for his 5K 27" iMac when it was the very latest thing, so it's nice to hear that he got his money's worth out of it, both in terms of years of use and his positive feelings for it.

By the way, I'm far from an expert on computers—actually more the opposite—but I read enough of Daring Fireball yesterday to find out that it's pretty well accepted that the 27" iMac is now dead. I had two of them, the second being a 2011 that's still sitting here looking for a home. The only reason I went to a separate CPU and monitor was that I work on a porch, surrounded on three sides by windows, and I needed a monitor that could cope with glare better. I still can't do critical work on photos in the daytime. But my NEC MultiSync PA272W solved the glare problem—it has a non-glare surface and a hood.

And in local news...
It's like mid-Winter here today—five or six inches of fresh snow and 17°F (–8°C). The difference is that we're due for a warm-up tomorrow. The anti-icing wires on the pool table shed are working nicely, so no ice dams! Personally, I count today as the first day of Spring, despite the weather. With Daylight Savings Time newly returned, it should be light till 7:00 or even a little later, and don't think I'm not grateful. Those dark Winter evenings can feel awfully lonely. The seven Temperate Months (capitalized out of reverence), roughly April through October, are the reason to live in the Finger Lakes. Bring it on!

27-inch 5K iMac new at B&H Photo: i5, 8 GB RAM, 256GB SSD, $1,799; i9, 32 GB RAM, 2TB SSD, $3,699 (that's the low end and high end; there are other configurations in the middle).

Mike
(Thanks to Ctein)

Book of Interest this Week

Gregory Crewdson: Alone Street. "Filmic" seems the best single adjective to describe Gregory Crewdson's work; his directed and carefully managed tableau are the still photography version of scenes in movies. As such they are hyper-real; more beautiful than life and more poetic, and more concerted. They're also very easy to enjoy and a pleasure to look at.

This book link is a portal to Amazon.

Today at B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 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.)
Featured Comments from:

Thom Hogan: "I'm with Ctein for the most part. A recent 27" iMac 5K Retina configured properly is an excellent tool that should be long-lived (though Apple's yearly macOS updates have many of us living behind the times intentionally).

"Thing is, the 24" M1 iMac fills the need for those who want a lithe all-in-one, and as Mike has noted with his need for a separate monitor to get glare/positioning benefits, a Mac mini or lower Mac Studio model with the proper 4K/5K monitor is probably a perfect replacement for the 27" iMac.

"Those of us with iMac 5K's almost certainly have a small farm of peripherals hanging out on the desk (mine are about 3x the area of a Mac Studio), so the notion of a separate box really isn't an issue. Macsales.com has some very nice boxes that would stack under a Mac Studio and actually take up less space than my current drive boxes when all is said and done.

"As far as I'm concerned, Apple has done a good job of rationalizing the M1 Macs. Portables in 13, 14, 16" sizes, mini, Studio, iMac 24", and later this year a Pro. This is the best set of choices we've had in a long time. I'm not sure that a 27" iMac M1 adds much to the lineup. Indeed, if Apple were to provide one, I'm pretty sure that it would have to be Max/Ultra and the 24" would have to remain plain M1, which is what the mini/Studio distinction is right now."

John Krumm: "My Sierra Juniper just arrived and it looks fantastic. Off to the frame shop."

Bill Beebe: "I certainly understand a strong attachment to any technology or tool, especially if that tool has served you well and allowed you to make a living in your chosen profession. I have experienced the same, but from a pure engineering viewpoint. (I use a camera, and my output can be charitably described as hobbyist).

"What Ctein might be reacting to is the cost of the new M1 variant Mac minis. Let me speak to cost from my perspective.

"I'm fortunate enough that I have a 2019 16" MBP fully equipped with an i9, max memory, and 4TB SSD. That cost $6K. It's a workhorse given to me in 2020 to help complete a contract, and believe me I put it to very good use. Later, I was able to pick up a 2020 13" MPB with the basic M1 (i.e. just 8 cores), on sale for $1.5K. That became my field computer because the idea of carrying $6K of computer out of the house became untenable.

"I can say, without exaggeration, that the 13" will keep up with the 16" with 1/4 the memory, even if the 13" has to hit swap. There are use cases for which the 16" has to be used due to its 64GB memory. But for a lot of other basic use cases, I can't tell the difference in performance.

"But I can certainly tell the difference in battery life. What makes the 13" such a keeper is the speed combined with its very long battery life while out testing in the field. I can run at least eight hours of solid work before I even have to think of hitting the charger. The 16" by comparison sucks down a battery like it's going out of style.

"I understand and appreciate why Ctein uses what he uses, but I hope in the future he'll see that the Apple Silicon based Macs will benefit him even more than Intel based Macs, especially when mobile."

The Biggest News from Apple in Years

The all-new Apple Mac Studio computer

I can hardly believe my senses, but Apple yesterday appears to have introduced an all-new computer designed and aimed exactly at us—PHOTOGRAPHERS. Excuse the shouting.

The all-new Apple Mac Studio looks like a bulked-up and pumped-up musclebound Mini with two supercharged versions of the high-performance M1 chip—M1 Max ($2,000) for still photographers, M1 Ultra ($4,000) for videographers. With industrial-size fans. The M1 Ultra chip being basically two M1 Max chips joined at the hip, thus requiring less power than two separate M1 Max chips. 

Its shape is kinda reminiscent of the Power Mac G4 Cube that appealed to me so much back in 2000. Neat, clean, contained, smallish and easy to site on a desk. John Gruber wrote of the Cube in July 2020: "The Cube was a worthy failure, deserving of our utmost praise in hindsight. Powerful computers needed to get smaller, quieter, and more attractive. The Cube pushed the state of the art forward." Apple could have called the Studio the Cube II—except that the Cube, which was before its time, was a commercial failure.

There's a matching monitor, the 27-inch 5K voice-and-video-ready Studio Display that has its own A13 Bionic chip onboard. It has a nanotexture glass option to cut glare and an adjustable-height stand as an option. Suitable for graphic arts professionals who use their monitors all day.

The Mac Studio's memory is "unified," (i.e., not user upgradeable), but you can choose 32GB or 64GB for the M1 Max version and those options plus 128GB on the M1 Ultra version. 512GB SSD storage is standard with options available from 1 to  8 terabytes. According to Apple, the new Mac Studios are significantly faster than the 27" iMac and the existing Mac Pro, from 50% to 3.8X.

Both the Mac Studio and Studio Display will start shipping March 18th.

Yay, I say. Although I can't afford one myself.

Pet peeve no more
And—OMG, be still, my beating heart—not only is there a built-in SD card slot on the Mac Studio, but it's on the front.

I couldn't believe my eyes—sat there blinking stupidly—but then I remembered, oh yeah, Jony retired. Apple has always wanted everything to be designy and clean even at the expense of usability, so it insisted the ports be on the back, out of sight. Bugged me for years, but then, the world is the world. The card slot on the front won't mean much to most people, but to me it's a flag that proclaims changed intentions for this product and renewed respect for the needs of photographers. Oh, okay, "creatives." (Man I hate that word.)

Because not only is an Mac Studio an all-new computer, for today's Apple it's an all-new computer category. For years you have been dutifully enduring my griping:

• Apple didn't make a good midrange desktop for a separate monitor, so we could upgrade separately and/or use third-party graphics arts monitors such as my NEC. Apple's choices were too much (the Pro) or too little (the Mini). High end or low end, nothing in the middle.
• Apple's focus was on lifestyle and the high end, and what photographers needed was a good solid middle-range workhorse, affordable but capable.
• Apple had forgotten the graphics arts market that had once been its most loyal constituency.
• Apple always put the bleeping card slot on the side, and then on the back, so we could get irritated just a wee bit every single time we had to get up and lean over and crane our necks to put a card in or pull a card out. Which was often.
• Well, then it solved that problem by eliminating the card slot altogether. Of course, we all still use cards on a nearly daily basis. So they cleaned up the sleekness of the computer just a tiny bit...at the cost of the outboard docks that now sit on our desks. Thanks for that.
• Couldn't we please get one or two ports on the front, where they'd be accessible, for frequently swapped peripherals? We already have cords all over our desks, we really don't mind one or two more. Ours are working offices.
• Apple's Mini, post-2014, was designed for switchers (from PC) and thus could be crippled. Didn't need the latest or best chips, didn't need upgradeable RAM. The fan could be an afterthought and too small, because grampas and soccer moms and humanities majors were only going to use the thing for email and YouTube—and now Zoom—anyhow.
• In short, Apple didn't deign to make a computer for us...or so I b*tched, when of course the iMacs worked well enough and I shoulda stopped my kvetching and gone along with that program like a good sheep customer. (I do have an iMac, upstairs.)

Happy day, Apple has just shut me up entirely. By addressing all those criticisms. In one fell swoop.

A win for photographers and we might as well shout it
The Studio is ours. It's for us. Finally, that midrange workhorse utilitarian monitor-less high-connectivity accessible affordable PHOTO-CENTRIC computer I always thought Apple should make for photographers. And for videographers. (It's for musicians, too.)

I'm getting carried away, so I'll just say thank you, Santa Apple, and go calm down.

But oh, happy day. This one's for us.

Mike

P.S. I have no connection to Apple except as a customer, and was privy to no prior notification or information about any of the products introduced yesterday.

UPDATE: Thom Hogan has weighed in on the Mac Studio. One thing he points out that I should pass along is that the previous photographers' workhorse, the Intel 27" iMac with Retina 5K display, has been discontinued by Apple and is a bargain from resellers who still have stock (I believe it's what Ctein uses). Check out Thom's article. (Thanks to Richard Nugent for pointing this out—I hadn't caught up with it before he did.)

Book of Interest this Week

Gregory Crewdson: Alone Street. "Filmic" seems the best single adjective to describe Gregory Crewdson's work; his directed and carefully managed tableau are the still photography version of scenes in movies. As such they are hyper-real; more beautiful than life and more poetic, and more concerted. They're also very easy to enjoy and a pleasure to look at.

This book link is a portal to Amazon.

Today at B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 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.)
Featured Comments from:

Richard Parkin: "I solve the problem of the connections at the back by simply having the back at the front so all the ports are accessible."

Mike replies: Ha! I did the same thing with my subwoofer for my desk system...it's downward-firing, so I simply turned the front to the wall so I could access all the controls and connections.

Yuan: "Although it's drool-worthy, I'd rather call the Mac Studio video-centric. For the majority of still photographers, even the $2k version is over-kill. Nowadays you simply don't need to spend $2k to get a perfectly fine still photo computer."

James: "It's $2,000 before a screen. Five of those and you can have a pool shed."

Mike replies: True, but the Pro is $6k and up, and a Fuji X-Pro3, Panasonic S5, or Sony A7III are all the same price, and you could also spend the same on a Sony FE 50mm ƒ/1.2 GM or a Fuji XF 8–16mm ƒ/2.8. And some people already have monitors. But sure, it's not for everyone.

Michael Fewster: "SD card slot at the front! Loud cheers. Let's hope that the cheers are heard by laptop makers. In recent years SD card readers have almost completely disappeared from the laptops we photographers like to take when we travel. A MicroSD card reader doesn't do it."

Steve W: "This is good news. I have a 2018 Mac Mini, and I'm getting close to wanting to upgrade. The current Mac Mini has even fewer ports: it's been reduced from four Thunderbolt/USB-C ports to only two. That's not going to cut it. The Mac Studio is configured almost perfectly, and the SD card slot is frosting on the cake. The price seems about right given that a 14" MacBook Pro costs $1,999 as well."

