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What are you still using an Intel Mac for?

Yimbaz said:
What a silly question. The first Apple Silicon Macs came out less than four years ago. A lot of Intel Macs are still working just fine, and there's no reason to upgrade your laptop if it still works.
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Which question now? If it is the original OP, calling it a silly question is - well - questionable, considering the number of responses that have been written. People have all kinds of reasons for upgrading too, even when they have working Intel Macs
 
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What are you still using an Intel Mac for?​

olad said:
Which question now? If it is the original OP, calling it a silly question is - well - questionable, considering the number of responses that have been written. People have all kinds of reasons for upgrading too, even when they have working Intel Macs
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I'm discovering this month the  mac's processor means nothing if one does not feel comfortable
or can use older software that suits their need much better and efficiently.
 
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I still use my 2017 15" i7 and my 13" 2018 i7 probably more than than my M3 Pro. Why? I don't Know I just love both of them especially the 2018, and can't stop using them. They are awesome.
 
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Regulus67 said:
If you wish to look into building a DIY 5k Display from you iMac at some point in the future.
I would suggest starting here
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/diy-5k-monitor-success.2253100/page-55
There are many posts, and it can be overwhelming at first
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Thanks for this. I've read it all from late March and yes, overwhelming, but I've made a lot of 'quick notes' for future reference. And as Bollman said, it's mostly ripping stuff out. Maybe this is something I may tackle on my 2017 iMac since I'm now stuck w/ Ventura until I upgrade. I'm waiting to see what Apple brings forth in the next year or two.
 
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audiophilosophy said:
Why? My iPhone 13 Pro (running latest software ad of this writing) still syncs and back up just fine with iTunes on my 2012 Mac mini running Mojave.
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simply im tired of flciking on "music" and getting a pop up of them begging me to join their lame monthly club.
after a year or so of switcng that off, it gets annoying.
with the itouch, that plays music only!
 
I have an M1 MBA and a 2015 MBP 15-inch (11,4). Both working well. No prize to guess which one gets used more! When the MBP is turned off, I actually miss the fan noise. Funny lot, us folks.
 
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MBAir2010 said:
simply im tired of flciking on "music" and getting a pop up of them begging me to join their lame monthly club.
after a year or so of switcng that off, it gets annoying.
with the itouch, that plays music only!
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Maybe consider using the CS Music app (formerly know I was cesium). It’s a great sort of “skin” for the built-in Apple Music app for iOS. It behaves a lot more like the music app used to ≈6+ years ago (when it was better— specifically with displaying albums after clicking on an artists, so you don’t have lots of scrolling to have to do just to see the list of albums). I also use CS music to rate songs on-the-go since the built-in music app interface is more tedious for assigning star ratings for songs to. When I sync my iPhone to iTunes (after doing the on-the-go star ratings) it transfers all the star ratings to my Mac’s iTunes library content. There used to be a widget for the cesium music app that let me do star ratings, but the widget disappeared for me at some point about 2 years ago for some reason.
 
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today is starting using both M1 MacBook Air and macmini
there are too many conflicts and weird things like saving a text edit page and syncing an iPhone.
I finally figured out how to tv app to my homepods, that was tedious

these intel Macs work better in 2024 than the M1, not as fast and isms tho

now the sound is disabled on the entire HomePod system from a Mac mini M!
thank you Tim crook!
 
olad said:
Which question now? If it is the original OP, calling it a silly question is - well - questionable, considering the number of responses that have been written. People have all kinds of reasons for upgrading too, even when they have working Intel Macs
Click to expand...

Considering that MacRumors only need 8GB RAM, Intel Mac's are just fine. Most are upgrading for a "want" rather than "need" if 8GB RAM is all MacRumors need.
 
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I have a 2009 27 inch iMac that I use as a spare monitor though I haven't needed to use it in over a year.

I have a 2010 27 inch iMac that I use as a TV set. I paid $100 for it many years ago. If you have an Apple Silicon Mac that includes a 27 inch 2k monitor and speakers for $100, I'm all ears.

I have a 2015 27 inch iMac that I run my office stuff on. i5, 1 TB HDD, 32 GB of RAM, 5k monitor, speakers, microphone, webcam, Apple keyboard and mouse for $200. If you have an Apple Silicon machine that comes with a 5k monitor, speakers, microphone, webcam and 32 GB RAM for $200, I'm all for it.

I have a 2014 MacBook Pro 15 on loan to a relative for work.

I have a 2015 MacBook Pro 15 that's my backup for my 2021 MacBook Pro 16. I sometimes loan it out to relatives if they need a Windows machine.

There's an iMac Pro for sale nearby for $900 with 32 GB of RAM and 1 TB SSD and I'm somewhat interested.

