(Part 2) Best products from r/apple

I had this one at first:http://www.amazon.com/Incase-Sleeve-Deluxe-MacBook-Retina/dp/B00B2WS9R6/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&qid=1419784969&sr=8-12&keywords=macbook+bag+incase

it was nice because of the faux fur part in the bag but it lacked storage for accessories and other things.


but i switched to this leather one:http://www.amazon.com/Kenneth-Cole-Reaction-Luggage-Business/dp/B000UN46KW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1419784688&sr=8-1&keywords=leather+laptop+bag

and it was one of the best upgrades i've done. i love the bag as it has lots of storage and seems to have been built for macs in terms of the compartments in the inside. it perfectly fist the charger and a normal external drive. it also has a place that fits an ipad very nicely as well. this bag can also be used as like a day bag or an overnight bag.

I upgraded from an old rickety 4 on iOS 6 to a iPhone 6 64GB so I'm still in amazed mode when I use it. I'm sure I'll get over that.

I tried to go caseless one night but the phone seems too slippery and I was honestly worried it was going to pop out of my hands. I bought this Spigen case before I'd gotten the phone and it's a nice case and not too bulky. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LL60JU8/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

My top complaint is the side lock button. I'm constantly adjusting the volume when trying to lock the phone. Last night while out at a show I accidentally locked my phone 3 times while trying to take landscape pictures using the volume button.

It's inconvenient, but I figure I'll learn ways around it once I'm more comfortable with it.

I also lost all my text messages in the upgrade and continue to work with Apple to restore them. Even after talking with a "senior apple support adviser" I'm nowhere closer to getting them restored. I'll probably have to resort to a 3rd party software to retrieve them from an old iTunes backup.

Oh and coming from a 4... this phone still seems just a bit too big. I'm sure I'll get over that feeling as well.

I upgraded my 2011 MBP with a 120gig Corsair Force 3 SSD and it was one of the best upgrades I I've done. I removed the Optical Drive and took out the 500gig drive that came with the Mac and put it into the leftover space with the help of this HDD caddy. This caddy required a lot of modification, you can read my review here.

My MBP boots up in 17 seconds flat right now, just a bit slower than my friends i7 MBA that boots at ~16 to 16.5 seconds. Final Cut Pro 7 loads in about two seconds, compared to my schools i5 iMac's that load FCP7 in about 5 to 6 seconds. Photoshop loads in about 1 to 2 seconds. Starcraft II runs phenomenally, and on all ultra settings. I am not a huge gamer, but I like to boast about that to my friends who rag on Mac's ;)

If you are interested in hearing more about my upgrade just let me know and I'd be glad to ellaborate for you. The moral of the story is, upgrade that shit!

edit: Spelling

I'd say yeah, especially with the integration with other Apple products. I have a 13' rMBP 128GB which works well for me but if I had the $200 I would have shelled it out for sure. There are options like JetDrive that work well, and if you don't use your SD slot you just forget about it.

Other than that just get good amounts of RAM and if you have files from Windows you want to put on an external make sure it's formatted for HFS.

For you guys using that last-gen MBP (mine is 13-inch, Early 2011), then I want you to do something for me if you haven't already.

Go get this. There are solid instructions for installing it on a mac despite claims that it is "unsupported". Install everything but /Users onto the SSD Put /Users on the spinning disk. Add a line like this to your /etc/fstab:

UUID=9E0DC0B0-2CFE-3196-A9CE-3016B875DF47 /Users hfs rw,auto

Make sure you use the actual UUID of the SSD "partition".

diskutil info /Volumes/SSD/ | grep UUID

Also be sure not to set it up as a "Fusion" drive.

I did this over the holidays, and if you're still on a spinning disk, this is a HUGE speed boost.

Only trick left that I haven't quite figured out is how to do this without doing a clean install+migration assistant. I suppose the newer version of carbon copy cloner (paid one) can handle moving the recovery partition and this new "partition grouping" mechanism that reminds me of LVM on linux. I need to spend some time learning about that.

The result is this.

Come to think of it, maybe I should make a separate /r/apple post with this? Given the price tag, this is pretty much a must-upgrade for those wanting SSD on the cheap.

