chelgrian said:

The people who consider the Mac Pro a massive fumble are not the target market and do not understand why the machine exists at all. Apple was never going to make a direct replacement for the x86 Mac Pro.

The current Mac Pro exists only to host Avid HDX cards for ProTools and to host 8K video acquisition cards from AJA or Blackmagic Design.

The instant that neither of those applications need an internal PCI-E slot then the Mac Pro goes away for good.

dewme said:

VictorMortimer said:

jcc said:

iCloud mostly replaces TimeCapule. Put everything you want backed up in your documents folder and turn iCloud on.

 ICLOUD IS NOT A BACKUP

DO NOT DO THIS

iCloud is fine for syncing things between Macs (assuming you've turned on Advanced Data Protection) but at some point if you're treating it as a backup you WILL lose data.  Whether it's an iCloud glitch or you accidentally deleting or overwriting a file you needed, when you screw up on one computer it's now gone on all of them if you don't have an actual backup solution.

I did once manage to save a user who thought iCloud was a backup.  They'd trashed a file on their iMac, and hadn't opened their MacBook yet.  I pulled the bottom case and removed the WiFi board, then booted the MacBook and backed it up, put the WiFi board back in, and restored the file.  It was an expensive mistake, and if they'd opened the MacBook the file would have been gone permanently.

Absolutely correct. But Apple could (how easily?) develop a "Time Machine in the Cloud" that implements an entirely different storage & retrieval model than what iCloud+ file synchronization uses. It would be an independent protocol but still utilize the same paid storage quota from the user's allocation. This would put most of the work on Apple's server side to keep the two streams independent. Maybe they provide some sort of partitioning tool where iCloud+ users can designate how much of their paid storage allocation is used for file synchronization versus a backup repository. They could implement a simple AI agent that manages your storage pool automatically based on your actual usage patterns and lets you know (prediction) if you are at risk of approaching your limit and need to consider buying more storage.

As you mentioned, iCloud+ is not a backup system, which raises some eyebrows when it comes to the higher end of the storage options available via iCloud+ subscriptions. I was getting close to the 200 GB limit and upgraded to the next tier, which is 2 TB. I will probably never need anywhere near 2 TB of file synchronization storage so I have a ton of unused allocation just sitting there. Why not use it as another tier in my backup strategy via a "Time Machine in the Cloud" or third part connector? I have a hard time imagining too many individuals who need 12 TB of file synchronization storage. Professional photographers and video photographers I suppose, but individual users who want a reliable backup, or a secondary off-premises backup, why not provide a way to use some of their excess iCloud+ allocation for another layer of safety net?

foregoneconclusion said:

fred1 said:

Why isn’t the battery health feature on iPads too? I think they have batteries . . . 🤔

Larger lithium-ion batteries don't have the same limitations as phone sized.