One thing of note is that I have a program that uses 800k RAM on Windows, 5 GB RAM on macOS Intel and 8 GB RAM on macOS Apple Silicon. It runs better on an old Windows box than it does on Apple Silicon but that's partially because it crashes and corrupts the profile on a regular basis. It usually takes over an hour to reinstall on macOS Apple Silicon.
 
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I still have a 13" 2015 MacBook Pro laying around. It was one of the first laptops I bought when I was starting my career so first and foremost it holds some weird sentimental value to me. Also, the display was replaced about 3 years after purchase due to stains appearing all over it because of a manufacturing error. The whole panel got replaced and is brighter for about ~100 nits than the built-in one, which makes the screen significantly more usable in environments with lots of natural light.

Also, there are still a few government portals over here that are Windows-only and I dual boot Windows 10 in Boot Camp so I can use them. My bank also happens to have an ebanking solution that is still Windows-only, although it's slowly starting to change.

The real challenge for me will be in the fall once Windows 10 falls out of the support period. The laptop itself doesn't have much of a resale value anymore and I'll probably use it to experiment with various Linux/BSD distributions since my job is related to operating system design and engineering/maintenance.

Despite macOS being significantly slower nowadays compared to 2015-2020 period, it's still a solid machine and you can get a lot of office work done on it.
 
pshufd said:
...

One thing of note is that I have a program that uses 800k RAM on Windows, 5 GB RAM on macOS Intel and 8 GB RAM on macOS Apple Silicon. It runs better on an old Windows box than it does on Apple Silicon but that's partially because it crashes and corrupts the profile on a regular basis. It usually takes over an hour to reinstall on macOS Apple Silicon.
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I guess this proves 8GB is the correct amount of memory on a Mac! ;)
 
Gave my 2015 15” MBP to a family member after getting my 15” MBA so now I’m down to one last Intel Mac which is my 2017 iMac 4K. It currently resides on my desk but I rarely use it anymore. Still runs fine on Big Sur even though it’s eligible for Sonoma. With it being a Fusion Drive, though, I’m not sure I want to update it past Monterrey.

So occasionally I’ll use it to stream sports on like a mini TV but honestly I’m ready to move on from it. I have two amazing MBA’s that do everything I need and while I have considered replacing it with a Mx iMac, I haven’t come across a deal yet that interests me nor am I certain I even want another iMac at this time.
 
cwwilson said:
Gave my 2015 15” MBP to a family member after getting my 15” MBA so now I’m down to one last Intel Mac which is my 2017 iMac 4K. It currently resides on my desk but I rarely use it anymore. Still runs fine on Big Sur even though it’s eligible for Sonoma. With it being a Fusion Drive, though, I’m not sure I want to update it past Monterrey.

So occasionally I’ll use it to stream sports on like a mini TV but honestly I’m ready to move on from it. I have two amazing MBA’s that do everything I need and while I have considered replacing it with a Mx iMac, I haven’t come across a deal yet that interests me nor am I certain I even want another iMac at this time.
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You can add an external USB3 SSD to get the speed way up.

I have a 2015 27 that I did this with.
 
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I have the iMac Pro now and it's great. 8 core Xeon W, 32 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD for $800. Performance is comparable with our M1 mini 16/512 but the additional RAM and SSD is nice and it has a strong GPU. I use it for office stuff, watching videos, and running a Windows x86 virtual machine.

There's one of these in NYC with 64 GB of RAM, 2 TB SSD for $500. I'd go buy it if it were located in my area. There's a 10-core model, also in NYC, with 64 GB of RAM and 2 TB SSD for $1,000.
 
I have my boss' old MBP after he got rid of it because neither of us could convince MacOS to install on the internal SSD, I assume because it's tripped some EOL warning after x number of write cycles. I've installed Ubuntu on it and although it won't recognise the sound card or the network adapter it does work and I'm looking for good ways to use it alongside my Macs. Probably use it for writing since that doesn't need much hardware
 
My wife has a 2015 iMac 27'' at her desk, I have a 2020 iMac on my desk, and my kid just got my old 2017macbook pro when I got a new MacBook this month. We all have pre M iPads as well.
 
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This weekend I revived my 2014 13” MacBook Pro to use iTunes 11.5 on OS X 10.9.5 with my iPod 5.5g.

I had moved my music library from machine to machine, from iTunes to Music since 2008. Last week, Music on macOS 15.2 stopped syncing the play counts from my iPod back to my library.

The MacBook was bought used in 2017 and was used by my partner after I bought an M1 Air until she bought hers.

I’ve lost the ability to sync the library to iPhone and carry the library with my main machine, but that’s what the iPod is for, to listen without the distractions of the internet.

I’m wondering if it’s worth upgrading to macOS 10.14, to maintain 32-bit support, and using retroactive to keep iTunes 11.4 (or 12.0.1).
It looks like Yosemite might be the highest I could go and keep 12.0.1.

iTunes 11.4/12.0.1 also restores the ability to update smart playlists on the iPod itself.
 
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