Rob de Loe: "I used to teach in a lab full of Macs. Someone who wanted a nearly endless bounty of free SD cards could be happy in that room. There they were in the back of the monitor, forgotten by the previous user, waiting to be collected. There probably was someone coming around harvesting them each day, like the people you'd see running from pay phone to pay phone checking for uncollected change."

Mark replies to Rob: "What's a pay phone?"

Danielsroka: "I am just as excited as you are. My beloved 'trashcan' Mac Pro has been a workhorse, and served me well. But it is now eight years old now, and I've been waiting for a solid professional desktop Mac to come along to replace it. It feels like this machine was designed with the professional photographer in mind. Fast, efficient, and bang-on with the price. I calculated that $3–4,000 will get me a fast (but not outrageous) setup, which is the same price range I've paid for my high-end Macs in the past. And these new M1 Max chips are proving to be groundbreaking in speed and energy efficiency, a significant upgrade from the old Intel framework. Can't wait!"

Larry Angier: "Faster, cheaper, better continues! In 1984 my original Mac 128 with external floppy and ImageWriter printer cost (then) about $2,500 and it had a nine-inch monitor, 128 KB ram and 400 KB floppies.... Things keep getting better and better for us!"

Apple Point-Counterpoint

John Camp: "I'm typing this on a 2015 MacBook Pro, which will be my last Apple product, other than cellphones, and I'm taking a hard look at those. Most (maybe all) of what Studio will do can be replicated much more cheaply on Windows machines, although the Mac OS still seems easier and more intuitive that even the latest Windows 11. My problem is, if you interface (cliché) with the business world, the business world uses Windows, and even identically-branded software is not the same between the two worlds. I could no longer put up with the problems created by using Word for Mac when sending a manuscript to a publisher who is totally on Windows. Microsoft frequently updates Word, but not so frequently Word for Mac, which means there are always incompatibilities, and some of them can drive you crazy. So I'm forced to change.

"The Studio, it seems to me, is for professional videographers and perhaps professional still photographers, because Apple systems are widely used by 'creatives' (another cliché.) For artists and enthusiasts, who may only be dealing with couple of dozen photos a week, an expensive computer makes little sense. For somebody like Kirk Tuck, who may take several hundred photos at a single public event, with an ad agency demanding instant returns, the Studio may be something to seriously consider. IMHO.

"I will concede that changing operating systems is a pain in the ass, and I'm currently experiencing that. There is certainly a solid value in staying within a familiar, comfortable system, which is why I still shoot Nikons along with my Micro 4/3 stuff. But for me, from here on, it's Windows."

Alex Mercado: "I'm a staff photographer and certainly welcome the Mac Studio.

"My department is currently making use of a small fleet of Mac Minis from 2018 and, while the Mini I use exhibits no significant performance issues—as I have the luxury of only running Capture One—my colleagues in production have been feeling the limitations of theirs for some time. The suite of applications they need to run simultaneously on any given day visibly taxes the hardware of their 6-core Mac mini. And we even ponied up for them to have the maximum of 64BG of RAM from the start.

"If it were possible to cram even more RAM into the Mac Mini to help things run more efficiently, the dated CPU would still have trouble juggling the multiple threads of all the updated, and increasingly processor-intensive, applications. If the CPU could be upgraded, then every other part of the motherboard would likely become a bottleneck. The notion of long-term upgradability for an affordable computer is not terribly realistic; there will always be a component, either hardware or software, that will fail to deliver to the peak performance of the computer as a whole.

"This lack of upgradability for most of Apple’s current computers is a non-issue in our 'corporate' setting by the simple virtue of having to work within the recommendations of the IT department. Ours require us to update the OS and software regularly to keep up with security updates and network compatibility; meaning we eventually need to replace the computer to keep up with the times. Today’s Adobe Creative Cloud applications running on Monterey isn’t nearly as speedy on our Mac mini as the 2018 suite was on Mojave.

"Our replacement options before the Mac Studio were: The 2020 Mac mini. For $1,300, it has two additional CPU cores, but the RAM tops out at 16GB. It will logically struggle to keep up with demands rather quickly.

"We use Eizo displays so considering any iMac is basically pointless.

"Lastly, the 'base mode' 8-core Intel Xeon-based Mac Pro with 48GB of RAM will cost $6,500 (the next step up is 96GB for $7,200!) and is just overkill in more ways than one. Also, how long is Apple really going to keep supporting x86?

"Now, $2,600 for a Mac Studio with its 10-core M1 Max and standard 64BG of RAM is the Goldilocks Mac we’ve been waiting for. And I suspect it will remain usable for more than the four years we've managed to squeeze out of the Mac Mini."

Ed Hawco replies to John: "Another counterpoint to John Camp's point that 'if you interface (cliché) with the business world, the business world uses Windows, and even identically-branded software is not the same between the two worlds.'

"John says he wrote that on a 2015 Macbook Pro, and I think his thesis is also from 2015, if not earlier. I work in the business world, and have done so happily for over a decade on Macs. At my employer we're pretty much evenly split between Macs and Windows machines, and it is exceptionally rare to find any issues crossing platforms. My macOS MS Office interfaces flawlessly with MS Office files from Windows users. Ditto other applications we use.

"The only exception I'm aware of is the screenshot application called Snagit from Techsoft; the native image format on macOS is '.snagproj' and on Windows it's '.snag,' and they are not compatible. This is a very weird thing in 2022. Six or seven years ago I asked one of their product managers why they don't make the formats compatible across OSs, and the reply (which I don't remember verbatim) left me a bit stunned, as it implied the person did not understand what the 'use case' was for having cross-OS compatible files. Whaaaaaaa?"

Thom Hogan replies to John: "Message to John Camp: stop using Word on the Mac. The best, most compatible word processor on the Mac is Nisuswriter Pro. Has been for years as Microsoft slowly let their Mac software slide. But that should tell you something about reliance on Microsoft software in the first place. Office is a lowest common denominator product now, and as such is going to have problems long-term even for an all-Windows user."

Eric Brody (partial comment): "Like Larry Angier, my first Mac was purchased for US$2,500. I got it on April 18, 1984! 400K single-sided disks, no externals. My first external drive was a 20 megabyte, not terabyte, drive that cost hundreds! It always seemed to me that one spent the same $2,500 every few years, but got a lot more computer power."

Mike replies: My first computer was the 512K Macintosh, 1984–86, which I got for a graduation present from art school in May of '85. It was called the "Fat Mac" because it had, woo-hoo, 0.000512 GB of memory, which was a lot. Like you guys, my Macintosh and an Imagewriter daisy-wheel printer cost about $2,600. For the same dollars you can get a Mac Studio with a 2TB SSD, which can do even more than my old Fat Mac could. (I kid, don't yell at me.)

The World's Richest Man

[Comments have been added.]

Roald Dahl earned half a billion dollars in 2021,
despite being fairly severely incapacitated (he's deceased).

You've probably heard by now that Elon Musk has taken the title of richest rich guy, showing up those washed-up poor-ass no-money-having former holders of the championship belt such as Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffet. Losers!

Ahem. Excuse me. Mustn't get carried away. I don't really have an opinion on Elon Musk. I'm not really entirely sure who he is. Something about space?

More recent news is that Apple, the little startup founded in a garage (or a basement, I'm not really up on the origin story), recently poked its nose past the landmark of three trillion dollars in market capitalization. Market cap, as you might know, means the dollar value of all of its shares. It's not a made-up number, but it's sort of a theoretical one. Nobody actually has the three trillion dollars. Anyway, it's doing well.

Meanwhile, back down here in the land of guys who never balanced their checkbooks, it seems to me that what I'm hearing and reading is that the Apple M1 iMacs work nicely for photography.

On the button
For photographers, it makes little actual sense to pursue ultimates and extremes. With enough money it's possible to buy the best, of course, but even if you do, "the best" is a very time-bound concept; soon enough it will be yesterday's news. Bragging rights have an expiration date. Does anyone really care, now, if you're using a computer that was the best money could buy in 2016, 2010, or 2004?

So it might be optimal (I almost slipped and wrote best) to use stuff that's merely very good but still practical. Sort of the upper-middle-tier class of product. The M1 iMacs seem to hit that goal on the button. We photographers don't really need cutting-edge capabilities in our computers, but it's nice not to have to sit around and wait for processor-intensive tasks to run.

As for the screen size—currently there are only 24-inch M1 iMacs—I have both a 27-inch monitor and a 24-inch one. I like to believe that I could be happy with just a 24-inch screen, but I also admit that it would probably feel like a step back to give up the larger one. You'll have to decide for yourself on that question. It's why I switched to a Mac Mini and an NEC monitor a while back...the idea is to keep the monitor through several lifecycles of computer. (The kind of plan I usually don't have the discipline to carry out.)

All things considered, though, the M1 iMac feels like it might be the ideal middle-of-the-pack sensible solution for Apple-using photographers, a fully matured embodiment of the graphics workstation. At least for people who are happy with compact APS-C or Micro 4/3 cameras, which are positioned similarly in the great scheme of things—"very good but still practical."

Doing well but not here
And by the way, one other thing Apple's three trillion market cap means is that actually, Steve Jobs is the world's richest person. Well, except for two inconvenient little details. First, he sold all his Apple stock (except for one share, which allowed him to access Apple investor reports) in 1985 when he got ousted as head honcho. And, he passed away. So he's no longer, you know, a flesh-and-blood person. Details, details.

It has hardly impacted his success or fame; Bing Crosby, Arnold Palmer, and Elvis Presley go on racking up profits and adding to their wealth year after year, and they are also—there's no polite way to put it—dead. Roald Dahl (Roald Dahl?!), the author of James and the Giant Peach and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, whose stock seems to keep rising and rising in the world, earned $510 million in 2021 (Netflix splurged on the rights to all his work). Michael Jackson had the best earnings year of any celebrity in all of history in 2016, which was fantastic for him except that...oh yeah, right. He was pushing daisies, then and still. Bereft of life. Bought the farm. Bucket kicked. My point is that in a world where dead people go right on making money and being admired for it, it seems a smaller leap to pretend that Steve had kept his Apple stock and to admire him for how rich he would have been if he had.

He managed to get by anyway—I'm not saying he wasn't rich. Did you know Forbes publishes an annual list of the most successful dead people? Bizarre but true. I can't quite wrap my head around the concept. But then, I don't understand Bitcoin either.

So how does Mr. Jobs feel about all his recent theoretical success? The amazing on-paper value of all the shares he wouldn't own any more if he wasn't dead? I for one would love to know. However, he can't be reached for comment.

Mike

Book o' the Week

American Geography by Matt Black, a great name for a photographer but a terrible internet name, impossible to search. Stan Banos calls American Geography a "handsome, well thought out and put together book." Matt's work is outstanding.

The link is a portal to Amazon. Thank you kindly for helping support The Online Photographer!

The following logo is also a link if you click on it:

Original contents copyright 2020 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.)
Featured Comments from:

hugh crawford: "Well, compare to Ronald Wayne who sold his 10% of Apple for $2,300. If that wasn’t enough, to quote Wikipedia, 'In the early 1990s, Wayne sold the original Apple partnership contract paper, signed in 1976 by Jobs, Wozniak, and himself, for US$500. In 2011, the contract was sold at auction for $1.6 million. Wayne has stated that he regrets that sale. Wayne retired to a mobile home park in Pahrump, Nevada, where he sells stamps and rare coins, and plays penny slots at a casino. Wayne never owned an Apple product until 2011, when he was given an iPad 2 at the Update Conference in Brighton, England. He holds a dozen patents.' Also, Jobs’ real fortune was from being the largest shareholder of Disney stock which he got for Pixar. He sold all but one share of Apple when he got fired and never again had that big a stake in the company."

