Magic Trackpad - page 4

We don’t run across huge numbers of computer setups online driven by M1 MacBook Air laptops. When a laptop is the main computer, it’s more often a MacBook Pro.

But a MacBook Air powered by an M1 chip is a formidable machine, whether you’re tossing it in your knapsack for work on the go or leaving it on a stand on your desk, jacked into a USB-C hub and external display.

An M1 MacBook Air drives today’s featured setup — located in Germany — which also features some interesting bits and pieces we haven’t seen elsewhere. Those are a nifty Marshall wireless speaker and a foot hammock.

You look at enough computer setups online and you realize people are never really done with them. There’s always something to add. It could be some gear got held up by shipping delays, or the setup’s owner got a sudden urge to try another type of input device or some other gadget. And people often take ages to tame the cable clutter.

So you rarely see people claiming a setup’s done for good. Or it’s the best it can be. Or it’s the proverbial “dream setup.”

But sometimes they say that. Today’s setup got called a “dream setup” by its proud owner. Would you agree?

A cool aspect of both Mac minis and the newer Mac Studio are the platform-like USB-C hubs festooned with ports and added storage capacity that third parties have designed for them to sit on. Satechi was quick out of the gate with one for the mini, but there are other such cleverly designed, space-saving hubs on the market. And many of them also fit the Studio.

Today’s featured setup boasts a powerful new Mac Studio perched on a Qwiizlab hub as it drives an LG UltraWide display, among other gear.

Recently we wrote about a PC gamer converting to the Apple ecosystem, happily, with an M1 MacBook Pro-based setup. Now we have a lucky recipient of not one but two recently shipped Studio Displays, freshly arrived to replace a pair of gaming monitors.

We love serious audio here at Setups Central. But is it possible for the audio gear in your computer setup to be too serious? For example, can your desktop speakers be too comically oversized, as if you’re making some sort of visual joke about your life being all about the music?

In today’s featured setup, a magnificent 32-inch Pro Display XDR actually manages to look puny in between two monstrously huge Yamaha powered studio monitors. And yet, believe it or not, they may not actually be too big.

Ever show off your painstakingly constructed computer setup only to have everybody race past the gear just to ogle what’s showing on the screen(s)? The desktop wallpaper.

It’s kind of like that with today’s featured setup, the brainchild of a graphic designer.

He put together the dual-monitor setup around a 13-inch M1 MacBook Pro with a lineup of nice touches. And he also made the neato race-car wallpaper that got most of the attention.

We’ve written about storing a Mac mini in an upright rather than a flat position to save space. It’s OK to do if the machine’s intake and exhaust vents are not blocked. But what about using your Mac mini as a stand for a display, as in today’s featured computer setup?

It’s not necessarily quite as cut-and-dried as the upright mini question. Whether it’s totally fine or a little risky depends a little more on the specific Mac mini and the kind of monitor you use.

Along with the new Mac Studio desktop computer and Studio Display Apple rolled out on Tuesday, it launched swanky black-and-silver peripherals — Magic Keyboard, Magic Trackpad and Magic Mouse — that go well with the new gear.

They’re similar to options you can choose if you buy a pricey new Mac Pro. But now you can purchase them separately.

Do you have to pay a bit more than you would for the normal options sold a la carte? Yes. But of course you do.

People love to put the finishing touches on their computer setups. Some love it so much they just keep doing it. Given the temptations of new gear always coming out and the never-ending allure of the glittering gadgets other people put in their fabulous setups, is the work ever really done?

Nope. For many people, setups are never really finished. People think they’re finished, like the owner of today’s featured MacBook Pro setup. But they usually aren’t.

Have you ever seen two big ol’ Apple Cinema Displays mounted vertically, in portrait mode, bookending an iMac? We didn’t think so. Or at least, it seems like a rare sight. But today’s featured setup has that nuevo-retro styling going on, big-time, and folks took notice.

After all, secondary displays in portrait mode seems to be all the rage lately, but not so much back in the glory days of Cinema Displays. Or were they?

You still rarely see a computer setup with a 3D printer in it. Today’s featured setup is an exception. You can see the printer against the wall on the left in the photo above.

Probably more workstations in the near future will have them. Why? Not only are they becoming more affordable, you can use them to make parts of the setup!

When you see a computer setup with two monitors stacked on top of each other, what do you think? Maybe something like … doesn’t the person have to crane their neck to look at the top one? Isn’t it uncomfortable? Where does the webcam go? What’s wrong with side-by-side, maybe with one in portrait (vertical) mode instead of landscape?

The person behind today’s featured setup is confronting those very questions on the way to deciding a common multi-display conundrum: to stack or not to stack? That is the question.

