15" Retina MacBook Pro (2014) 2.8Ghz, 512GB, 16GB

My MacBook, uploading Lightroom images My MacBook, uploading Lightroom images.

This is my workhorse. I take it to work with me every Monday where it sits in my office all week until I bring it home with me on Friday afternoons. I think about upgrading this every iteration of the 15" MacBook Pro, though I’ve held off so far. Every time I use this, everything about a laptop feels like an old piece of tech that’s only going to become more of a niche market in the next few years.

I use this mainly for work, Lightroom and games. It really irks me how several games come out on steam months or years before an iPad version comes out, so I’m stuck with using this and Steam to play a bunch of fun indie games.

A majority of my day job is iOS development so having a Mac makes the most sense for me. I use quite a bit of the Mac ecosystem, and most of the apps I use don’t have any decent Windows versions either. Having the Mac also lets me run Windows in Parallels, mainly just for project planning in Microsoft Project — until we find a better solution.

For photo editing, Lightroom on the desktop currently is The Best. The ideal solution would be wirelessly importing photos from my camera straight to a much fuller featured version of Lightroom mobile, with enough fast mobile bandwidth to sync and store these on the internet somewhere. Until something like that exists, I need the desktop version of Lightroom to import photos, sync them to the mobile version and back them up.

My current work setup involves a charger, a Belkin laptop stand, an Apple Magic Keyboard, one of the older Apple Trackpads and my trusty Audio Technica ATH-A900X headphones. After almost two and a half years, I’m at only 122 cycles on my battery. That’s just how much I use this as just a work-only laptop and how little I use this as a mobile device.

For my next machine, I’m seriously considering the new 13" MacBook Pro w/TouchBar, or the 12" MacBook. These both have a much smaller footprint, and plenty of power for what I use it for.

Screenshot of my desktop Desktop and dog.

Yep, my dock and menu bar automatically hide. Less is more.

Apps

  • Lightroom

    The definitive app for photo editing. Handles thousands of huge RAW files with non-destructive editing. Backed up libraries to multiple external drives at home and in the office.

  • xScope

    This is one of those small, indispensable apps for work that I use for picking colors from mocks, measuring UI and double checking alignment.

  • Audio Hijack

    Used to fix the slightly weak bass on the ATH-AD700 headphones. Really makes them shine.

  • Sublime Text 3

    The definitive text editor. I keep my daily work journal open in a window every day as a scratchpad for notes, time tracking and code snippets. Handles Markdown like a champ so if I’m in front of my Mac I’ll use this for blog posts.

Accessories

  • Audio Technica ATH-A900X headphones (work)

    Closed headphones to stop everyone in my office hearing my trumpets.

  • Audio Technica ATH-AD700 headphones (home)

    Open headphones. Incredible soundstage. Slightly weak bass that I fix with Audio Hijack’s system-wide audio processing.

  • Apple Magic Keyboard

    The best keyboard I’ve found, nothing really exceptional about it.

  • Apple Trackpad

    Nothing really interesting about this trackpad. I should upgrade to one of the new magic trackpads one day.

  • Logitech G602 mouse

    Two things I really like about this mouse: it runs on two rechargeable AA batteries and they last about six months, and it has very reliable tracking, thanks to the USB dongle.