Computer: MacBook Pro 16,2
The center of my online life is a computer. Not a phone. A computer for the rest of... me.
My lil' boy is a mid-2020, quad-core i5 2.0GHz MacBook Pro, using it's on-chip GPU loaded with around 1.5 gigs of graphics memory; with 16 gigs of RAM and 512 gigs of storage (the last two are what I call the minimum config). Whoah. A lot of info, especially for a potentially knowing nothing passerby.
For those who didn't understand... anything, i'll tell you: for average work it's very, very fine. However, whenever you try to run a demanding (wait for it) IDE, like (wait for it) Swift Playgrounds, it really begins to sweat. Of course, Swift Playgrounds was built for Apple Silicon on the iPad, so the UX quality isn't surprising, but it actually begins to slow down after around 20 lines of code. 20. lines. of. code.
Like any other machine with an integrated GPU only, it isn't surprising that most of the time the GPU load is around 50%, rising to (wtf) 300% when using ML background removal tools or quality ehansers in Pixelmator Pro. It begins to lag quite noticeably even with around 50x3 layers, and 2-minute vids take up to 20 minutes to export. That's SD quality, not 8k.
Now, let's stop at the good stuff. Everything is working fine, and I didn't find a single life-impacting bug, even in the latest beta!
Some more info about the beta will be published in my McIntosh-ed micro blog, after I publish it first (and I'll publish it after I finally publish this, lol 😂 ).
External monitor setup
Long ago, around 2012, my dad, who still went to his office in Stanford regularly, purchased an Apple Thunderbolt display, full set of magic accessories and rechareable bettery adapters for work.
And 15 months ago, my dad's 15" MBP 10,1, which he let me use, died. And I got a 13" MBP 14.2. The small screen was nice, but not really good for long time use.
And so, my dad gave me his old Apple Thunderbolt display, Magic Mouse, Trackpad and Keyboard (all 1-st gen). I still use them.
Tablets?
Yes. A Smasnug galaxy tab A8, since this year, and a Kindle Fire 8" 7 gen since a long time.
Quite a long history with my Kindle! I used it for a lot of things previously, then lost it (or, rather, it got hidden 👀 ), then found it and began tweaking with FireOS
After an enormously long time, I not just removed built-in bloatware, but also unlocked the bootloader, installed a custom recovery and rooted it! That was 1-3 years ago, after which 2 more erasements happened.
What 'bout the Smasnug? Well I barely even use it. If it was an iPad mini (oh, if it was... 🥰 ), I'd use the continuity features to get a third display AND a mini workhouse. But neither of these are available on the tablet. And it doesn't really look nice as well.
And so, my dad gave me his old Apple Thunderbolt display, Magic Mouse, Trackpad and Keyboard (all 1-st gen). I still use them.
Phones?
"I don't own a phone," my classic answer. Well I do, but I also don't.
In this household, I sometimes use my mom's iPhone XR when I need to quickly loook something up, without any resistance. And I don't have a phone, it's my sister's phone with a sim card inserted, the number on my name, which I needed for registering on a couple of services.
the end.