$ mount
/dev/disk1 on / (hfs, local, journaled)
devfs on /dev (devfs, local, nobrowse)
/dev/disk0s4 on /Users (hfs, local, journaled)
map -hosts on /net (autofs, nosuid, automounted, nobrowse)
map auto_home on /home (autofs, automounted, nobrowse)
localhost:/yR7JK4u8SlwV-PhRfdNxBK on /Volumes/MobileBackups (mtmfs, nosuid, read-only, nobrowse)

$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Capacity iused ifree %iused Mounted on
/dev/disk1 111Gi 57Gi 54Gi 52% 14925296 14079374 51% /
devfs 185Ki 185Ki 0Bi 100% 642 0 100% /dev
/dev/disk0s4 931Gi 325Gi 606Gi 35% 85242791 158915080 35% /Users
map -hosts 0Bi 0Bi 0Bi 100% 0 0 100% /net
map auto_home 0Bi 0Bi 0Bi 100% 0 0 100% /home
localhost:/yR7JK4u8SlwV-PhRfdNxBK 111Gi 111Gi 0Bi 100% 0 0 100% /Volumes/MobileBackups

This case is great if you want some decent protection while still having a thin feel to it. Everyone that has seen it tells me that they really like it. Hope you like it as well. *Sorry for the bare link, im on my phone at the moment.


iPhone 6 Plus Case, SUPCASE [Heavy Duty] Belt Clip Holster Apple iP... http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MOOFHQ2/ref=cm_sw_r_udp_awd_621uub0A28G4P

Most Objective-C books are written for a person who already knows how to program. I would recommend Steven Kochan's book because it teaches you how to program while teaching you Objective-C's syntax. After you've completed that get the Big Nerd Ranch, or some other book.

Truthfully, programming is hard. It's not hard in the "you're not good enough" sense, but maybe it is in the "you can't learn this goofing around one or two hours a week" sense. It takes practice and perseverance. Sometimes you have to deal with inscrutable errors. Sometimes things just don't work and you want to cry. But when they do you feel like you're on top of the world.

I couldn't teach myself how to program in my spare time like some people have, so I went through the CS program at my local state school. External motivation was a big help for me. I may not be a great computer scientist, but I am a very good Objective-C programmer. It took a long time to get here, but it was totally worth it.

Well, the price it is asking is already well out of his range for a laptop so it was a no-go for that alone. But for the price it is asking there are far superior laptops, ones that use an HQ i7 instead of a U, or that have a GTX 1060, which is well over twice as fast only using 25 percent more wattage. Also the ports, as everyone is complaining about.

An example of a nicer one (quick amazon search)

https://amzn.com/B01IOHNQQK

And that's still a larger screen for $700 and the hardware is better in every way, just thicker and I am sure less battery life (due to a faster processor and video card).

Also in the next couple months we will see a rollout of Kaby Lake and Apple will be behind until their next refresh in over a year.

22" 1080p monitor. $140. I use it. Looks awesome. Clicky.

EDIT: If you get this monitor, I'd recommend getting one of these as well as one of these.

This is the exact setup I use on my 13" Mid-2012 MacBook, and it works great.

The new WD Black dual drive looks pretty slick. A 120 GB SSD and a 1 TB HDD in one 2.5 drive. You could just pop that in the normal hard drive bay and have the best of both worlds.

http://www.amazon.com/Black2-Dual-Drive-2-5-WD1001X06XDTL/dp/B00GSJ9X4Q/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1406941528&sr=8-4&keywords=wd+black

> What did you use to learn how to write the code?

I read this book to get started: Programming in Objective-C by Stephen G. Kochan

I highly recommend it for starters, since it provides lots of easy explanations, exercises and guides.



And since you need a 2D physics framework to program a game, I decided to use Apple's native framework called SpriteKit. I learned SpriteKit's basics with YouTube tutorials and this free online course.
I also recommend everyone to google some open source games/apps to learn some programming methods & techniques.


> What tool was the app built in? XCode? Unity?

Xcode.

Well, it does mean something. As I explained to the other commenter: 13" MBP is $1300. A 4K 24" Dell monitor is $378. So about $1700 for the pair. You'd have to transport both the monitor and the laptop, plus cables for each.

A 21.5" 4K iMac is $1500. The machine I'm pitching would be smaller than that, yet you'd have to pay for that ultra-portability, like you do with the MacBook. Even if the price remained the same, I'm not sure how a laptop + external display is more convenient or more cost effective.

The iMac is a good deal. It's a stronger machine than the laptops. It's all about making the iMac more portable.

Personally, I almost got a case like this, but opted instead for this portable charger. It's less expensive than a case like that, and doesn't constantly add bulk to the phone. You don't need to plug in your phone using a microusb port at night. I can leave it in my briefcase or backpack and plug in my phone wherever I am. It can also charge my phone 8-10 times before I need to recharge it.

If you have a lifestyle where you often have a bag with you (ie student with backpack or girl with a purse), I think the "battery brick" is a better solution than a case.

I'm leaning towards one of the new hybrid drives (http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Momentus-7200RPM-Hybrid-ST95005620AS-Bare/dp/B003NSBF32) but I wish there was an easy solution with fewer compromises.

