I'm writing this to clear my thoughts regarding buying the Mac Studio. I don't know why I'm starting with a list of Macs, it just felt right.

So here it is, all the Macs I've bought over the years and what they are/were used for.

2012 Mac Mini i7 Quad Core 16GB RAM

My first Mac. Came out around my birthday so I considered it a present to myself. Upgraded the RAM, swapped out the HDD for a larger one and added a 2nd SSD myself.

This was back when I ran my own design agency so this was mainly used for Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator work. Then I moved into making and selling Wordpress themes on Themeforest, via that learning PHP and MySQL.

Till this day, I run multiple Docker containers in this and it's perfectly fine doing that as well as being my media centre. The SD card slot is borked but I don't really use that anyway. Amazing little beast.

2014? MacBook Air 11"

Bought mid 2015 when I moved back from Singapore to Osaka for a 6 month sabbatical. Spent a large amount of my time randomly touring and hiking so I wanted a small, lightweight laptop to code on the go. Loved the lightness, hated the battery life. Got maybe 4 hours out of it if lucky.

I switched to doing front end dev, so mostly Javascript and Typescript. Some Scala. Also Vagrant and Docker.

I actually didn't use this very much as my then employer issued me a 15" Mac Book Pro and my bad back couldn't handle two laptops. The 15" alone was painful enough.

Disposed when moving. I actually regret that because it would have been an awesome display piece.

2017 retina MacBook, m3, 256GB SSD, 16GB RAM

Bought after I quit my job to go freelance. More screen estate, slightly better battery life. Wanted something more powerful than my MBA and not as heavy as the MBPs because of my bad back. But really it was the new shiny.

Mostly used for Javascript. Picked up Node.js to go full stack and for building my own products. Battery didn't last very long with Docker running.

Was on the road often so it was heavily used even at home. I still use it a lot now but it's honestly starting to show its age. Battery lasts less than an hour when making video calls.

I will be replacing this with the M2 MacBook Air.

Now that I think about it, I never did benchmark it against the old 11".

2018 Mac Mini, 6 core i7, 512GB SSD, 64GB RAM

The 2012 Mini served me well, still surprisingly nimble even with multiple Docker containers running. Still, I bought this as way to motivate myself to get serious about building my own product and pick up some Go. That did not happen because $EXCUSES.

It is currently my main machine and is mostly used for front end development. Some light Docker usage and Windows VMs for cross browser testing.

Sometimes, Docker does something weird, the fans spin up and everything slows to a crawl. Otherwise, it is still perfectly fine for my needs.

It never actually served its purpose; motivation to finish developing Millefeuille (more about this in future).

I understand my hesitation now.

• the 2012 Mini still runs perfectly fine as media centre / home lab.
• the 2017 MacBook will be replaced by the M2 MBA.
• the 2018 Mini is under utilised but still works perfectly fine and will likely last another 5 years or more.

I have no good reason to get the Mac Studio.

I want it because it is the new shiny; I do not need it.

Conclusion

I don't have one.

Yes, I am hesitant. The Mac Studio is quite a bit of money afterall. At the same time, I don't really have a problem with buying a new, shiny toy.

Maybe, rather than buying the Mac Studio to use as a motivator (that didn't work the last time), I should get it as a reward for launching Millefeuille.

I actually want a new monitor more than I want the Mac Studio because this Philips 328P 4K monitor I'm using is shit. I can't believe I've kept it for so long because it actually makes me less productive.