Considering a switch to Mac OS - what is the workflow like?

Thanks. I’ll be strongly considering the 16GB version if I go this route, to give the thing a hopefully longer useful lifespan.

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There’s no practical opt-out any more. Windows does the same thing. Android (let’s not go there). Maybe one is still safe with a Linux box, if you stay off the internet with it.

Defeatism is a pretty poor code by which to live. Mac OS 10.14 using scripts to shut down unnecessary launch daemons, without iCloud and with Little Snitch set to fairly strict preferences and avoiding Apple’s own applications is still viable in leaking a minimum amount of information.

But certainly, there’s a lot of Linux in my near future, despite more than twenty years on MacOS and then OS X.

I have a M1 Mac Mini with 8Gb memory. PL4 runs smoothly on it most of the time, but I do find I need to close it down every half a day or so as it starts to ‘bog down’. Upon restart it runs fine again. I suspect this is memory related, but I have no actual hard evidence to offer to back this up.

With hindsight, I wish I’d got 16Gb installed though as I think it would help a lot with the performance of the machine when I have PL4, Photo Mecahnic, Firefox, Mail, Spotify and Excel all open at the same time. I now find I close all but PL4 and Spotify when editing images.

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The recommendations I give to prospective buyers (with limited funds) are these:

  • Establish the requirements first:
    What do I want to do instead of what do I want to have - and read reviews
  • Spend money for more RAM rather than for a more expensive CPU (on Intel Macs)
  • Do not pinch your pennies when you buy a Mac that is not user-upgradeable.
    This may be hard at times, but it pays with an extended usage period without having to
    add kludges because you’ve run out of drive space…

I’ve had five Macs between 1991 and 2019. I’m on iMac #5 (first Mac was an LC) since autumn 2019.
I also got me a M1 MacBook Air for X-mas. I don’t really need it but it comes in handy at times.

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My Mac workflow differs from your proposal in the following:

  1. Copy RAW files to hard drive.
  2. Delete images, apply keywords, geolocation, ratings etc. in Photo Mechanics for the remaining ones.
  3. Pick and develop RAW files in PL4.
  4. Send a copy of the developed image to Apple Photo.

While developing images I stay independent from Apple’s Photo app. For having images by hand I have the essence of my favourite ones available in the Apple Photostream and on all synced Apple devices.

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I struggle pretty badly but I think that has a lot more to do with my overall ineptitude with things regarding stuff like this … I finally have it down to at least somewhat of a fluid workflow … I often worry though that there are things that I don’t know that I don’t know … Like I could be missing out on a step, method, ect that is not compromising the full potential… I hope it’s going well for you

That’s a good use of Apple Photos as long as one is not using iCloud. With iCloud, Apple is up front that they share all the data on iCloud with NSA, FBI, CIA. Until recently Apple claimed not to examine the data not on iCloud. Now in the States (and really everywhere, I don’t believe they won’t push the spyware onto European phones), Apple promises to monitor what you store everywhere in iOS 15. No more iPhones for our family.

Welcome to Neanderthal!

If Apple (or anybody else) has compromised privacy without informing users (and who reads the conditions anyway), we’ll see the EU in court again…

What a primitive and naive thing to say, platypus. Go and read the link. If you are comfortable with full body scans and chip implants, enjoy. It’s not for me or my family. The EU fines on Apple and the other tech giants are generally laughable. The only real one was when Apple was asked to pay back taxes for their Irish tax scam. After profiteering and not paying taxes based on a secret (since when are corporations allowed secret deals with sovereign nations) Tim Cook dismissed EU complaints as “Total political crap”. As far as I know Apple still hasn’t paid those back taxes. At the same time EU companies like my own and DxO must pay Apple’s share of the EU tax burden.

We’ll be fine without iPhones. There are three solid alternative choices right now for de-Googled Android:

  1. LineageOS (adequate support across a wide range of phones)
  2. /e/ OS (very good support across select Samsung phones, not latest models)
  3. Huawei HarmonyOS phones (latest and best photo models)

I’ve already owned one of the Huawei phones with de-Googled Android (gave it to someone in the family who is still happily using it). Huawei tries to tie you into their own services and it’s a bit of headache to opt-out, hence I’ll probably go with LineageOS or /e/ OS.

Yes, it’s a pity. On the other hand, to just sit here and boil like a frog in ever warmer water. Well, that’s okay if you’re a frog, or, it seems a platypus.

The connected world has gotten cheaper over the years and providers (of network services, hardware, apps etc.) compensate some of this through bigger sales, ads - and dealing in data.