Mike replies: Ronald Wayne, Pete Best, and the '62 Mets are among history's biggest losers. Fortunately the Cubs are finally off the list.

Ilkka replies: "If I buy shares at $10 a piece and sell them at $30, I made $20 per share. So I won (?). If that share price then goes on up to $200, what did I lose? I still made a $20 profit. How is that losing? If I take part in a marathon run and do not win, does it mean that I lost? I don’t think so. Football game and boxing match has two sides, one wins and the other one loses, unless it’s a draw. In most other things in life there are no losers even when you don’t 'win.'"

Mike replies: Ronald Wayne sold an asset for $2,300 that is now worth ~$300,000,000. And is living in a mobile home park in Parhump. How would you feel? I really doubt he looks back on that and thinks "no loss."

Ken Brayton replies: "An engineer I used to work with quit and got a job at a new startup. Not much of a pay raise, but very nice stock options. He loved flying planes, so when the company went public and he became quite rich he bought his own plane. Flew down to Vegas and ended up landing nose first into the desert. His startup was Apple. I would much rather he was retired in a mobile home in Parhump."

Paul White: The Jobs Trust controlled 38.5 million shares of Apple after his death. It also owns 12.5% of Disney. Jobs was granted shares after he came back to run Apple in 1997.

Mike replies: I haven't been able to determine what percentage of Apple those shares represented, but most sources seem to agree that it was nothing close to 11%, the stake Jobs sold off in 1985.

Phil Stiles: "The classic comment on Elvis' demise was that 'it was a good career move.'"

Mike replies: Yes, and although I appreciate it as a joke, I still kind of can't quite get my mind around the concept. It implies that the important thing about such celebrities is the enduring persona rather than the personhood of the actual person. It sounds like the basis of a Monty Python skit. And probably was. Didn't the family in The World According to Garp have a stuffed dog, Sorrow? And I recall that the original "Saturday Night Live," long ago, had a recurring joke on the "Weekend Update" fake news segment, repeatedly announcing that Generalissimo Francisco Franco was still dead.

Robert Pillow replies: "Sorrow was the family pet in The Hotel New Hampshire whose remains were stuffed following his euthanasia, which I believe was implemented because of his blindness and constant flatulence. Of course, it's been a while since I read the book."

Richard Tugwell: "I have an M1 Mini, which I use exclusively for photo processing, paired with a nice, mid-price monitor. Very, very pleased with performance. So I guess the M1 iMacs will be similarly suitable."

Mike replies: Finally, a comment about the M1 Macs! My purpose in this post was to elicit opinions about them, but apparently I so thoroughly buried the lede that that purpose was lost. Maybe I should try again....

Stephen Cowdery: "I got an M1 iMac as soon as it was released. It is wonderful, especially for image processing. Use your old monitor for displaying files and folders and the Photoshop windows."

Bill Tyler: "I'm reminded of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in which Hotblack Desiato, an incredibly rich musician, spent a year dead for tax purposes."

Phil Stiles: "A year ago, I upgraded my Mac Mini to an M1 model. The difference is profound, especially in how fast Photoshop and Lightroom load and perform. I use solid state drives for storage. My monitor is an aging 30" Cinema Display, but it still works for me. The Mini is the most cost effective way to upgrade. I also recommend an additional OWC Thunderbolt Dock for a plethora of ports."

Steve Rosenblum: "I sold my maxed-out Intel i7 Mac Mini and my 2018 Macbook Pro and bought an M1 Max Macbook Pro to use as my only computer. When photo editing I connect it to my existing NEC 27-inch MultiSync monitor. It's a major leap forward for photo editing compared to my previous computers which were pretty good."

Richard Tugwell: "I have an M1 Mac Mini, which I use exclusively for photo processing, paired with a nice, mid-price monitor. Very, very pleased with performance. So I guess the M1 iMacs will be similarly suitable."

Will: "For one, Roald Dahl’s children’s books are essential read-tos for a certain type of kid. My son was captivated by many of those books, and I expect my daughter to be as well.

"For two, your surprise at his work being well-regarded suggests you’re unfamiliar with his adult work. His short stories are brilliant. And if you’re familiar with any individual episodes of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," it is extremely likely they were Dahl adaptations. Many rely on a sort of characteristic 'dark twist,' like the probably best-known 'A Lamb to the Slaughter,' which sees a housewife murder her husband with a frozen leg of lamb, then serve the evidence to the investigating officers. Many follow this pattern, but the 'dark twist' in 'Genesis and Catastrophe' is more subversive.

"Regardless, it is worth grabbing a Roald Dahl adult short story collection. Loads of good stuff."

Mike asks: Like this one?

 

iPhone: The Real-World Upshot

Well, this is pretty funny. It turns out I actually waited too long to get rid of my phone. Far from being sensible, I missed the boat.

I dropped into the local Verizon store yesterday and here's the upshot: They'll give me a trade-in on my old phone—the guy said six to eight hundred dollars. Great. Then I asked about the iPhone 11 and 12. They no longer have 11's, and the 12 Pro Max is exactly the same price as the 13 Pro Max. But, they don't give any trade-in allowance on the 12; only on the 13.

So that makes the 13 the no-brainer choice...which I'm sure is how Apple and/or Verizon wants it.

Then he looked up my trade-in, and...uh-oh. Guess what? The 7 Plus is too old now. Apple no longer sells them as refurbs, so the trade-in value takes a nosedive. I could have gotten $600 to $800 credit if I had traded it in on a 12 or an 11 when those were new, but I waited too long. Now it's only worth $200 in trade.

You know what they say: Oh well.

So the iPhone 13 Pro Max would cost me $910 in cash or on payments. That's actually less than Apple sells a loaded 11 Pro Max for as a refurb ($1,019).

So I missed my window. Kept the 7 Plus too long, such that now I pretty much have to pay full boat to get a new phone. It's no tragedy; I could buy one if I wanted to. But I'm leaning toward just getting a new battery for the old 7 Plus. It's kinda like a car after it's paid for: you get this golden sunset "no payments" period when the thing is paid off but still working smoothly. Besides, I'm waiting for the A6600 to go on sale again and I'd rather blow the $$ on that.

I'm sure another year or two with the old phone won't hurt me. And who knows what the 2H22 rumors will yield? I'll try to be ready for that, if and when it happens.

The moral of the story: If you want keep current with developments in phone cameras, don't hang on to your phone too long.

Mike

Product o' the Week:

The brand new 2021 Apple 10.2-inch iPad (Wi-Fi, 64GB) in Space Gray. My iPad is my least necessary but most-loved Apple device. I could get by with my phone and a desktop computer, but I use this constantly and I like it best. Check out that price.

The above is a link to Amazon from TOP—anything you buy while you're there benefits TOP. B&H Photo is closed for the rest of September for Succos.

Original contents copyright 2020 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.)
Featured Comments from:

Niela: "Sorry Mike. I have no idea what you are talking about. I just buy my iPhone directly from Apple and sell my old one to whoever wants to pay the most. Picking and changing my carrier whenever services or pricing is convenient just makes so much more sense."

Dan: "I shall upgrade my iPhone SE when it can no longer do what I use it for…reading The Online Photographer and Jalopnik. Should be quite a while."

Dave Pawson: "Excellent (sensible) decision. I look forward to the A6600 review!"

iPhone 13?

Asking the experts: So do I need an iPhone 13?

My iPhone 7 Plus, released five years ago this very month, is getting out of date, but it still works perfectly. I have no complaints with it other than that the battery is getting a little weak. I have to remember to charge it every day, and I do run short of power every now and then because I get caught out. I take a lot of pictures with it, though. I'm guessing the newer ones are better at that.

What would you do if you were me?*

Mike

*You can say you'd switch to Android but not me. Apple loyalist since 1984, for better and worse, through thick and thin.

Product o' the Week:

The brand new 2021 Apple 10.2-inch iPad (Wi-Fi, 64GB) in Space Gray. My iPad is my least necessary but most-loved Apple device. I could get by with my phone and a desktop computer, but I use this constantly and I like it best. Check out that price.

The above is a link to Amazon from TOP—anything you buy while you're there benefits TOP. B&H Photo is closed for the rest of September for Succos.

Original contents copyright 2020 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.)
Featured Comments from:

Jean: "I would imagine that you would be very pleased with the new iPhone. I use the regular iPhone 7 and the 12 Pro. The old one is the perfect size and weight in my pocket. The new one is a superior photographic tool. It doesn’t replace my Fujifilm X-Pro2 and X-T2, but the low light is performance is unreal with a fast lens, image stabilizer and up to 30 seconds exposure time. Apple’s special ProRAW is also a favorite for me. You can have 30 MB files with multiple images combined (tone mapping), data available for adjusting your white balance to your preference, and lower noise than JPEGs. You can lock the exposure of your sky to protect the highlights and bring up the shadows before you trip the shutter. If you still want to edit, the data is in the files. Great for landscapes. Shoot your house in the middle of the night and get the stars as well. The super-wide-angle lens is the so-useful and often used 13mm-e. On the iPhone 13 Pro, a new faster super-wide-angle lens and improved autofocus makes it even more useful. The portrait mode lets you adjust the depth of field after the fact.

"Every feature I have described here is available in the standard camera app. The convenience is great and video is quite stable and useful. Battery capacity is improved and great."

Clyde: "I went from an 8 to a 12 Pro last year and the image quality improvement was stunning! So yeah, it's worth upgrading."

Richard T: "My suggestions:

"1.) If you want or need to minimize costs in the short run, Apple can replace the battery for you (which I think costs $49 in the US). You can do this in an official Apple store or authorized service centre, or can mail out your phone if you can live without it for a few days. The iPhone 7 generation is still supported by the upcoming newest iOS (version 15 launching soon). It is unclear though if the 7 generation will still be supported by September '22, though likely that iOS version would still get security updates, so if you go for a battery replacement you'd have at least one year, probably two, and potentially more years of use out of this. By the way, in the settings menu you can find the current battery health.

"2.) You are very right that an upgrade would also get you a better camera—though perhaps slightly less so than you may think. The 7+ was the very first model with two cameras (~26mm/52mm equivalent), and if you get the iPhone 13 (non-pro version) you will still only have two cameras (except 13mm/26mm, so lacking the 52mm). Based on your love of 35–40mm equivalent lenses, that would be a significant omission. So in your case I'd go for an iPhone that also includes that 52mm lens (which Apple calls 'tele'). But note that in the iPhone 13 Pro generation they went to 3X, which equates to 78mm equivalent, i.e. a little tighter than I think you'd prefer (Apple uses 26mm as 1x, which it calls wide, and 0.5x for the 13mm, which it calls ultra-wide). The iPhone 12 Pro Max has a 2.5x tele lens, so it's 64mm equivalent. This 2.5x is only for the 'Max' version, i.e. the bigger one which is roughly the size of your Plus model. The iPhone 12 Pro (non-max) has the same 2X (52mm equivalent) lens.

"3). Possibly a nice compromise for you might be the iPhone 11 Pro Max, which has the 0.5/1x/2x lenses and gets you a similar sized phone as the 7+. You might be able to get a refurbished directly from Apple—and you can use https://refurb-tracker.com/ to keep track of stock. There's also eBay of course, though battery quality varies—I'd ask sellers to check battery health if you take the eBay route. When I upgrade I usually go for the t–1 model [i.e., last generation —Ed.] since there is about a 50% depreciation after the first year (not unlike a new car!)."

