So there's been a couple of largely sleepless nights trying to figure out what the way forward is, in light of this new slotted studio Mac Pro, costing as it does some $USD3k more than the same spec Mac Studio, coinciding with the long dark teatime of the soul of having spent almost 8 months trying to chase down random crash on wake issues from an OS install whose user account has been a comfortable home for 10+ years of migration assistant upgrades etc, on a machine that up until then had kernel panicked probably 3 times in 9 years. It's finally come to the point where it crashes during use occasionally, and that will not stand. Trying to set up a fresh user account on a new system is just not going as well as I'd like, as some things are being inconsistent in migrating across.
Sad fact is, too much of my stuff relies on iCloud. I don't want to give up reading list for Mozilla's Pocket, or Notes for some skeevy "wll become a subscription service and spy on your notes" service. I'm only just starting to get Messages in The Cloud working, and iMessage is most people I know - airdrop is something I use multiple times daily. My RSS reader and Mastodon client are both iCloud-centric, and I have a whole bunch of interesting Keyboard Maestro & Hazel workflows.
Here we are as morning daylight peaks again through the shutters and some thoughts occur.
*shrug*
Sad fact is, too much of my stuff relies on iCloud. I don't want to give up reading list for Mozilla's Pocket, or Notes for some skeevy "wll become a subscription service and spy on your notes" service. I'm only just starting to get Messages in The Cloud working, and iMessage is most people I know - airdrop is something I use multiple times daily. My RSS reader and Mastodon client are both iCloud-centric, and I have a whole bunch of interesting Keyboard Maestro & Hazel workflows.
Here we are as morning daylight peaks again through the shutters and some thoughts occur.
- I don't want my content files on an individual machine - what had previously been multiple dedicated purpose drives, all backed up by Time Machine (and Chronosync) is becoming unwieldy, especially if I had to bring a Windows or Linux machine into the mix for specific tasks, so a NAS is called for - theoretically a Synology will handle all the versioned backups internally, replacing Time Machine for all but the ~/Library folder of my user accounts. It can also potentially take over music and photo management as Apple ruins good apps to replace them with new replacements -> iTunes to Music & Podcasts, Aperture to Photos etc. Synology-centric, with all devices just mounting SMB file volumes to access the same documents would seem to be a pretty good lifeboat.
- A Mac Studio, topped out with the best processor & 192gb of Ram and a 1tb drive can drive more monitors than my ambitions are likely to need - triple working displays, a Cintiq, and a preview display, and that will cost less than the secondhand prices for 2019 Mac Pros here in Australia, which let's face it, are unlikely to get any new upgrades beyond what they can do now - The Studio can now drive 6 XDRs, as can the 2019 with dual 6800 (duo)s.
- That same Mac Studio, and (if it turns out it can do the full proper 3D modelling & sculpting VR I want, at a quality & frame rate that doesn't make me literally throw up) a Vision Pro together would cost similar to the AUD$17K I'd been thinking about for a Mac Pro, if it came out as a proper slotted system.
*shrug*
