I'm officially "Apple" free.

Seems I'm going more Apple every day. I just inherited an 2014 Mac Mini after I upgraded a family member to the new iMac. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it, but the fan or hard drive growls at bootup. I don't know if these things can be fixed.

 

These days, I'm surrounded by a bit over everything, though we've been doing a bunch of Mac Studio's lately for production environments.

Those older mac mini's should be fairly serviceable out the back and bottom. Ram under the bottom cover if memory serves -- just about everything else should slide out the back with a dozen screws or so.

@bfun You could make a decent little Plex or file server or something out of the mini. Those Intel chips should have QSV hardware for transcoding -- and they've got that Thunderbolt bus for decent transfer speeds for home use.

 

same with bfun. i got more and more into the apple ecosystem throughout the years as they moved with the times. got an ipad air first in 2015, then moved to the iphone 6s plus later in that year and that's where it started. now i got 2 homepods, apple tv, macbook air m1, airpods, and an ipad pro. music streaming service is apple music.

i still use my windows desktop as my main pc, as well as a windows gaming laptop. i use google home as my main smart home automation usage. also the nvidia shield tv pro is used more than my apple tv.

 

After using the Apple Watch 1 for about a year I broke down and got the Apple Watch 7. You might think that would feel like a huge upgrade, but I don't think so. I got it for the always on display, and that works great. But aside from that feature, it's pretty much the same as the 1, which somehow still has great battery life despite it's age.

 

oh yes, i have an apple watch too. i went series 1 to series 5. and yes, that actual use scenario for these things is quick at a glance notification checking. not sure what they could add on these things in the future for people to upgrade on a more regular basis.

 

That series 1 was only supposed to be water/splash resistant, but I wore it in the shower ever day, took it swimming in the pool and ocean. It wouldn't die. I'll probably give it to my son.

 

Oddly enough, I've a series 7 watch coming Thursday. Any recommendations to how you've found it most helpful?

I tend toward less notifications is better, better notifications are best.

 

The always on display is really the only reason I got it. I’m definitely not a power user. I’ve tracked my heart rate a few times and that was neat.

 

One of the cheap iPads is the gateway drug into the Apple ecosystem. I'm pretty much all-in except for Apple TV (hardware). No way I'm paying for that when a $30 Roku will do.

I agree about Apple watch. It's really only great for notifications and being the best alarm clock of all time. My phone is always silent but I know whats going on. It's actually made me more observant at how often other peoples phones ring/buzz around me and they have to stop everything just to look. Savage peasantry.

 

I just have an iPhone. Never really saw the point of an iPad or tablets in general. Briefly owned an Apple watch and sold it because the battery life sucked and I never found a good use for it. My PCs are all Windows based. I use Rokus for streaming.

 

if you've used a high end media streamer, you'd see how horrible those budget ones are. some of those budget ones are even slower than the in-built tv software.

I have an apple tv 4k, Nvidia shield tv pro, and Roku ultra (don't use this anymore) and I bought a Google Chromecast with Google tv and holy crap those things are slow. the UI is horrendously slow. I suppose if you've only used the budget streamers, you wouldn't know better, but going from high end hardware to budget makes it glaringly obvious.

it also makes more sense to have the high end streamers if you have a high end tv. the streaming devices that do 4k and Dolbyvision tend have more powerful hardware

 

The Roku Streaming Stick Pluses I'm using are fine. They aren't slow. They have the same hardware as the Roku Ultra, just in a stick. They were $50.

I briefly owned an nVidia Shield (which I returned), and I've used Apple TVs. I don't think the Rokus I'm using are noticeably slower. The only big difference I see is that Roku has ads. But the ads aren't obtrusive and they allow Roku to give you the hardware for a cheap price so I don't mind them.

 

The Roku Streaming Stick Pluses are da bomb. The antenna on those manages to work in areas other devices can't. It's my go to for friends, family, and everything else. I bought the 4k Ultra for my main TV because it had the remote finder option. Kids like to hide the remote from each other and it drives me nuts. It doesn't seem any faster than the stick, but I haven't compared them closely. I've been tempted to try the Apple TV, but having multiple platforms is a pain when you're in charge of updating and locking down stuff. At one point I had Roku, Chromecast, and Fire TV.

 

Lol this dude thinks we have no friends. Apple TV definitely has a slicker interface and a high end price typical of Apple products.

But I cannot tell any real performance difference between it and Roku 4K. Plus I like the Roku remote better. The price means I got a half dozen of these including one just for travel.

I have one Roku Ultra and I don’t notice it to be any better than the $30 model either.

 

They probably use the same soc nowadays? Not sure. But I remember when I got my Roku Ultra, the other roku's felt pretty slow. I've only had experience with Fire sticks at my sister's place too and they both felt slow as well. All felt as slow as the chromecast with google tv.

I agree that the apple tv originally had a horrible remote. I'm using the 2021 model with siri remote and that one has an excellent remote. Same with the 2019 nvidia shield tv pro. It even illuminates!

 

I heard that when you play stuff in chrome like Netflix, it plays at 720p max.. I think due to possible piracy?