2018 MacBook Pro Update, Mobile Backup, and Ps on iPad

Jeff Harmon hosts with Brent Bergherm at the round table to discuss an update to the mid-2018 MacBook Pro in the week since the last episode, a mobile backup solution Brent is happy with, and full-fledged Photoshop coming to the iPad in 2019
Topic 1: 2018 MacBook Pro Update

Jeff:

In the previous episode we went over Apple’s refresh of the mid-2018 MacBook Pro, offered suggestions on where photographers who are buying the new model should spend their money and where they shouldn’t.
As we predicted, we had a lot of feedback from our incredible community who love their Macs.  They very much disagreed with some of the things that were said, which is great. So glad we have an audience engaged enough to tell us when they disagree with something.
I needed to have an item on here to update things because Apple changed something significant and I wanted to make sure we covered that, but first Brent, did you want to take a moment and clarify your position on the refresh of the MacBook lineup as a Mac enthusiast?


Brent:

Yes, I just wanted to reiterate or maybe clarify my remarks. I will probably always be a mac user. The specific question about this machine was “will we update” and at this time, no. I won’t I just bought one about seven months ago. If my computer was needing an update I’d definitely do it. But, I wouldn’t see the value in the i9 processor nor the 4TB or storage. I just don’t need that and it would be too much. But also, while I often complain about Apple’s RAM prices, in this computer, $400 more to add another 16GB isn’t all that bad, it’s still more than it should be, but it’s way better than the $600 that was required to take the previous generation computers to 16GB which is half what this machine will do now. So things are moving in the right direction.

And as a tangent here, Black Magic has released a GPU which for video editors would be great. You can effectively add to the power of your MBP and do great video. It’s also a hub for connecting all sorts of devices. My only wish is that it were in a nice high quality display. LG makes some good thunderbolt type displays now that are 5K resolution, add GPU into that and I’d get very interested since I’m starting to increase the amount of video I do.


Jeff:

I also need to add that even though I think the prices are inflated some over some Windows options, I didn’t make it very clear in the last episode that if you really think you absolutely must have a laptop for your photo editing needs then I do recommend the MacBook Pro over Windows options.  We won’t go into the details here but I am pretty convinced that costs and lack of user upgradeability aside, Apple makes the highest quality laptops available for photo editing. Now I am going to get the Windows people mad at me? (yes, you are 😉
OK, so the thing that changed now, the thing I needed to make sure we talked about here in the update is a change in my recommendation.  In the last episode I recommended AGAINST getting the very highest CPU option offered in the 15” MacBook Pro. They have an option that has never been there before in a Core i9 processor and I said that I recommend photographers do NOT upgrade their 2018 MacBook Pro to that processor when they buy one.  Seems a little strange when the clock speed of the processor has so much to do with making Lightroom perform well in particular for me to recommend going with a slower clocked Core i7 processor.
Well, the problem with that was that when the 2018 MacBook Pro with that beefy Core i9 processor was tested, it was discovered that you couldn’t actually run the processor at full strength for long periods of time because it was being slowed down due to heat issues.  At the time I was guessing that the issue had to do with the body of the MacBook not changing in this refresh and there simply wasn’t enough cooling to make it ...