The mid 2012 MBP is the same board design as yours but with an airport cart that supports bluetooth 4.0.
In theory you should be able to swap your card out for the newer one. It is not soldered in.
I don't know anyone who has tried this though.

A much cheaper but less clean option is to buy a USB bluetooth 4.0 dongle which is compatible with OSX.
This one uses the same chipset as one of the imac cards i believe, so it's fully supported.
People report it works with OSX. However, i've not seen anyone report on whether continuity works or not yet.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003OC6LWM/ref=oh_o00_s00_i00_details

$9 Mini DisplayPort to HDMI and if you have a new enough Mac, it supports sound through DisplayPort as well. There's a list on the apple webpage for which computers are supported. I bought one and it works great.

This seems to be the cheapest that I can find, though it was really a cursory search.

A review there says that it should be able to do what you need it to.
>I purchased the "Blu-Ray Player External USB DVD RW Laptop Burner Drive" in order to read Blu-ray discs on my Mac. Although the OS X operating system does not permit Blu-ray disc playback, you can use a Blu-ray drive with MakeMKV to rip the encription off of Blu-ray discs and convert them to MKV format (MakeMKV is a free bata release that works very well). Once converted to MKV format (the process is lossless) the files can be played back on a computer or compressed using a program like Handbrake.

I haven't tried this out at all (haven't even read all the reviews), so don't take this as an endorsement from me.

It's a little over $50 and it runs off a USB 2.0 port though, so it seems to meet your criteria.

If you still want to keep a slim figure case I wholeheartedly suggest the Spigen Tough Armour Case I've been using these in conjunction with a matte screen protector and its fantastic. The case covers all the buttons nicely, protects it from moderate drops, as the front has a lip as to not harm the screen. I've dropped my 5s loads in this case.

You can also sacrifice your DVD player for another hard drive. My 2011 MBP has a 256Gb SSD & a 750Gb WD Black for storage. Is awesome.

A lot of people wear non leather bands. I wear this Skagen watch and can easily wear it swimming or in the shower. I actually like that.

Considering the Apple Watch includes a similar mesh band option, as well as several rubber band options, I was hoping the watch would have at least a 1 m (preferably 3 m) water resistance rating.

For HDMI I have one of these and it's great: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01MYUCWOK

For USB 3, I already owned a hub/ethernet dongle combo: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00PC0J1VC

To make it work with USB-C I bought a USB A -> USB C converter: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01COOQIKU

All of these work fine and are considerably cheaper than the Apple alternatives. Anker seem to be a good company when it comes to dongles.

I got this one from i-blason. I love it because it's super low profile and has a tiny bit of grip. Haven't dropped it yet though

If you want something low profile I would recommend the Spigen Ultra Hybrid.

It has a clear plastic back with a TPU material around the sides that come in different colors (I like the gun metal gray).

The front has just enough of a lip to protect the front of the phone when laying face down.

Basically has enough protection for minor falls and to prevent scuffs and scratches without changing the look of the phone to much or adding much bulk.

Here is a link to it on Amazon, which always seems to be cheaper than it is on their official webpage:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JH88AJ4/ref=cm_sw_r_udp_awd_0sRLub1JDF6JR

I have the incipio ngp and love it. It's pretty small but feels protective. The case fits well but isn't too bulky. I use to have the silicon case but it was too hard to get in an out of my pocket.

Also it's only 10 bucks on Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MHWSNR6/ref=cm_sw_r_udp_awd_uHbgvb181J61H
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MHWSNR6/ref=cm_sw_r_udp_awd_uHbgvb181J61H

I’ve had success with this when it comes to getting a bluetooth 4.0 dongle to work. The one linked to has a chipset that apple supports out of the box, no need to install anything special, though you do need to do some poking to get your mac to use the right bluetooth device (the dongle over the built-in one).

I picked up the I-blason case from Amazon. Here's an unadvertised feature to this and most other clear cases. Turn on LED Flash on Alerts in your Accessibility settings. Now whenever you get a call or notification, the LED will flash. The light travels through the case and makes the entire case flash.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00M0TJD16/ref=cm_sw_r_udp_awd_xLakub0Z5QDMM

I picked up both the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6+ on day one. The 6 went to my wife. While setting up both phones the 6 felt so much more comfortable in my hands. I immediately started to regret my decision. A few days later and I love my 6+. As a phone the 6+ is too big but these devices are no longer phones. They are media consumption devices that also have a phone app. The majority of the time you are not using it as a phone. Once you realize that, you will appreciate the added size of the 6+.

I was planning on getting the Spigen Ultra Hybrid for my iPhone 6 and was wondering if anyone has it or has used it? What is it like? Thanks in advance.

Upgraded my 2009 MBP to a 2013 rMBP. My advice:

• Max out RAM when you buy it, because that's the one thing you really can't upgrade.
  