Whoever is unwilling to leave a data trail behind, has to get off the net. Replacing an OS can probably change how much and what data one leaves behind. This will not guarantee that one gets end-to-end protection though, because there is always one end that is completely out of one’s own control…

Who is talking about “being on the net”? We are talking about a computer working on third party applications, we are talking about data local to the phone. Of course, whatever one posts online is at risk of being hacked. Avoiding leave an ID and a trail behind when browsing the internet is relatively easy. One simple hack is to only have one browser in which one logs into services from Google, Facebook, Apple, etc. Since the cookies are only set in this web browser which is used for most persistent and sneakiest of the tracking companies then neither Facebook nor Google for instance get one’s full browsing history.

Your comment is 1. moving the goalposts 2. simplistic defeatism.

We the people can easily defeat companies like Apple and/or Adobe. We just have to stop buying their products until they reform. And conversely, support companies who do respect our privacy and our rights for instance to perpetual licenses (like DxO for instance who unlike Adobe is neither excessively nosy nor requires subscription).

Having listened to a LOT of discussion on this topic, I wouldn’t use it as a reason to quit the iPhone now. The whole hoopla in the press is 99% misunderstanding what they announced - partly because they stuffed up the PR.

Unless you’re keeping known CSAM images in your Photos database and using iCloud Photos then there is nothing to concern yourself about. The identification of CSAM images is done via cryptographic hashes, not by “looking at” the photos.

If you’re worried about them looking at your photos, then you should have bailed years ago when they started (after Google did) using ML to ‘categorise’ (badly) your dog, cat, horse, mountain photos.

With that out of the way…

I did not realise that my Lightroom keywords, written into the DNG files, would show up in Spotlight!! Just tested it and woohoo!

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Now isn’t that a cool thing to do – to characterise people who value privacy as worried about child pornography on their devices? That’s exactly the point of this rollout zkarj with exactly those trigger words you either have memorised or are regurgitating. You for some reason emphasised the word and in your sentence. It should be or. Many of us reluctantly accepted that iCloud is non-private and, though it is a great inconvenience, turn off iCloud across all our devices and computers. Nor do we allow ML identification of faces. The whole point is that new monitoring software is no longer tied to iCloud but will monitor data local to your device.

Once Apple puts full time monitoring software into your device, does anyone really think Apple or any other large US tech firm will not start monitoring for dozens of other interesting signals – where you go, with whom you associate, etc. It’s clear Facebook are already doing this and have been from the beginning. That’s why one should not install a dedicated Facebook app and only use Facebook via a browser. Any information shared on Facebook should be something you’d be happy to see published in your local newspaper. Any regular conversation should be taken to another private channel.

But Apple is not a social network provider. Apple is a hardware manufacturer who claims to care about privacy. Apple crossing the line with full-time spyware installed by default with n possibility to disable or remove is very important news and is a game changer for tech privacy.

Apple started to feel the backlash from the latest policy and are back-paddling. It’s temporary though to prevent people from cratering iPhone sales right now. This is a temporary appeasement. Rolling out these intrusive mass surveillance tools will just come a couple of months later and with no announcement. Caught red-handed later Apple will say, “Hey we already told you. What about the withdrawal of the policy? Oh, it wasn’t a withdrawal, we were pretty clear it was just a temporary delay while we tuned the software for additional safety.” And of course it will be exactly the software then that it is now.

Those who know about these issues and are going along with losing their privacy are either intellectually inadequate (a genuine issue: with an educational level which makes them incapable of knowing any better) or are in cahoots with the security organs. Every major journalist in the MSM at this point is CIA-approved and most are CIA collaborators. The level of surveillance we are looking at exceeds the KGB of Stalin’s Russia (following people around and taking personal testimony required huge manpower) and Gestapo of the Third Reich.

To believe this power will not be used for great evil is to ignore history. It is our duty as citizens and to each other to say no to mass surveillance. There is no magic wand to solve these issues. It’s one small step at a time. No more iPhones, no Android and learning Linux are a relatively small price for the right to privacy.

Yet another underhand rhetorical trope exploited by the worst sort of mafioso, malicious executive, blackmail artist and date-rapist:

if you wanted to say no, you should have said no before. Because you said yes or maybe once, you can’t say no, now. You’re already in. It’s too late to say no.

Wow! OK, you and I believe different things. I’m sorry you feel that way.

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uncoy, I don’t want to dive into your tirades, but believing Huawei isn’t phoning home to China from time to time might end in sort of an error on your side. It’s not Apple alone (although they started to make a smartphone an essential “must have” of today’s generations) and no one is – as far as I’m aware of – forced to use an iPhone or even a smartphone. Me, being sceptical about phones smarter than I can handle, am just using an old Nokia-dumbphone (steam-punk, I know…) if I have to carry a communication opportunity with me. Most of the time it’s not moving away from it’s nest.

Back in the day, when I started with Apple and Steve was amongst the living, things were pretty cool on Mac OS. At least compared to Windows NT, '95, XP or whatever names they gave their virus magnets. These days the differences are more minor, Windows copied more features from Mac OS and the devs are happily producing “issue after issue”.

