You all know that, prior to purchasing the MBP I now own, I was using a M1-era Macbook Air 13".
I'd been carrying that in a small tote that I got from work - swag from McAfee. It was a small laptop/tablet bag that was surprisingly adequate for a 13" MBA. I used it a long time and used it to fly out to California and New Orleans. It'll fit under a seat on a plane and still leave room for your feet.
I'd not planned on getting a MBP when I was in California. I could've waited until I got back but it was a snap decision and once I saw that an MBP was locally available while I was in CA, I was stubborn.
I bought the MBP and then realized that a 14" laptop wasn't going to fit in my current bag (plus, I still had my MBA with me), so I had to buy a new bag just to get it home.
What did I buy? I bought the Modern Utility Laptop Backpack for 15.6" Laptop, which is made by Samsonite. It's charcoal in color. It fit most of the existing gear I had brought with me, as well as the new gear - MBP and accessories; Airpods Max and accessories; 11" iPad. I couldn't believe that it held all of my electronics and didn't feel heavy.
There are two pockets designed for flat electronics (tablets and notebooks). Those pockets were lined with cushioning for protection of the electronics.
I like this setup better, not only because it will fit a 14" MBP, but because it's a non-bulky backpack.
It has a TON of pockets. I tried to stash like things in every pocket and ran out of things before I ran out of pockets.
The straps are comfortable - I did a lot of walking/toting.
I really like this bag!
I'll still use the little side pack for my MBA but I might not use the MBA all that much. I may do a factory reset on that one and sell it, although I'll ask the wife if she wants it first.
I received the DJI Osmo Pocket 3 on Thursday (3/21). Initial thoughts are below.
I was surprised at the small size of the box! The camera is also smaller than I expected.
The camera's battery had a a 45% charge, so I got to immediately activate it, which was pretty easy - I hear it's easier to set up if you've an iPhone or iPad.
Now, since I'd not been able to purchase Amazon's insurance (the transaction borked but the transaction for the Pocket 3 went through), and the DJI activation process was asking me if I wanted to purchase DJI Care Refresh (which is a protection program), I bought 2 years of that, which is $55. Now I don't have to worry about the camera being damaged. Note that although the unit is covered by insurance, to replace the camera, the owenr would still need to pay $35. As well, I get four replacement instances, if need be.
I was also worried about the battery eventually depleting, but that is covered by DJI Care Refresh, as well.
I bought a 30W charger a few days before I received the Pocket 3. It works well and the Pocket 3 Fast-charged to 100% in like 25 minutes. As much as this camera costs, you'd think they'd include a charger -- maybe they think that folks will already have chargers (30W isn't really commonplace for chargers, though).
The camera easily mounts on a tripod, as it includes a tripod extension that attaches to the bottom of the camera. I've been using it with a desk tripod.
I recorded some test videos, using the camera as a standalone camera. I also recorded test footage using it as a webcam (using Photo Booth and QuickTime). I recorded 1080p footage and the results were astonishing.
I used the following video to get the camera's settings to a baseline state (for me):
I now have the camera configured to use 1440p/60fps as the default video resolution and speed. I recorded some test footage and the result is absolutely astounding! I was able to use face tracking and even used object tracking (I was presenting a firearm and had the camera track it while I handled it). I later posted that footage to YouTube, after editing it with DaVinci Resolve and rendering it (it took a bit for me to determine how to render it in 1440p - I had to render it a second time before I had it correctly configured).
I also have installed LightCut (which is editing software that is published by a company that DJI is partnered with) on both my Macbook Air and my iPhone. I will take a look at the MBA editor tomorrow to see if it'll be worthwhile in using. I do not care to use it on my iPhone, though - I can't imagine editing videos using a smartphone.
The camera isn't waterproof and it's gimbal is probably easily damaged, so my next purchase is probably going to be a case (there's nothing I can do about it not being waterproof, though).
The next following purchase will probably be the Mic 2 transmitter, although the test footage seems to indicate that the mics on the camera are adequate (for me). Or, maybe I should purchase the extra battery handle. Maybe I'll just flip a coin to determine which to get.
I have a lane at the range reserved tomorrow. For now, I'll keep using the GoPro but I might take the Pocket 3 and set it up on my left side on the range table, just to see what type of footage it'll capture.
I'll post updates on my experiences.