• Get a reasonable amount of storage. I have 512, and although I occasionally run close to filling it up, I always have junk I can delete to free up enough room.
  
• I got one of these and put my music library on it. My reasoning behind putting music, specifically, on it is that music a) takes up a significant portion of my storage, b) doesn't suffer from slower read speeds, and c) when I need my SD slot to import photos, I can just quit iTunes and eject it.
  
  I do graphic design work, and this setup affords me more than enough space and power for my computer to function as a personal and professional machine.

Oddly enough, you can plug a Mini DisplayPort cable into the Thunderbolt port and it will work (they both use the same port).

I use this cable with my air's thunderbolt port to connect to my monitor. Cheap and works great. They also make Mini DisplayPort to DVI if your monitor doesn't have HDMI. Just search amazon or monoprice for a cheap one.

I've been looking at this as a possible leather bag as well. I think this is the same or almost the same model at amazon for a lot cheaper and good reviews:

http://www.amazon.com/Kenneth-Cole-Reaction-Luggage-Business/dp/B000UN46KW/

USB External Battery Pack 13000mAh (Limeade Blast L130X) Charger with built-in Flashlight for iPhone 5, 4S, 4, iPad Mini, iPods; Samsung Galaxy S4, S3, S2, Note 2; HTC One, EVO, Thunderbolt, Incredible, Droid DNA; Motorola ATRIX, Droid; Google Nexus 4, LG Optimus
http://amzn.com/B00BZD6QCW

This is hwr I use. It's awesome since it can give you about 5+ days on a single charge!

so are you looking to rip or just play?

Rip this one, this is what i use and it gets the job done for really cheap(and this one is cheaper i would go this one but its not a feed in it pops out)-http://www.amazon.com/Blu-Ray-Player-External-Laptop-Burner/dp/B001TVAU0E/ref=sr_1_11?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1405695288&sr=1-11&keywords=blu+ray+burner


Play this one-http://store.mcetech.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=BDC4XSLU2&Category_Code=STORBD

Get a hybrid drive for some performance boost, like the Seagate Momentus XT.

UPDATE: The issue was with the Rift cable! I bought a new one last week on a hunch(because I had no disconnect errors and I had consistent audio) and it arrived today and there was NO ORANGE LIGHT!! It was my last hope before packing the HMD back to Oculus for them to look at it.

The new cable worked flawlessly with the Anker USB-C to HDMI adapter.
I just spent 4 hours setting up my Oculus Avatar and playing my arcade
ROMS in New Retro Arcade.
It felt like one hour. The sun was shining when I began, and it was nightfall when I finished, Lol.

I've got about 25 days left of my RMA period for sending my Rift back to Oculus, so I'm gonna wait a few days to see if my joy is permanent or short-lived.

It cost me an extra £50, but I don't care - it's better than sending the headset back, only for them to say the headset is fine!

This is the HDMI Adapter that works for me: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01MYUCWOK/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apip_Su9vDQTXBydY3

>Well, the price it is asking is already well out of his range for a laptop so it was a no-go for that alone.

Really?

> But for the price it is asking there are far superior laptops, ones that use an HQ i7 instead of a U, or that have a GTX 1060, which is well over twice as fast only using 25 percent more wattage. Also the ports, as everyone is complaining about.
An example of a nicer one (quick amazon search)
https://amzn.com/B01IOHNQQK[1]
>And that's still a larger screen for $700 and the hardware is better in every way, just thicker and I am sure less battery life (due to a faster processor and video card).

That uses the same CPU as the base 15" MacBook Pro. Comes with a shitty 256GB M.2 SATA + 1TB HDD and a 1920x1080 screen.

The MBP comes with a 2880x1800 Wide Gamut DCI-P3 display, a PCI-E NVMe SSD that will blow that SATA SSD out of the water many times over.

Sorry but in no way is that machine comparable in most of the specs, let alone better.

The wife and I are going to get our iPhone 6 phones over the weekend. I've been browsing Amazon for cases and keep going back to the Spigen Tough Armor Case series.

http://amzn.com/B00LL60JU8

My research led me here:

• http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LL60JU8/
  
  $17-23 (depending on color) for a seemingly quality product

It's impossible to upgrade the drive, but that's not to say you can't add space. Extra 128 GB for 13" and 15"

will this dongle work for the beta http://www.amazon.com/GMYLE-Bluetooth-Technology-Wireless-Broadcom/dp/B007MKMJGO/ ?
I have a 2011 iMac

This is another option if you don't want to have to carry an external HD.
http://www.amazon.com/Transcend-JetDrive-Storage-Expansion-TS128GJDL360/dp/B00K73NWK0/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1407718386&sr=8-4&keywords=pny+storedge