What Apple did to the Mac mini in 2014 is just horrid. My 2012 quadcore is still going strong but it's eating fans for breakfast, I'm on it's third right now.

I really hope all of this horrible circumstance will ease off as soon as possible and you'll be able to play gigs again.

The Ryzen 4750U Pro in my Thinkpad is FLYING. Really, it's beyond the performance of my 6-core Intel Desktop running within a 65 Watts TDP envelope, whereas the Ryzen in the Thinkpad is a 25 Watt processor, only running at around 18 Watts. Still it's faster by quite a bit.

I think Intel just didn't hear the bang, so to speak. Buying an expensive Mac now with Intel processor just before they're switching to their own silicone seems not like a good investment to me.

And yes, I also prefer the "buy once, own forever" approach to software. That's why I use and enjoy LibreOffice over Office 365 and the Affinity Software (Publisher, Design and Photo) over Adobe's offerings more and more. As soon as I can (I'm a graphics designer after all...) I'll cancel my sub for good.

Just now as I am setting up my ThinkPad I've once again realized that a finalized Windows 10 machine is quite nice, but getting it there is a true pain. Ease-of-use is still where macOS excels above everything else.

Hope Apple gets their act together. Things don't get any simplier with my decline in interest in tech. Smartphones can't wow me anymore and wouldn't it be for the barebone-minimalism aesthetics of ThinkPads that kinda resonate with me, I'd really be out of ideas what computers to buy.