David Place: "I once had an iPhone 6 and kept it through the XR (10) but shouldn't brag...since then I've fallen for the camera upgrade every year. I pass on my current model to my other half and trade in the two-year-old iPhone. So the 11 is traded in / the 12 is passed on / the blue 1TB 13 Pro Max will be here Friday (I also tend to get the new color each year). The iPhone is now my main camera (that's my only excuse). Suggestion? Move on to the 13."

Kirk: "I would rush to pre-order the iPhone 13 Pro. You can go to the Apple website and see everything they've improved on. It's now an amazing camera in addition to being a phone...and a computer...and a health resource...and an entertainment center.... I'll be buying one for the video capability alone but I'll end up using it for everything I photograph that couldn't be better photographed with a full frame, higher resolution camera (and attendant lenses...).

"The perfect moment for a tech straggler to leapfrog into the cutting edge."

Soeren Engelbrecht (partial comment): "The new phones are a bit like buying into a new camera system without the ability to choose your own set of lenses.  :-)  ."

Aakin Patel (partial comment): "I think it's worth upgrading. [...] The iPhones usually get security/software updates for five years. Yours is hitting that limit, and in today's world where phones are big targets for cybersecurity attacks, it's pretty worthwhile to stay on top of that. Having a new phone that gets the updates is pretty important, and worth upgrading if you can swing it."

Øyvind: "I would go with the 13 Pro. The camera system is just more complete, and is given the biggest camera bump ever this year. The wide/ultrawide combination of the standard model just never appealed to me as someone who uses normal to short tele quite a bit. If you're coming from an iPhone 7 the new models should be a massive leap (as Apple likes to say for every model increment). That goes for battery life, operational smoothness and convenience, display quality and sheer computing power. And the cameras are just way better.

"Still I respect you holding on to your phone for its useful life."

Robin: "No-one needs an iPhone. Some people might want one. Big difference. It's clear to see that Apple is the most hyper-capitalist, resource-extracting company in the world. Even on my doorstep here in Ireland, I see the damage...as they avoid paying any tax while keeping desperate employees in dead-end jobs. I would never support this company. No matter what pretty things they dangle. The world is on fire. We are in the Sixth Great Extinction. Time to take a more moral stance. Even in an array of bad choices, some are better than others."

Fred Haynes: "I’m the last person to give advice, since I don’t own a cellphone! I am a dinosaur! But considering the ‘business’ you're in, I think it would be a good idea to have the best, assuming this latest model is the best. Regarding your thoughts about the iPad, I’m one hundred percent with you on that! I could not be without mine, I’d go nuts!"

els: "Absolutely buy the iPhone13 Pro. If you already take a lot of pictures with your iPhone 7, you will be so happy with the iPhone 13. Let's face it, it is the only camera we all use every day. So why not have the best one available?"

Wonders Awaiting

I descended the stairs this morning to find poop all over my office, which is part of caring for the older doggie. Poop happens. In my spiritual program we learn acceptance along with patience and tolerance. Crucial to happiness and contentment. I work on acceptance every day. And I need to, apparently.

The poop is all cleaned up now. All has been sanitized and sanity is restored. Welcome, bright new day.

On firing up ye wheezy computer I was presented with a come-on to pay $5 a month for something called Mozilla VPN. It has something to do with my browser as Mozilla is the entity that makes Firefox, which I've used for years...without having any idea whether that is a good idea. I can't remember why I started using Firefox. Just one of those things that I do. (After a while, trudging the road of happy destiny, lots of things silently and inevitably morph into just something one does.)

These days, you have to be careful. Some people are trying to offer you something useful and helpful; others are trying to work their grimy fingers into your wallet, not to mention sometimes your soul.

So I'm hoping some expert out there on computery things (internetty subset) will share and school: what be a VPN? Do I need such? Is Mozilla's the one I should get? Is it worth yet another poxy $60 leak per annum? (My bank account is now riddled with such tiny leaks. Drip drip.)

Don't ask
And by the way, this has been a pretty consistent issue in blogging over the years. When you have access to a crowd, especially a crowd of such exceptionally wise heads, it's always a temptation to ask about anything that is outside of one's own sphere. Legal questions, medical questions, questions put to pilots or investors or spelunkers or gardeners or what-have-you, or just things I'm curious about. Because when you open that magic window, you never know what is going to happen. For example, long ago I mentioned an obscure Australian photographer, and, months later, a rare volume of his work arrived in the mail from an Australian reader who was moved to seek it for himself and happened to find two copies instead of one. Or, once I mentioned A&E's show "Deadliest Catch" about crab fisherman in the Bering Sea, and what did we get but a comment from a reader who is a crab fisherman in the Bering Sea who loves TOP but can only catch up with his reading when his ship is within internet range of Dutch Harbor. Or the time we were talking about Irving Penn's platinum/palladium prints and we got a comment from Irving Penn's former platinum/palladium printmaking assistant.

Gold. You just never know what wonders await. Ask and ye shall receive.

Anyway I have a guideline for myself...try not to ask readers-plural for help with stuff that doesn't have to do with photography. That filters out about 80% of these impulses. Some off-topic "asks" sneak through however. I allow computer questions to wiggle their way in as being sorta-kinda related, although that's questionable.

Anyway, if anyone could help educate me in re VPNs off the top of their heads it would save me some time, time that could be better spent writing, which is the thing I do.

Mike

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Original contents copyright 2021 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.

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Upcoming! (Update)

Upcoming: Apple iMac Pro 32" with M2 chip, with an adequate number of ports and an Apple logo on the business side. Available in silver and space gray only.

(Photographers who do heavy Photoshop lifting might be better off waiting for that one.)

I've always had this ability to see the future. It's a curse as well as a blessing.... 

Mike 

Books o' the Week

Nikon fan are ya? Nikon: A Celebration by British automotive writer and Nikon collector Brian Long covers the history of the company from its beginnings to the end of the film era. A U.S. parallel with more concentration on opinions about the equipment is B. Moose Peterson's Nikon System Handbook. The 6th Edition covered film equipment up to 2000. <—These are portals to Amazon.com thru TOP; you can also search for Nikon books from The Book Depository, which offers free shipping worldwide.

Original contents copyright 2021 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.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

MarkB: "Har har. Today's iMac announcement is, for serious digital photographers, the equivalent of 'nothing to see here.' I'm rather relieved, as they retained the 27" Intel models for a little longer...whew!"

Margaret: "Completely underwhelmed by new M1 iMac. 24", no SD slot, only 'up to' 16Gb memory and 2TB storage. I'm currently on 27", SD slot, 32GB and 3TB, so why on Earth would I downgrade to this? And with everything one one chip, no possibility of upgrading anything. But wait!! It comes in 'seven vibrant new colours'!! Oh well. Obviously I'll be buying one then (massive eye roll). Another triumph of style over substance."

Mike replies: Exactly. That why I think this is the rollout of just the "lower tier," the computer for people to put in their family rooms so they can keep a watchful eye on the kids at school and doing homework, the computer for people who don't use the computer much, and for people who care about things like color-matching computer and peripherals (the new 24" iMac comes with color-matching mouses, did you see?) in Easterish pastels.  Not the things that are enticing for the likes of us.

The colors simply radiate unseriousness. Surely Apple means to telegraph that this is not the computer for power users.

I'm probably three years away from a new computer, unfortunately (I'm out of sync with Apple), and I hope my new computer will have 32GB RAM and a 4TB hard drive and enough ports that it doesn't automatically require a dock that automatically clutters up the desktop—the real top of my desk, I mean. I absolutely would have to use a dock/cardreader with this just-introduced model. Just as I do with my Mini.

Although I have to say, 24" strikes me as perfect. I currently have a 21.5" iMac and a 27" NEC monitor on my Mini, and while the latter is fine there's something nice about my little iMac. But I don't do photo editing on it, and for that it's just a bit small. About the only thing I don't need is a screen larger than my NEC...it will just be harder to wrangle and ship, and I personally don't need the screen real estate. And who really does? If you want room for your image and your palettes, don't you just get two screens? I know people who use three screens.

It mystifies me that Apple insists on sleek, uncluttered design, as if your office is a showplace, and then at the same time limits the number of ports it affords you and removes features like the SD card slot and DVD drive. Doesn't Apple understand that having more ports and built-in features would mean less clutter?

But then, I value practicality over style. And I notice that my whole (real) desktop has migrated slowly away from Apple for everything save the computer itself—my display, keyboard(s), mouse, speakers, dock/cardreader, and outboard drives are all non-Apple items now.

robert quiet photographer: "Am I the only Apple user who would like a desktop in between the Mac Mini and the Mac Pro? I'm still on my Mac Pro (2013) trash bin...with too many cables around it...."

Mike replies: I wrote a rant to that effect once. It doesn't appear to have changed Apple's mind.... :-)

Apple News

Is this OT or not? I guess it depends on you.

It's possible the Apple M1 iMacs could be announced tomorrow. The event is at 10 a.m. U.S. Pacific Time, 1 p.m. here in the East.

The iMac has been Apple's mainstream desktop computer product since it stopped seeing its major prestige market as being graphic designers and video and photo editors. Current iMacs range from a little over $1k to a little over $5k, which is a broad segment. If we do get new iMacs, it'll be interesting to see where in that range it targets Apple Silicon. The first iMac cost $1,299 in 1998, which would be $2,111 now.

Watchers expect a redesign, too. Other options: the iMac could be redesigned for the first time in years but retain Intel chips; or they could get Apple Silicon but no redesign.

One of the touted benefits of the M1 chip is battery life, which obviously won't be relevant in an iMac. So the focus will have to shift to other performance parameters. What those are going to be, and how much they might matter, is the question.

Could be an interesting day; or not.

I've been using all-in-one Macs, including the first Macintosh and the first iMac, since 1984. I'll be watching. Or, more accurately, waiting for the relevant news to filter through from someone who can 'splain it to me. But maybe actually watching too. 

Meanwhile, provoked by a bug in Word for Mac, a friend switched from Apple to PC and was impressed by the feature-richness of the mid-level PC he bought.

Spring
I've got my windows open and I'm starting Spring Cleaning out here on the porch where I work. (One of my ambitions for this year is to move my office to the back of the house.) I gave the lawn its first haircut yesterday, strategically shoehorning the task in between rain showers. The daffodils are up and the robins are mating—two robin couples were actually making such a racket in a bush this morning that Butters charged the bush barking! Rude interruption, that.

Go Spring.

Mike 

Books o' the Week

Nikon fan are ya? Nikon: A Celebration by British automotive writer and Nikon collector Brian Long covers the history of the company from its beginnings to the end of the film era. A U.S. parallel with more concentration on opinions about the equipment is B. Moose Peterson's Nikon System Handbook. The 6th Edition covered film equipment up to 2000. <—These are portals to Amazon.com thru TOP; you can also search for Nikon books from The Book Depository, which offers free shipping worldwide.

Original contents copyright 2021 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.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Joseph Vavak: "I bought a MacBook Air with the M1 earlier this year and have been very impressed with just how quick and responsive it is to use. I expected some slowness and hiccups with applications that hadn't been optimized for the M1, but it's hardly noticeable, if at all. The Air feels faster in day-to-day usage than the Lenovo Ryzen 5 powered-desktop I bought at the start of the pandemic for work purposes and upgraded to 16GB of RAM and a 1TB NVME drive. I expected the battery life and the lack of heat generated, but I am honestly surprised how well it works for a 1st generation product that doesn't even have a fan."