UPDATE (8/13/2024):
I've been using the OP3 to capture video footage for my YouTube channel and the captured footage is astounding in quality. What's really cool is that I can set it on my desk and then lock the focus on a particular object - if the object moves (for example, a dog), the camera lens follows. If I have something in my hands and I'm moving my hands around, the camera will follow. Even when using it as a desk camera, capturing my face, if I lock my head as a focus and move my head, the camera will shift slightly to ensure my head is center-frame.
The camera feels fragile but that's why I have DJI Care. I'm considering a 3rd party protective shell, as the gimbal sometimes moves when the OEM shell is mounted onto the camera.
The camera bag/case is too small, in my opinion. I'm looking for a bigger case.
I have used it once while taking a scenic walk around my neighborhood and was shocked at the resulting footage (was daylight with no clouds; in the spring). That's the only time I've used it outdoors but I think I should use it more when outside.
I was recording video footage today and decided to do two things that I hadn't ever done.
I wanted some really good detailed footage, but also wanted to be able to zoom in on my subject. My GoPro is usually my primary camera, but it doesn't zoom like a smartphone or DSLR camera.
I tried to use my PC's Logitech C922 streaming camera, but that doesn't zoom either. It only produces 1080p footage, as well, but it's pretty clear and my M1 Macbook Air (MBA) immediately detects it; I'm able to use that camera's microphone, too. The C922 works far better than the camera that is integrated into the MBA (that's a 720p camera).
I'd forgotten that I can now use my iPhone 13 Pro Max as a desktop camera with recent versions of iOS but hadn't tried it. I tried it and it captures extremely nice footage! Not only that, there's NO latency - the MBA connects to the iPhone wirelessly and you'd never know it wasn't a wired connection.
As well, I'd been using Photobooth to collect footage. While the footage is OK, it's also somewhat limited. I also lost footage, several times...the recording session sometimes freezes. So I did some quick research on any native methods of recording footage on a Mac. I found that I can use Quicktime to record footage. Not only that, I can point it toward the iPhone and leverage the phone as a camera. Also, I can record audio only, if I've the need to. Additionally, I can record the desktop! I can choose between different cameras and can rely upon their audio hardware, and I can even mix up cameras and mics across different devices when using QuickTime.
So, what I did was use QuickTime to record, using the iPhone 13 PM and using the Logitech C922's mic. I was also able to hold up the subjects of the recording session to the 13 PM and it would focus on the items while they were close-up to the camera. I'm not sure how to manipulate the camera's resolution and other recording options when using QuickTime, though. By default, it recorded at 1080p, and used ProRES.
The resulting footage was great. It had good detail and was not blurry, nor did the focus hunt and change...it maintained focus on it's own. The recorded file was on the MBA, as well, which is pretty wild...the footage didn't glitch out or have any artifacts and the recording session didn't lag or appear that it was under any stress. I'd saved the files to my SanDisk 2TB drive, so none of it consumed system drivespace.
I should've been using my 13PM a long time ago. I'd been trying to use it as a standalone camera, but found that the resulting video files were huge and I'd have to transfer them to the MBA, which was a PITA. As well, the large files consumed my phone's storage space, so I was always at the space limit.
Using the 13PM as a camera when using the MBA is the better way, by far!
I'll be attempting to determine how to up the recording resolution when using the 13PM as a MBA camera.
I'm currently visiting my parents in another state. I last visited them two weeks ago. The last visit, I was able to connect all of my Apple devices to their wireless access point (WAP) without issue and have been doing that for years, without issue.
I attempted to connect my Macbook Air to their WAP and it connects but I couldn't browse the web. The browser client was saying that there was no internet connection, yet my mother's MBP could connect. My Dell G17 could connect. My iPhone Pro Max could connect.
My parents' router was working with all electronic appliances, with the exception of my MBA.
I used Google to search for "macbook connected to wifi but no internet". The search results are here.
I tried the steps that were recommended and all failed until I reached Step 4, "Change your Mac's Domain Name System (DNS)".
When I changed the MBA's DNS settings to use the Google DNS IPs, I was immediately able to reach Google.com when testing for connectivity.
I'm still not sure what was causing this issue. When I checked the MBA's DNS settings (before I changed them), the MBA was pulling the DNS settings from my parents' router without issue. The DNS IPs weren't resolving names, though, and the issue was only affecting the Macbook Air. It was a very odd issue.
I thought I'd share this issue and fix so that when folks had this issue, they'd have a potential fix.