On Fridays it’s fun to focus on computer setups with entertaining features whenever possible. Sometimes it’s seriously vintage gear. Or it could be wacky decor. Once in a while, an exotic location pops up. Today we found one where a brand new M1 Pro MacBook meets a kooky crew of bobbleheads and other figures under a really over-the-top camera rig used as a webcam.

Gamer and 3D animator Jazinity said she’d been a Windows user for most of her life before M1 Macs caught her eye and she made a nearly wholesale switch, going from a tri-display PC gaming station to a “cozy but productive” M1 MacBook Air situation.

The refurbished Furby in the center of the photo may or may not have been in the previous computer setup, but not much else. She has another Furby at her desk at the office, though she’s working at home for the time being, like many people these days.

If Apple takes something away, people tend to want it more. We see this in the persistent coveting of space gray peripherals — Magic Trackpad, Magic Keyboard, Magic Mouse 2 — that the Cupertino tech giant stopped selling separately last year after the iMac Pro’s discontinuation.

Following the space gray iMac Pro’s launch in 2018 with matching peripherals exclusive to it, owners found they could sell the dark-hued input devices for mad money. So Apple jumped on that market, charging a slight premium over the silver versions, though not forever. But space gray gear still carries a certain cache.

It’s Christmas Eve, and all we want for the holiday is a Porsche 911. It could be a gleaming new one, with a base price of a mere $99,200. It could be super-cool vintage one. Or it could even be a Lego one like the one featured in today’s MacBook Pro and iPad Pro-driven setup.

OK, given our paltry income, who are we kidding — we’d even take a die-cast 911, like the Matchbox cars of our youth.

OK, so no 2021 award for Most Fastidious Cable Management, mentioned in this article’s headline, exists — at least not around here. But if it did, we might hand it to the person behind today’s setup.

It centers on a 2020 13-inch MacBook Pro and a 32-inch LG 4K display. And it keeps cable clutter to an extreme minimum.

If you look up “11.11” in the Slang Dictionary, it says, “If it’s 11:11, make a wish! Some people believe 11:11 is a magic number or lucky time of day, good for making a wish … or reaching cosmic enlightenment.” Well, if something’s enlightened, or at least en-whitened, it’s today’s Mac mini-based setup.

It’s all there in black and white, really, with “11.11” writ large on the dual displays — probably via the Fliqlo screensaver, though it could be a clock app — and Nintendo gaming consoles aplenty.

Some computer setups are remarkably cool for their awesome computing power. Others wow you with incredible displays, with several high-def monitors. And still others blow you away with premium sound. Or, in the case of today’s featured setup, premium audio-visual gear many people would be psyched to get their hands on.

Not long ago we wrote about a person who fashioned an ergonomically healthy computer setup with little more than an M1 Pro MacBook. At the time, their fancy new display was still to-be-delivered, so they made-do without it. Now all the screens are in place and they make a magnificent workstation, with the MacBook running with one landscape-mode display and two portrait-mode monitors. It took some special connectivity tricks to make it happen.

I wrote recently about the shameful squalor of my previous “setup” — basically a borrowed PC laptop perched on a pile of junk — and my effort to build something worthwhile around a gleaming new 14-inch M1 Pro MacBook. Well, like a lot of people in the throes of building a computer setup, I found that second-guessing haunted me into buying a whole lot of alternative gear.

You know, for testing purposes. Trial and error. Not because of my apparent shopping addiction. Or not much, anyway.

Coincidentally, our last Setups post concerned itself with proper ergonomics, and today’s sticks with the theme. On Friday we wrote about a person making a comfortable and productive workstation out of little more than a laptop. This time, someone has gone “ergo everything” on an M1 MacBook Pro rig with a big external monitor and a nice set of peripherals, furniture and accessories.

From time to time, as you work on making your computer setup all it can be, you order new equipment. And maybe it takes a long time to arrive. Perhaps “supply chain” issues intervene. And if that piece of equipment is your workstation’s visual centerpiece — the magnificent display, placed just so for graphical and ergonomic bliss — then what do you do, when you have no external monitor?

Do you hunch over your laptop until your neck and your back and everything else hurts? Not necessarily.

These days, you can find computers and monitors with pretty good speakers. Or you can set up a pair HomePod minis or some other nice little Bluetooth speakers for solid computer setup sound.

But some people aren’t happy unless they have massive audio power on the desktop, complete with perfectly positioned speaker stands for maximum balance and clarity — and all of their speakers’ impressive wattage pointed right at their face.

We see a lot of impressive computer setups in slick home offices here at Cult of Mac Setups HQ, but few of them are nicer than one we just came across. As usual, we’ll share the gear list, below, as well as some of the tricks you can emulate to improve your own home workspace.