Richard T: "Re whether this is OT, computing is another main interest of mine so from my side, the more you write/opine/reflect on Apple or related issues the better.  :-)  "

John Camp: "I'm Mike's friend who is experimenting with a PC. (Lenovo A940 with the i9 processor.) In addition to the new Lenovo, my wife and I between us have five active Apple machines, three 27-inch iMacs and two laptops for travel. (We're professional writers. [Here's John's latest —Ed.]) Our problem is, Microsoft Word is the publishing standard, and Word for Mac and MS Word have become increasingly incompatible—not in any large way, but in small ways that drive you absolutely crazy. For example, if you create in Word for Mac (or worse, in the supposedly compatible Pages) and the manuscript is opened in MS Word (the standard), one bug may separate a possessive apostrophe from its intended place, and attach it to the following word. (As in: The Smiths 'car.) Try finding all of those in a 110,000-word manuscript. There are also bugs that mess with spacing. I finally couldn't deal with it anymore, and I'm trying a PC with MS Word. (I'm a Word subscriber for both machines.)

"I don't know why the bugs appeared, but I suspect that Microsoft isn't interested in writing new Word software every time Apple updates its OS, which is now annually. And honestly, some of the incompatibilities are really hard to see until they get you by the throat.

"What I'm finding so far: the Lenovo, also an all-in-one, has far surpassed the iMac in function, although it is clunkier. The screen is the same size (27") and UHD, but it is a touch screen. I won't get into all the specs, they're easily researched on the 'net, but I'll mention a few things: the underside of the screen has a row of dimmable LED lights (that may also be turned off) that shine down on a manuscript that you may be editing. To the right side of the screen is a small platform that is a wireless iPhone charger. The machine comes with an electronic 'pencil' for writing on the touch screen which is great for apps like Photoshop. The 940 is faster than the iMac and has more RAM and storage. It has excellent Dolby Atmos speakers built into the base. It cost $2,449.99.

"The downside is Windows 10, which is not as good as the Mac OS (I'm using Big Sur.) Still too complicated, but much better than it used to be. After a few days use, I'm getting into it, and though I'm getting into it, it's not as slick as the Mac. Though, really, it is fairly slick.

"Going forward, I suspect the Lenovo will become my main machine, and my Apples, as they become increasingly obsolete, will go away. But I'm not sure of that. I've been using Apples since the '90s. I do think that Apple's tendency toward fashion and sleekness at the price of less function will eventually bite it in the ass."

Thomas Mc Cann: "A post on TOP some years back coupled with a recommendation from Ctein led me to buy the latest Mac with the latest screen and an Epson SureColor P600. All touted as the ne plus ultra. A longtime PC user, I struggled with the Mac. Eventually I gave up in frustration and switched back to a Dell and Windows 10. I was probably too steeped in the Windows environment. Only good thing was I got a good price for the Mac when I sold it."

Is It Okay to Shoot Down a Drone?

There's a great article in the latest New Yorker about ownership. It starts off by relating the case of one William Merideth, who shot down a drone that hovered over his property while his daughter was sunbathing. It discusses all forms of ownership, starting with the idea that property owners also own the air above their property out to where the stars begin and down to the center of the Earth, an ancient legal principle called Cuius est solum, eius est usque ad coelum et ad inferos. Eventually the discussion segues to the online world, where the article makes the case that we're all fast becoming "e-peons." We used the word peon as a put-down in high-school, so I'm familiar with it. It might also be familiar to you if you're a rapper—according to dailyrapfacts, "The slang term 'Peon' or 'Peons' are nouns and adjectives...used by rappers and in the music industry to reference a lame, low class or low status person (someone who is at the bottom of the food chain)."

"The digital and smart devices that surround us are legion, but we do not truly own or control them," writes Joshua A.T. Fairfield, in the book Owned: Property, Privacy, and the New Digital Serfdom. Having just spent a week wrangling with "my" computer, or rather Apple's computer that's in my house, and pondering again the headache of 3-2-1 backups, I really do wonder how much of what's on "my" computer and how it works is really under my control. Not as much as I like to think, I suspect. A number of years ago Apple sold the writing program I used, and the new owners (after several ownership changes) discontinued it, and before you knew it all those files that I had worked so hard on were un-openable. My work was lost. How that's conceptually different from someone breaking into my house and stealing stacks of paper on which I had written with india ink and a quill pen, I don't know.

I've always been against the idea of self-driving cars, because all I see is a future in which everyone will have to pay a monthly fee to participate in the program of whoever is supplying the guidance and coordinating system. I don't want to pay a monthly fee to drive. "If we do not take back our ownership rights," Fairfield writes in his newest book, Runaway Technology, we will only be able to use "our smart devices, our homes, our cars, and even our own software-enabled medical implants purely at the whim of others."

Are "my" digital pictures really mine? To what extent and to what degree can someone other than me control or limit my access to them? I don't know.

I also have a feeling I don't want to know....

Anyway, good reading. Check it out.

Mike

Book o' the Week:

ArtCurious: Stories of the Unexpected, Slightly Odd, and Strangely Wonderful in Art History by Jennifer Dasal (Penguin, 2020. Adapted from the popular podcast.)

This link is a portal to Amazon, through which most anything you purchase will be credited to TOP. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Also, TOP is sponsored by:

Original contents copyright 2021 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.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Rob L (partial comment): "I haven't shot down a drone, but I may have practiced casting and hooked the drone hovering over my backyard trying to video the pool next door. Darn accidents, what can I say?(drone rotors and fishing line are not friends....)"

Christopher Crawford: "A peon is a person enslaved by debt. The term originated in Spain's colonies in the 1500s when the King, under pressure from the church, outlawed the enslavement of the natives in Mexico. Peonage replaced slavery. Technically the peon was not a slave, but they depended on a nobleman who rented farmland to them at prices higher than they could pay, forcing them to pay off the debt (which always got larger) with free labor. This system was called Peonage, and a Peon was a person enslaved by it. In some Spanish colonies, African slaves were imported; peonage was less common in those places than it was in places like Mexico where few black slaves were brought in."

Geoff Wittig: "I intermittently try to remember to save a copy of my favorite image files as a TIFF in hopes that I'll be able to open them down the road even if Adobe disappears and Photoshop is dead. Which might strike people as a ludicrous concern, until you think about what happened to Lotus. Back in the day they wrote the spreadsheet software the entire business world used, but then they were crushed by Microsoft and disappeared almost overnight. I suspect (don't know because I'm a spreadsheet illiterate) that countless businesses and financial people lost painstakingly written macros and custom spreadsheets when that happened. So it bothers me to think that I don't really 'own' my own multi-layered Photoshop image files because Adobe might some day just stop supporting them. Kinda like having thousands of slides and having the last bulb for the last slide projector burn out."

mike rosenlof: " I suspect you may get other comments like this, but I don't think it's a good analogy to compare writings lost inside no-longer-supported files formats to theft of paper from your house. I think it's a better comparison would be if you stored your files on eight-inch floppies and now you can't find a reader. For that matter, any floppies, SCSI disks, etc. Technology marches on and doesn't necessarily pull the old baggage with it. You have written about how to make sure one's photos survive. Option no. 1, 'Be famous' if I recall correctly. This is a recurring issue for any creations in the digital realm. Digitally stored material requires active maintenance to ensure the work makes it across generations of technology.

"I readily admit that I don't practice what I preach. I print many photos, but I have a lot of stuff I've written that exists only in digital form. I have good backups, but they're all on SATA spinning disk drives.... P.S. checkout Open Office Writer; it opens several file formats that are no longer current."

James Bullard: "Re The drone question: No, you may not shoot down drones and you don't own the airspace above your property all the way out to the stars. You are however entitled to a certain degree of privacy and drones should not be flown over private property for the purpose of invading your privacy. Legally, in the U.S., all the airspace is controlled by the FAA and drone pilots are obliged to follow FAA rules for flying drones."

Rip Smith: "The problem of technical obsolescence of data is a great argument for printing the best of your photographs and even written pieces."

Dave Sailer: "Not there yet, but some are working on it, like these three, in laptop space. MNT Reform: ...take a look under the hood, customize the documented electronics, and even repair it yourself if you like. The Reform laptop has no built-in surveillance technologies, cameras, or microphones.... Librem 14: The first 14" laptop designed to protect your digital life. Ultra-portable workstation laptop that was designed chip-by-chip, line-by-line, to respect your rights to privacy, security, and freedom. PINEBOOK: Pinebook is a lightweight, low-cost notebook designed and manufactured by the company Pine64...its appearance resembles the MacBook Air...The Pinebook is sold at-cost by pine64 as a community service."

Slick, Cool, and Pretty

Well, my main computer is dead in the water as of yesterday...won't boot up. This is, if porous memory serves, the second time I've experienced this with a Mac in the past 37 years.

The very first Macintosh I used was the very first Macintosh...the original 128k Mac of 1984, which I used in art school. A gallerist named David Adamson was convinced that computers would play a significant role in the art of the future, so he bought six Macs, donated them to the Corcoran School, and then donated several hours of his time every week to teach a couple of courses. I was the only student who used MacWrite rather than MacPaint.  :-)  Those were the only two programs for the new computer at the time it came out, I think.

The first computer I owned—a graduation present from Mom—was the second Macintosh, the 512k "Fat Mac" of 1985. Since then I've owned another 15 or 16 Macs, for an average of about one every two years. That counts three that belonged to employers rather than to me. I think the only other time I had a failure to boot was, ironically, with the most trouble-free Mac I ever used, the Quadra 605 of 1993, provided to me by an employer. One day it failed to start. Dead. Nothing was broken or amiss; it turned out that there was a little battery on the motherboard that was used to kickstart the monitor, and it was depleted. A new battery was inserted and all was good again. 

I've liked every Mac I've owned except the Mac Classic, which was basically outdated when it was introduced, and a fractious, clunky desktop model from Apple's nadir, the John Scully years. My favorites were the Quadra 605, an early Powerbook called the 160, and my first 27" iMac. One of the worst problems I ever had was with the original Bondi Blue iMac, Steve Jobs' initial product on his triumphal return to Apple, which I also owned. A CD got stuck in the CD bay, and of course the entire computer was hermetically sealed with no user access. After days of hassle I basically broke into the box and pulled the offending CD out by force, using about the same level of sophistication that a burglar uses getting into an unoccupied house. Except I made more noise.

It annoyed me that it was a problem that didn't have to happen at all—most CD drives had drawers at the time. Jobs apparently liked the self-loading slot because it was more elegant. Harbinger of the future, as it turned out—Apple now has a long history of making things less functional so they can be slick, cool, or pretty. Bah, humbug, is my official position...and yet I kinda like the styleyness of Apple stuff too. My favorite Apple device of all is the iPad, which is also the least necessary computer-related thing I've ever owned.

The bad thing about living at TOP Rural Headquarters is: everything's a drive, and anything specialized is a long drive. So I'm in for two and a half hours in the car later this afternoon to drive the computer (a Mac Mini) to the Apple store. If they can't fix it, I have an appointment at a Mac specialist in Rochester for Monday.

I'm writing this on my second Mac, a 21.5" iMac I keep upstairs that I use for Zoom meetings. This one is the opposite of the downstairs one—stripped down and leaned out about as far as possible. The downstairs computer carries the freight of decades of crap carried over from the last Mac to the next Mac, and it's an impressive amount of clutter. If it were a house and everything on it were a physical object, I'd be on "Hoarders."