I'm noticing some videos of the recently released Macbook Pro 13" M2 throttling SSD reads and writes.
I've also seen some posts on MacRumors.com describing the issue.
It appears that Apple may have only included one NAND for the 256 GB version of the MBP 13" M2, while the M1 variant of the same notebook has two NANDs. Apple apparently was cutting costs with the M2 MBP13, to the point that the M1 MBP13 certainly outperforms it as far as SSD reads/writes are concerned.
This might not only affect MBP 13" M2s, but also MBA M2s. We'll soon see if the community discovers that the MBA M2 is also affected by this issue.
After seeing a month+ of many folks sharing that they've damaged their Macbooks' screens (either by dropping or neglecting to remember that the notebook is fragile), I decided to purchase Applecare+.
The thing about insurance is that you might not need to use it. I wanted to have it in case I ever need it.
I think I use my Mac Mini more than I do my MBA, but every time I handle the Macbook, there's this nagging feeling that I'm going to drop it. Maybe it's that slick feeling case. Or maybe it's the fact that it feels ultra-light and thin.. The top case is very thin, in fact, to the point that it doesn't take much to damage the screen (evidenced by the high amount of posters at the MacRumors forums and sub-Reddits, sharing the damage they caused).
One thing that I noticed is that when purchasing Applecare+, the owner is given the option of subscribing annually ($99/year) or paying a lump sum of $199 for three years of coverage. I'm not sure which would've been best for me, but opted for the 3-year plan since I'll have the MBA a while (longer than 3 years, more than likely).
It just makes sense, to me, to buy the coverage (mainly for the accidental) and not worry so much about display damage. Note that I'm only interested in entertaining my use case...I've no need to explore any scenarios outside of my own usage patterns.
And, no, I didn't purchase Applecare+ for my Mac Mini M1. It's not mobile and I have less worry of dropping it than my MBA.
I ordered an Anker 7-port dock/hub from Amazon today, as I've several external hard drives that I plan to use with my Macbook Air M1.
This dock will allow me to connect drives to the MBA using USB-A connections.
I've also been closely monitoring how my MBA uses memory, just to understand how it performs. I've yet to see the memory pressure rise to the point where the graph is yellow, but it does use swap (very little, actually - maybe 100 MB, infrequently). I'm close to not worrying about it any longer. I'm pretty sure the system will let me know (by throttling down components) if memory usage gets bad. Life is too short to be constantly worrying on if your Mac MI is swapping...if it is, so be it - I highly doubt swapping is going to cut my drive's life in half.
Last night, after 3-4 days of the MBA running (mostly hibernating but I did use it maybe 10 hours or so), I took at look at the kernel_task process and it was at around 16TB of writing. (!!)
I didn't have a ton of apps open but did have 15 tabs in an open Firefox browser. I'm thinking that was the culprit...many days of running without killing the process, when Firefox is notorious for memory leaks.
I shut it down then decided to remove the whole program since it was migrated from my old iMac. It was almost certainly running an Intel version, which meant that it was being translated by Rosetta2 before being used by the M1's ARM chipset.
I installed the Mac version but decided to also look into Microsoft Edge, which has some memory leak protections built-in (it hibernates inactive tabs, I believe). I initially looked for it at the App Store but it wasn't there. It was the same for FF for Mac - had to go to the FF page and download it, so I went to Microsoft's page, found the Mac M1 version, downloaded and installed it.
The plan is to start using Edge in place of FF so that I can take advantage of it's anti-leak properties, but still have FF on-hand in case I need it. Yeah, I can use Safari, as well, but I've grown used to FF and Safari doesn't have the anti-leak protection.
I also ensured that the other software I migrated from the iMac (GarageBand, iMovie, Pages, Keynote, Numbers, etc) was using versions native to Apple silicon. They are all running versions designed for the M1 chipset.
I then restarted the MBA so that the kernel_task writes could be watched after my changes.
So far, my kernel_task writes are low (437 MB) and I'm not swapping (I'm at 2 GB of unused RAM currently).
As well, I've researched the RAM and swap issue. Even if I start swapping, even if it was heavy swapping, the life of my SSD should last well over 10 years.
I've also thought of creating extra swap files/partitions to a 2nd SSD I have, and redirecting the swapping to those locations (if possible for the latter). I can always replace the 2nd SSD since it's not embedded into the MBA. This may be an option later on, but I'll not worry about it now.