I’m glad not to only live in a smartphone free household, but also being able to take pictures with my 135 film cameras. Sometimes I need to insert a film just to clear my head being filled with computer problems no one ever asked for. :woozy_face:

Well looks like you’re in with both feet. I agree Steve didn’t put up with government intruding on Apple users’ data without a warrant. Not an easy guy to intimidate or bulldozer. RIP.

believing Huawei isn’t phoning home to China from time to time might end in sort of an error on your side.

The point is I don’t care if Huawei phones home to China. No Chinese government official will be taking notes on my life to blackmail me or shut down my business or entrap me. The Chinese could care less what foreigners do in foreign lands as long as it is not China-hostile. The same cannot be said of the CIA who were planning to kidnap Edward Snowden and assassinate Julian Assange. Those are just the headline stories. The same US/Five Eyes crowd are regularly blackmailing European politicians and businessmen with information obtained through largely run of the mill regular surveillance.

Bravo to you for being smartphone free! I was smartphone free for three years (2014-2018) but for work reasons I had to at least partially embrace the mobile world as we build web software. Mobile first had become a big part of web software so I didn’t have much choice if I wanted to remain qualified to do my work. I was happier when I didn’t have the smartphone.

Far more annoyingly (I could change my work), I’d have to stop any online banking or even shopping if I didn’t have a smartphone. Banks in Europe now require users to run smartphone apps to access their accounts or authorise transactions. Trying to bank in person now predicates €3 or €5 fees for simple withdrawals and payments.

If one is forced to have a smartphone, there’s small things one can still do. Don’t install invasive apps like Facebook or Instagram (browser version is okay if you clear cookies regularly or use a dedicated browser and don’t keep it open). Leave the smart devices in another part of the house when very serious conversations, either personal or financial, must take place.

We can all help by giving as little money or attention as possible to privacy invasive companies and on the contrary directing our $/€ to companies who do respect their users. DxO is mostly on the side of the good guys, though no doubt internally there are those who advocate just “doing what everyone else is doing”, i.e. mercilessly spying on users and their data.

Try to mess with Chinese government the same way the American government thinks of those two gentlemen you mentioned and you will soon learn a different treatment. And Chinese government is able to monitor all of “their” citizens to the point that police-officers carry cameras and computers connected to face-detection services. you can get arrested for not paying a parking ticket while you’re waiting for a train.
Just because you don’t know or don’t read about behaviours of other governments doesn’t make them better in any way.

We all have a choice. I just have to accept that living outside FB, Instagram, Whatsapp and the whole internet platforms will make communications with some “friends” rather silent. Some former friends, that is. In a way like cutting the landline wires and welding the letter box flap. But you know, my real friends don’t need to waste my time by sending a constant stream of important informations like “this cappuccino is out of this world”. I’m not addicted to blurb. I’m not happier with continuously ongoing yadda-yadda.

mess with Chinese government

The Chinese government is not concerned with me and I’m not concerned with them. Hence my privacy is safer with China. If I were a Taiwanese activist, I’d prefer to be on US tech as well. Still on a technical level, it’s likely that Chinese tech companies do respect privacy more though as they know the CIA mouthpieces in the US MSM are actively looking for excuses to badmouth Huawei and ban Chinese companies from as many markets as possible.

You have not registered what I said at all. I don’t have an iPhone/modern mobile phone because I like having a phone or put much value on modern social media culture. I have one because my company is the publisher of web software (video) and if I don’t stay up to date on mobile interface and mobile design conventions, I can’t do my job properly. Shutting down my company because I don’t like Facebook or Instagram would be an overreaction, I hope you agree.

Moreover, it’s important that there are privacy and independent software developers like Foliovision who work to provide tools which allow small and medium sized publishers share their message independently of US platforms who over the last two years have shown a terrifying tendency to censor and de-platform any publisher in conflict with the prevailing US government’s narrative.

Since I must have a smartphone, I manage to take good advantage of my iPhone for off-the-cuff photos, shoot stabilised HDR videos and listen to audiobooks. I strive to avoid office work (outside of testing) and active social media on the damn thing. Most notifications are off to avoid having it take over my life.

I like what you are doing and would do it too (and did it for three years happily) but my current work does not allow me to skip mobile culture.

Getting back to the original theme of this thread: what is the Apple workflow like? Pretty good is the answer.

The danger with Apple is the message that Apple respects your privacy (Apple don’t really, they just bombard us with fewer ads and don’t let third parties abuse our privacy) and the easy-to-use Apple interface and ecosystem. The independent third party apps and utilities like iAWriter, BBEdit, Mailmate, Acorn, LilyView, Better Finder Rename, MarsEdit, Witch, Typinator, Keyboard Maestro to name just a few are the world’s best designed and easiest to use (the only reason Photolab is not on this list as it’s cross-platform). It’s very easy to be conditioned to be unable to use anything else.