MacBook Pro

We’re all now long used to banking, paying bills and shopping online, but the last few years have seen an explosion of apps for managing, consolidating and synchronising our financial information on our iPads, iPhones and desktops. My MacBook Pro is perfectly capable of flying me to the moon, but recently I’ve been using it to budget and manage my finances way more effectively than I’ve been able to before. I’ve switched over to a bank that has no front door (or any doors, for that matter), and it works really well for me. No supercilious bank manager to patronise me, either. A major plus.

As a professional musician, I’ve spent a huge chunk of my working life on the road touring. I’m in my late 50s, so remember (or sort of remember) the time before mobile phones. A tour managers nightmare. Think herding cats - one tour manager I worked with even used to round us up at airports with a megaphone. Rock n roll.

Since the introduction of these two Apple laptop lines there have been many versions introduced over the years. Rather than listing the many differences and enhancements between various models, it’s simpler to look at what (and who) these laptops were designed for.

Thanks in part to ever increasing processor efficiency, the battery life of Apple's MacBooks improve with each new model release. However, the battery life of your brand new machine will inevitably start to fade over time, and you’ll find yourself with less working time between charges. It’s worth knowing what conditions could shorten (or even damage) the life of your battery, and it certainly pays to maximise your battery runtime with ‘good practice’ OS settings for your your MacBook, MacBook Air or MacBook Pro.

I’m an audio professional, and so demand high performance and minimum downtime from my Macs. Modern audio production all starts with capable and reliable computers. I have a static studio setup, and a mobile rig for my ‘on the road’ needs, and both of my rigs are built around refurbished machines.

It’s best to think of replacing your existing Mac as moving house – hopefully not as traumatic, but it’s a half decent analogy! How big is your house, who lives there, what do you use it for and how much stuff do you have (and how much stuff do you want to take with you)? Like your house, your Mac may have accumulated piles of redundant data you can’t even remember, and equally have things in it that you use every day that you just take for granted. So how do you use it?