My next Apple purchase will probably be a phone. Do you think, when the iPhone 13 comes out, that I can justify upgrading from the iPhone 7 Plus? The latter is not even very old, but they say the cameras are better on the newer ones....

I imagine my next Mac will be the M1 version of this, with the best screen I can get. The 21.5" iMac is really all I need in a desktop, if I'm honest. It's not fancy and not advanced, but it's the perfect embodiment of the Apple ethos which has been a part of my life for so long. 

Mike

Gear o' The Week:

I'm going to get a review unit of the Fuji GFX 50R as soon as the weather gets nice. Believe it or not what really appeals to me about it are the simplified controls. It has all the features I like and not many I don't like.

The above link is a portal to take you from TOP to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Here's a handy portal to B&H Photo, which also sells the GFX 50R:

Original contents copyright 2021 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.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Dan Khong: "Mike, Macs are like family in your life. The next one deserves to be named Mac Johnston. Just sayin'."

Timothy Auger: "Moving from an iPhone 6s to a 12 Mini, I would say the new camera does astonishing things for its size, and amazing things in the dark. Massive step forward. But are the files as good as (say) my 12-MP Fuji X30? In terms of pure resolution, they're better. But otherwise, on close inspection, not. Noise reduction and sharpening applied with a spade. Depends what you want it for. Terrific for casual use, or smallish display or print sizes. Worth getting? Yes."

Stephen Scharf: "The new cameras on the new iPhones are pretty impressive. Check this out; an interior real estate ambient light grab shot taken with my iPhone 12 Mini. A beautiful Oakland hills mansion taken Tuesday evening while walking by the living room to the back terrace to shoot twilights for the listing agent. Single frame, single exposure JPEG with some small tweaks in PS.

"And...the sensor on the iPhone 12 Pro Max is larger."

rob l: A leap from 7 to 13 will be a very nice jump - not only to you get a much improved camera, faster everything, and a better screen, the form factor hopefully will be similar to the 12's return to the iPhone 5 ethos, with makes camera use easier with a defined side to the phone.

"Trayless CD players rock—the offense was not exposing the manual eject hole to the world, which used a familiar paper clip a la the old floppy drives to pop out the offending media. But the trays we frequently broken by students and other careless folks, so there was more than simple aesthetics driving that change."

Oskar Ojala: "When the iPhone 11 came out, I upgraded from the 7 plus to the 11 Pro Max. In theory the cameras are supposed to be better. In practice the Apple camera software does such heavy-handed processing that my images look garish; there's too much sharpening and local contrast and images tend to be a bit dark. The magic is gone. I Googled and other people have encountered this problem, but there's no way to fix it. So I'm resigned to using a third party program to shoot raw, but it takes away the convenience and I don't bother so much anymore. In other words, if your 7 plus works, don't fix it! Save the money for something else."

Ben Rosengart replies to Oskar: "With regard to shooting raw on iPhone, I believe some of the newer phones support it in the first-party Camera app. Yeah, here we go. Full disclosure: I work for Apple.

BWJones: "You will love the new iPhone from the camera perspective alone. The computational work that is going into creating routine images makes me surprised that the traditional camera companies have not been engaging in this same sort of thing."

Mouse and Keyboard

It was certainly interesting to read everyone's thoughtful discussions of camera viewfinders. Thanks for that. The viewfinder is perhaps the most important feature of most cameras for most users, and yet one of the least discussed. A great viewfinder is worth buying a camera to get.

I wanted to follow up briefly about my mouse and keyboard problems, which I wrote about on February 3rd. I'm not an expert on either product type. I had been having persistent problems with my Apple Magic Mouse 2. And my Microsoft 4000 Ergonomic keyboard had evidently been discontinued, which was causing me some consternation. I've bought a new one of those every year or two for probably the past fifteen years, since I first started having some signs of repetitive stress hand problems.

Thanks first of all to the other Mike who wrote the Featured Comment on that Feb. 3rd post. He says he worked for Apple Support for years, and suggested turning off other Bluetooth mouses (or mice, if you wish—both usages are correct) nearby. Since my upstairs computer is only one floor and a few lateral feet away from my downstairs one, they were indeed interfering with each other, and turning off the mouse on the computer I wasn't using did help.

But I've never really been happy with the Magic Mouse 2, which got off on the wrong foot with me from the start because it has its charging port on the bottom, which means you can't use it while you're charging it. That's absolutely "form over function" and it's an asinine arrangement if you ask me. Apple's Achilles heel is that for a long time now it has prioritized style over function. I've never totally disapproved, but I've never totally approved either.

I ended up buying two mouses, a bluetooth Logitech M510 which went on sale right after I bought it, and a wired Macally XMOUSE (about $15) as a backup. (I might use the MacAlly permanently on the upstairs computer so I never have bluetooth issues without having to remember to turn the mouse off. I'm absentminded, and I try not to set things up such that I have to remember to do something. Inevitably I will occasionally forget.) Both are the first-ever non-Apple mouses I've ever owned.

The Macally is cheap, too light, and not great to hold, but it's very responsive and has a large scroll wheel which seems like it will be reliable and won't gum up too easily.

I bought the Logitech M510 (about $25) by mistake! I had multiple windows open and different mouses in my Amazon carts on different screens, and just hit the go button in the wrong window. Oops. I meant to buy the wired Logitech G203 gaming mouse ($40 or less), and didn't realize my mistake until the package arrived.

Logitech (AKA "Logi") is confusing if you don't know your way around—the company has separate websites for its regular product lines and gaming equipment lines. Logitech.com is for its regular products and logitechg.com is for gaming products.

The wireless Logitech M510 and its small USB receiver

The M510 is a step up from what I was used to. It's more customizable, although Logi doesn't make left-handed mouses so the thumb buttons are on the wrong side for me. But I like the weight, I like the indented finger grips, and I have enough buttons to customize the functions I use most. The scroll wheel is very "bumply" rather than smooth in its action, which I didn't initially like but am getting used to.

I've still had bluetooth connectivity issues. The M510 has a small receiver you have to plug into a USB port, which defeats the advantage of a wireless mouse for me since ports are my issue. Also, the M510 requires that it be in an immediate sightline with the receiver unit to work properly, which is less than ideal. As for the buttons being on the wrong side, I can get used to that. The things they control—moving between desktops—is not something I do very often.

Mouses are cheap enough that I've decided to keep the two I bought even though I might replace the Logi at some point with a wired mouse. They just seem to work better for me. But as I adapt to the M510 I'm beginning to be fond of it. Wish I had gotten the red one, however! Mine is black.

True to type
As for the keyboard, the situation wasn't so dire.

Note that I cannot review keyboards. I made a fateful decision when I was 14—I received a typewriter for my 14th birthday from my grandmother. It was a beautiful German Adler Satellite 2001 electric portable (very futuristic in 1971!) that I loved. I was told the basics of touch-typing, but I decided hunt-and-peck typing was faster and easier so I just decided not to learn to touch-type. I remember the day I made the decision. Big, big mistake. I've typed how many millions of words since then? More than ten, easily. If I had just stuck with touch-typing a little longer I'd have been adept at it in no time. As it is, to this day I type clumsily with four fingers, just as I did in the week following my fourteenth birthday. On a good day I can type without looking at the keyboard, but my finger patterns are so daft and awkward that I'm not very accurate and certainly not fast at all. Also, I'm getting less coordinated as I age, and my mistake rate has gone steadily up. Frowny face. At any rate, one would need to be a touch-typist to responsibly review a keyboard.

So it turns out that Microsoft merely revised its keyboard. Old dies and molds wear out; the 4000 had been manufactured for a long time, and the time probably arrived when the fabricator had to re-make the tooling one way or the other to continue producing the product, so Microsoft took the opportunity to update and refine the design. The new Microsoft Ergonomic Keyboard is very similar to the old one and didn't require much in the way of adaptation of my old, long-entrenched habits.

The new keyboard is all black and much cleaner in design. My only comment is that it doesn't quite sit flat. It does, until you put the weight of your right hand on the pad where it naturally belongs, at which point the back left corner raises up slightly. So the whole thing is just a little too flimsy. But it's not bad in that respect, and that flaw isn't major. I can't comment on the common failure mode of the 4000, which is that the letters wore off the keys. But now, thanks to you, I know what to do about that—I'll just add stick-on letters like these.

How is typing taught these days? I have no idea. But if you're the parent of a young person, urge them to learn proper touch-typing from the start. Life will be much easier that way. Even if they don't grow up to be writers.

Mike

Book Product o' This Week:

Is it too late for this? 2021 is still young. There are two reasons to value these Michael Kenna calendars from Nazraeli Press: one is that his originals are 8x8", so these pictures are meant to work at wall-calendar sizes. The other is that Michael's calendars can actually increase in value! Dan Smith suggested this, and he reports that some older ones sell in the hundreds of dollars. "The printing is excellent," Dan wrote, "and the calendar is beautiful."

The above link takes you from TOP to Amazon. This week's pick is not available at Amazon Canada, but 2019 is. Hey, the pictures are still good. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

 

Original contents copyright 2021 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.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Roger Bartlett: "Re 'How is typing taught these days? I have no idea.' There are gaming apps that teach touch typing; kids learn while gaming and don't notice the drill and practice. 'Gamification' is a thing. I am the same age as you and made a similar decision at about the same age in my life. Also regretted it ever since."

John McMillin: "Apple frustrates me by offering no lighted keyboard option for its desktops. Sounds like I type at your level, where I'm looking at the keyboard. After dark, my office becomes a shady lair, like I like it, so the clutter disappears. The latest Apple keyboards are labeled in a subtle gray, suggesting that they think we all ought to be good typists by now. Finally it occurred to me to buy a non-Apple keyboard. I'm using a Logitech now."

Lawrence Plummer: "Funny you should mention keyboards. My prized Omni Key Ultra by Northgate Computer Systems is still going strong after 30+ years of use! I learned typing in the seventh grade, in the mid/late '60s, and have typed on untold numbers of different keyboards in my life as a software engineer. Everything from IBM keypunch machines and French keyboards to the original keyboards used on the US AWACS aircraft."

Dillan: "I took typing in high school as an elective. My buddy and I, the only two boys in the class, thought it would be an easy class. Ha! I barely passed! Despite my poor performance, it proved to be one of the most useful skills that I've ever taken the time to learn. I'm grateful for the experience."

David Dyer-Bennet: "I exactly reversed your typing decision. In fifth grade I needed to put my script for an adaptation of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea as a puppet play onto ditto masters (we only needed about six copies...but that was before there was any real access to photocopiers for ordinary people).

"I got out my father's old Smith Corona portable (manual)...and found the finger placement chart for touch typing on top of the carriage inside the case.

"I knew I had a huge amount of typing ahead of me, and that it was going to be slow, laborious, and generally a pain. But, I thought that starting to do it 'right' wasn't going to be any slower or really less pleasant than doing it hunt-and-peck (as my father did).

"So I started typing with the 'right' fingers (looking at the chart for every letter). Quite soon, of course, I was no longer looking at the chart for most letters, and was in fact typing much faster than when I started (hunt-and-peck would also have sped up from where I was starting). And by the end of the however many dozen pages it was, I was fairly comfortable with it.

"Three years later I started keypunching my own Fortran programs onto computer cards, so I started really benefiting from the new skill. Also my high school (and college) teachers benefited from not having to try to read my hand-writing for papers.

"I guess I trusted the people who decided touch typing was the 'right' way to do it. Of course I'd seen it in movies and on TV, and I'm sure in offices sometimes as well, though not at home. And I maybe wasn't cynical enough about what I saw on TV back then :-) . So I just decided to do it 'right.'"

Mike replies: Cool. I wish I'd had your good sense!

Frank Gorga: "As far as touch typing or not goes... I am a two finger typist. However, since I began composing at the keyboard decades ago, I have not found this to be a problem. My thought process is the rate-limiting step, not my two finger typing."

Mike replies: Maybe that's why I was never motivated to rectify my deficiency! Thanks for giving me another way of thinking about it.

Kirk Tuck: "People ask how I can churn out so much blog stuff in so little time. Two secrets: Never re-write. Never. Learn to touch type, and practice until you can do 90 words a minute, even in a stupor. Now, this in no way says anything about the quality of the content; just the efficiency. No claims for quality—just bragging about quantity."

Moose (partial comment): "Slight tech misunderstanding. This mouse, and the majority of wireless mice, those that use a tiny USB receiver, are NOT Bluetooth. They use proprietary coms in the 2.4 Mz band. If it doesn't say Bluetooth or BT, it isn't. So...these mice, and keyboards, don't interfere with BT mice and keyboards. I have one of each next to each other on my pad, one for desktop, one for portable when I'm home. They are usually both on at the same time. I've never had any trouble at all. A guess? Neither of your old mice that were interfering with each other is actually BT."

Mike replies: Sorry, I was using "Bluetooth" to mean any short distance radio-frequency wireless connectivity, which you say isn't correct. I've now taken the term out of the post where it doesn't belong, and thank you. However, the interfering devices I was referring to in the post were both identical Apple Magic Mouse 2's, one upstairs, one downstairs. I subsequently replaced one of them with the Logitech, which had connection problems until I located its receiver essentially right next to it. All things considered I'd rather have a wired mouse rather than the "convenience" of balky, unreliable wireless.

RubyT: "I took typing as a filler in 10th grade in the early '80s. This turned out to be the most valuable class I took in high school.

"I know I'm late to the party, but I literally plugged that red mouse you pictured into my computer this morning. I've been using that basic mouse for years, on the recommendation of my son. It's predecessor had worn out. A couple of years ago he had me get a mechanical keyboard. The keys are backlit and the sound and feel is very satisfying. He was several hundred miles away, but I was able to describe what I like in the feel of the keys and he went to the store, tested several, and then told me which one to order. You've reminded me to appreciate my luck in having his experience and advice in this area."

M1

There are times I miss Ctein, and this is one.

My first Mac was...well, the first Mac, the 128k Macintosh (as it was called then) of 1984, that Orwellian year. I also had an original ImageWriter, Apple's first dot-matrix printer for the Macintosh. I bailed early on the Macintosh Classic, which was a pricing breakthrough but just too limited for its time. I replaced it with an early Ur-laptop, then called a "portable," the PowerBook 160 of 1992. I loved that thing, and clung to it for too long. Still have it, actually. I worked for years putting magazines together on a super-reliable Quadra 605 (with a black-and-white monitor, no joke). I jumped on board with the original "Blueberry" iMac (a Bondi Blue G3), Steve Jobs' first consumer product after his (Messianic? MacArthurian?) return to Apple in '97. That one ate a CD and wouldn't give it up. I practically had to take a crowbar to it. And so on. All in all, between school, work, and home, I think I've owned or been assigned to work on a total of about 17 Macs over the years. Maybe 18. I've kinda lost count, if I'm honest.

But I'm not a computerphile. Never got into it. Never subscribed to all those Mac magazines back in the '80s and '90s, Macworld, MacUser. Never been an enthusiast. I used computers for creative work but just as tools. Never knew much about it, although I probably know more than I think I do after all these years. In other words, I was pretty much "that guy" the Macintosh was aimed at in the first place.

So I hope the real Mac geeks amongst ye will pitch in and help me out here. I don't have the deep chops to put the new Apple Silicon M1 chip into perspective. I watched the whole Event this time, and some impressive claims are being made—

Packed with an astonishing 16 billion transistors, the new M1 chip integrates the CPU, GPU, Neural Engine, I/O, and so much more onto a single tiny chip. Combined with the new macOS Big Sur, M1 delivers category-smashing speed, mind-bending graphics, and power efficiency and battery life that defy belief.

—But where on the spectrum between truth and marketing hyperbole do those claims fall? I wouldn't know.

Ctein is probably all over it.

Anyway, here are some pre-order links to the new products with the M1 chip:

Late 2020 13.3" MacBook Pro with Retina Display

Late 2020 13.3" MacBook Air with Retina Display

Late 2020 Mac Mini

And here's B&H's Explora Page for the new M1 products if you want to read what they have to say.

Looking into my crystal ball, some future M1 iMac will probably be my next computer. What can I say? At this point it's just tradition.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2020 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.)
Featured Comments from:

Eolake Stobblehouse: "I find that the most sober, precise, and readable assessments are found on TidBITS.com."

Mike replies: TidBITS suggests that the one to choose might be the M1 MacBook Air, because of the fact that it has no fan and that the two M1 MacBook Pro's might not offer enough of a performance premium. (The two higher-level MacBook Pro's retain their Intel chips, presumably because the M1 chip is limited to 16 GB of RAM, and perhaps because power users are less likely to want to be forced into macOS 11 right away.) Personally I like the fact that the Air finally dumps the unsatisfying butterfly keyboard—never liked that—and brings back the traditional Apple startup chime. Always liked that chime.  :-)

Kenneth Tanaka: "I'm a long-time devoted Mac user, although I don't consider myself a 'geek.' But I don't think you really need to be a techie to understand this move. It's all about power and control.

"Yes, I'm certain that Apple's new processor brings advancements to the party. Power management, for example, has been one of the big issues since computers became predominantly batter-powered. The M1 claims to offer benefits here. And since gaming has also become a big priority for customers 3-D graphics processing has also taken a front seat with the new M1 processor.

"But ever since Apple left the PowerPC platform for Intel's platform 10+ years ago the writing seemed engraved on the wall; it would be just a matter of time before Apple would want to completely control (i.e. manufacture) its own CPUs and associated chip sets. To use a weak theoretical automotive analogy, how long would General Motors buy all their engines from Toyota? Since the time of that Intel partnership Apple's value has increased exponentially. They are now the wealthiest and most influential company in human history. So the move into the 'M1' was inevitable, even if it delivered no measurable performance advancements (which is possible).

"From a practical consumer perspective look for some relative bargains in Apple's Intel-based computers early next year as retailers try to clear inventories."

Richard T: "Jason Snell is the former editor of Macworld magazine and for several years now runs his own website at Sixcolors.com—excellent coverage that's also quite accessible. For old-school Mac users like Mike (or those wanting to learn more about Apple history!), Jason has started a great YouTube/article/podcast series called '20 Macs for 2020.' Includes wonderful articles/videos/podcasts. See here for the current list."

"...And to address the original question: yes, these chips appear to be extremely impressive. But note that Apple has announced a two-year transition window, so, as usual for tech products, it pays to wait if you have no pressing need to upgrade. The current M1-series-based lineup is very traditional (essentially identical hardware compared to the Intel equivalents) and future products (e.g. iMacs) may also provide hardware innovations."

Alex Mercado: "It boils down to latency and security—or in more pragmatic words, speed and control.

"The M1 is an integrated circuit (a system on a chip, or SoC) that incorporates much of the necessary components of the computer. Since it is integrated, the data transfer speeds amongst those components are significantly faster than on a traditional motherboard. As an analogy, think of SoC as a Costco, while a motherboard is akin to a shopping mall. You can find almost everything in the Costco rather quickly compared to roving a mall.

"As for security, Apple now controls the microcode the transistors on the SoC use to perform. Apple had to wait for Intel to create patches to address the Meltdown and Spectre threats that affected the CPUs a few years back, which, arguably, left Apple and their users susceptible to security threats.

"The M1 is completely managed by Apple, which significantly limits access to third parties. For comparison, iPod touch, iPhone, and iPad already work this way because Apple controls the A-series SoC in those devices.

"Yes an iDevice can be jailbroken, but its reliability and security are less than optimal for the average non-enthusiast. [Ed. does not understand this sentence. —Ed.]

"The marketing hyperbole for the M-series has much truth to it."

Robert Hudyma: "Be aware that Apple has been moving to control its entire Ecosystem slowly but surely. Saying good-bye to Intel and hello to ARM is part of that strategy.

"Current products are not upgradable or repairable by end-users or independent repair facilities.

"If your current MacBook Pro or Air has a failure, your data on the SSD is essentially not recoverable since it is soldered on the logic board.

"Also, the new macOS Big Sur is not supported on most Apple products older than eight years old so you can no longer keep your Operating System current.

"Another example is the new iPhone 12: individual modules such as the camera or battery are not end-user replaceable since they are serialized to each device and only Apple has the magic wand to make it work again.

"I think the right to repair is important and I am not purchasing any technology that cannot be repaired by me or a qualified technician. Louis Rossman has a popular YouTube channel that focuses on Apple product repairs. He is informative, outspoken and knowledgeable. He is worth a watch."

Mike asks: Cameras and cars too, and etc.? Because 'right to repair' as you call it is getting a lot more rare everywhere in products of all sorts, right? I learned last year that I don't have RtR for my five-year-old clothes washing machine, for example. A broken on-off switch(!) will total the motherboard which will total the whole machine.

Steve C: "Mike—I think, given how close the specs are, the most notable difference between the Air and Pro laptops is that the Air will probably have very similar peak performance to the Pro, but won't be able to sustain it for anywhere near as long without fans.

"@Robert Hudyma—right [to] repair is a concept I haven't thought much about but is really interesting. The usual thinking on the business side is the trade-off between modularity and integration. Integrated product/systems tend toward higher performance (and higher price), modular ones towards low cost. Alongside that, modular designs are inherently more repairable.

"It's the integration between components, their housings, the hardware and software (and now services) that makes Apple products unique. Ecosystem control is a benefit to both the company, and to users who don't value repairability as much as they do convenience and performance.

"The services approach to software, where everything is being updated all the time, that so many people hate is also what allows the company to stay ahead of the field. It prevents them from becoming weighted down by an ever-accumulating legacy of old versions, software interfaces, methods, system quirks, and security issues.

"The down side is that one day your otherwise perfectly fine device / software is no longer supported, and that sucks. The up side is that the company gets to keep pressing forward at speed. They could choose not to (which I expect many people here would love—myself included many days), but the press itself is relentless. Another company will simply take up the torch.

"Microsoft suffered badly under the weight of backward compatibility (between Windows and its many associated applications, drivers, systems) for many, many years. It's not a mistake, but it's a choice that has clear consequences.

"In slower-moving industries / technologies / products (hello white-goods!), integration around key parts is probably very deliberately about creating new purchases through planned failure and obsolescence. But Apple's desire to differentiate their whole multi-product, multi-service user experience such that each product makes the others better, kinda requires integration. I doubt they could wring such high size / performance from their camera system without it."

Steve C: "For anyone who's interested and moderately technically-minded, this piece on Apple's M1 and the A-series chips that lead to it is really impressive. The desire, vision, strategy, organisational focus and multi-year execution needed to run down a goal and outcome like this, in this space, is hard to over-estimate. To give you an idea of scale, the R&D investment that preceded the A-series semiconductor fabrication was in the order of building an aircraft carrier, or a New York City block every quarter."

Steve C: "One final comment on this—I promise—about the limited RAM. I've read in several places now, speculation that the combination of massive advances in the system-on-a-chip latency, and the integrated high-end SSDs make RAM much less of a bottleneck. Modern SSD memory is faster than RAM from only a few years ago. Storage and 'memory' are converging."

Andrew: "Shout out also to Google's Pixel line which has been blazing the computational photography route as well—what those phones achieve with relatively humdrum lenses and sensors shows, as Richard T commented, how much of the heavy-lifting can be done by the software these days. (And this isn't to invoke a Google/Apple, Android/iOS flame war—the best from both is seriously impressive.)

"Personally I loved the brief period just before the software took over from the hardware—fantastically-engineered phones like the 41MP Nokia 1020 and 1-inch-sensored Panasonic CM-1 have (mostly) been outclassed now, but how they went about their imaging business was a lot more on show than today."

Thom Hogan (partial comment): "As I wrote on my site: these are low-end Macs, and they're faster than a lot of high-end Macs. We're all waiting to see just what happens when Apple goes upscale with their chips, because what just happened to the MacBook Air and low-end Mini is pretty spectacular."

[For the full text of Partial Comments, see the full Comments section. —Ed.]

Portfolio App for the iPad?

Carl asked me what I use as a portfolio app for picture presentations on the iPad and it's one of the (many) things I just don't think I know enough about to speak of. Anyone have any favorite ways of presenting pictures on the iPad they'd like to share?

Mike

Original contents copyright 2020 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.

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kirk tuck: "I second the use of Portfolio but I wanted to step in here for just a second and bring up one little thing: Everyone keeps mentioning 'slide shows' and when I hear that I presume that the slideshow plays through the images at a fixed pace. But that's not at all the way ad agency people want to see images; either on a screen based portfolio or in real life. The don't want an automated slide show. They want to be able to spend as much or as little time as they please on each image. They want to control the pace. Always. Slideshows are great for unmanned presentations but are not what people should be looking for in a portfolio app for an iPad."

Mike adds: I concur completely. The user needs to be able to control the pace through the presentation, preferably by swiping or with a fixed, non-moving arrow. (It always annoys me when I'm clicking through images and the arrow moves under my cursor and I have to reposition the cursor.)

New Toy!

I've owned many Apple devices since I began writing on the original 128k Macintosh in 1984. The one that's least necessary is also the one I like the best: the iPad.

I bought my iPad Air, the original one, in 2013 (which does seem like a long time ago) because I thought they were cool and I was feeling flush back then. At first I couldn't figure out what to do with it and I barely even touched it for the first six months I had it. Within a few years it became my favorite Apple product and the one I'm closest to in everyday life. I watch movies and videos on it, read email on it, even answer the phone on it (although it's Wi-Fi only, it links to the iPhone when a call comes in). I take it to bed with me, where I read books on it before falling asleep. It's my alarm clock. When I get up in the morning I check the time on it and read the AA Daily Reflection. I read on it while I eat breakfast. In fact I do almost all of my newspaper and book reading on the iPad—it's been so long since I used my actual Kindle device that I don't even know where it is any more. (It took me a while to get accustomed to reading on the iPad screen, but I've adapted. Now if I have a paper book I really want to read, I'll buy the Kindle version too so I can actually read it. On the iPad, every book is a large print book.) If I'm eating alone at a restaurant and only have my phone, the book I'm reading is also on that, and the devices keep track of where I am in the book.

And by the way, it's the best way to look at portfolios. You can pass it around like an album and let people swipe from one picture to the next at their own pace. Pictures are an ideal size for reading distances, and have all the resolution the screen size calls for.

To this day there's nothing at all wrong with my old iPad and I'm not dissatisfied with it at all. It works perfectly well and it's all I need. Unfortunately, however, it's a 16GB model and that's its downfall...I've been getting "storage full" warnings for a long time and I have nothing left to throw away to make room. I don't think I've done an IOS update in quite a while, because I don't have room. A few days ago I found myself deleting apps I would really rather keep, and thought, okay, enough.

The one thing I hope the new toy does better is pick up the Wi-Fi signal in the back room...the old one doesn't do that very well, even with my fancy alleged range extender.

At least I've gotten my money's worth out of the 2013 iPad. I've paid about a hundred dollars a year for it. A bargain, considering how much I use it. And how much I like it.

Gift cards seem like free cash
Every year B&H Photo gives me a gift certificate to thank me for being an affiliate, and I had several of those piled up. So I used them, plus some cash, to buy a new (early 2019) iPad Air. I splurged (gift cards seems like free cash) and bought the one with 256GB of storage for about $160 more.

Do I really need 16X more storage? Well, I don't know, but over the years I've owned a great many Apple products, and the thing that often seems to push me to upgrade or update is a shortage of storage space. I suppose sooner or later I would have upgraded all those old things anyway, but I think I would have saved money over the years and kept most of my devices for longer if I'd had the foresight to max out on storage as a matter of course. I know I'd keep my current iPad with no complaint if it weren't for the storage problem. Probably a fool's economy to scrimp on storage.

But then I might not even need an iPad at all. I could probably get along fine with just my iPhone 7 Plus and my Mac Mini. The iPad is arguably the device I need the least. And yet, as I said, it's the one I like the most.

And now Xander gets the old one for free! I'm looking forward to when the new toy gets here, but there should be more life left in the old toy yet.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2020 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.

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We've Come a Long Way, Dudes and Dudettes

Does it ever occur to you to be grateful for the (good!) changes you've been able to witness, and the cool technology you've experienced the introduction of? It's something I appreciate. I've very glad my lifespan straddled traditional film and early digital, for instance. I wouldn't give up experiencing either one if I had my choice.

I mentioned recently that my first computer was an Apple 512k Macintosh, in 1985. (It was also author Michael Crichton's first Mac, and his experience was similar to mine—amazed and pleased, never looked back.) 

The very first Apple hard drive was made for our computer, although I didn't buy one. Too pricey. I'll bet Michael Crichton had one. This is it, the HD20.

A couple of days ago I broke down and bought this as my media drive. Loaded it up yesterday and overnight. Unfortunately it's almost full.

HD20: $1,495, 20MB, about the size of a large telephone book. That's a dated reference, by the way.

Samsung T5: $329 on sale, 2TB, and tiny and light. Its capacity is 100,000 times that of the 1985 drive.

And this is fun: at the Apple HD20's price of roughly $75 per megabyte, the T5 would have cost $150 million. But that's in 1985 dollars—adjusted for inflation, it would be $372,090,000. I wish Moore's Law applied to printer ink.

The 500GB model is still available at the sale price of less than $100. If you have any use for such a small drive.  :-)

Mike
(Thanks to Charlie. Top illustration courtesy
Museums Victoria.)

Original contents copyright 2019 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.

(Not) everything must fade away

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David Brown: "My company designed and manufactured all those early hard drives for the Apple Computers. My have times changed. All my storage is SSD now."

Jamie Pillars: "Regarding the Samsung T5, these things have gotten just too small! I can picture it now...I load it up with my entire photo archive and then lose it in the couch cushions!"

A Non-Review of the 2018 Mac Mini

This absolutely doesn't rise to the standard of a review—I'm not remotely competent to write one. On the other hand, I've used Macs since 1984, pretty much from the day they were introduced. I've lost track now, but I believe I've owned or regularly used 17 of them since that first one, either at school, at the office, or at home.

But I did want to mention that my new (2018) Mac Mini has had an almost transformative effect on my workdays, and I'm delighted with it.

The specs on mine are:

• 3.0 GHz Core i5 (six core)/ Gigabit ethernet
• 16GB RAM
• 512GB SSD drive

I had Apple install the extra RAM, even though we know they overcharge for it. List price on my Mini is $1,499.

The decision was really between the 3.6 GHz quad-core i3 and the 3.0 GHz six-core i5. I don't really have any way of knowing the practical differences the choice would make for me, but since I seem to always have a lot going on on the desktop, I went with the six cores over the higher clock speed. And it seems to have worked out.

Nothing in the middle
A while back, I was grousing about the lack of a mid-range model in the Apple lineup, a non-iMac, display-less model between the cheap intro-level Mini for "switchers" and the graphic-arts-studio-level (but now seriously outdated and kind of a bollix from the start) Mac Pro.

[Aside for non-Apple people: Apple really expects desktop buyers to buy iMacs, which are the proper heirs of the original all-in-one Macintoshes. And they're lovely machines—I've owned them right from the first "Blueberry" iMac of early 1999 to my current upstairs computer that I use for book writing, a lovely 21.5-inch Retina iMac with an SSD. Mine is a 2017 I bought as a factory refurb.]

Well, here's my point: the 2018 Mac Mini is that Goldilocks computer I wanted. It just happens to be in the old Mini box, is all.

I'm astonished by what a difference it makes. Everything is zippier, even the work I do online in the TypePad compositor where I spend most of every day. It never makes noise, never gets hot, never crashes or hangs, and is highly responsive to everything I want to do with it.

I suspect that my previous Mini—a 2012 model I picked up because it was higher spec'd than the pre-2018 Mini—got worked hard and put away wet by its previous owner(s). It might be the second-worst Mac I've ever owned, after a klunky John Scully era desktop that coincided with the nadir of Apple in the mid-to-late '90s. The 2012 Mini is the only Mac I've ever had that crashed (my '93 Quadra 605 of sainted memory crashed once in six years, when the little battery on the motherboard that kickstarted the display ran out of juice). Before I sell the 2012 Mini I'm going to get it cleaned, get a new fan for it (the old one is broken now), take out the second hard drive (I suspect it makes it harder to cool) and maybe even get a new main drive put in if it's not too expensive.

Whee!
Given that I input hundreds or most likely thousands of little commands a day, from scrolling a folder to resizing an image for the Web to flicking between windows in Firefox, the aggregate improvement in the speed I can work is, as I said, transforming. It saves me loads of time over the course of a day and imparts a sense of ease and freedom I had been missing. I didn't even realize how much my creaky old 2012 was slowing me down and frustrating me, until all that slowness and frustration vanished.

Downsides? Just one—the disappearance of the card slot. Yeah, yeah, I know all the arguments, but I've always appreciated the elegance of the built-in SD card slot and I'm sorry to see it go. The current killer Thunderbolt3 hubs are the $299 OWC Dock and, even better because it reads UHS-II cards natively, the hugely flexible American-made $310 CalDigit TS3 Plus. I'd love one of those, but I'm a beer budget guy. I use a Lention USB-C 3-port hub I bought for $20 on eBay.

Conclusion
Would I recommend the 2018 Mini? Heartily, if it happens to be what you need. Me, I like to be able to unhook the computer and stash it in a safe location when I'm away, and I like to be able to use my 27" NEC monitor.

But really, if you're currently not locked in by past choices and just need a super-slick, beautiful computer and want to be able to do anything on it, including working with photos, my first recommendation would be one of the still-new 2019 21.5" Retina iMacs. They're light and easy to move around, very pretty, and right-sized. The display is lovely (and you don't stop thinking so—I still appreciate mine whenever I use it) and let's face it, they'll do most anything most of us ever want to do. There are 27" models too of course. I've owned three 27" iMacs and I work on a 27-inch monitor right now, but I could live with the 21.5" size. Those start at $1,249, which means you're paying no "Apple tax" in any sense. They're just plain worth that.

...In my opinion. Your biases may vary.  :-)

So all is well in TOP-land. I imagine I'll be writing about Mac no. 18 at some point on down the line.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2019 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.

Everything must fade away

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Mark Cotter: "'Non-reviews' are often the most helpful. I think of myself as knowledgeable enough about specs to decide what could suit me, real world reviews are the most useful. And this is especially useful as I am thinking of replacing my seven year old 27" iMac (the last with a DVD drive built in), and a Mini similar to your configuration is on my list."