How we work: Malcolm Owen's sprawling setup

Malcolm's workspace has handled his work, gaming, and photography lives for years. Here's how he spends his days working and most of his time off.

After working from home for a decade, and spending spare time on computers for far longer, you'd expect a person in that situation to have perfected their computing setup. In my case, it's not perfect, but it's more than capable of handling whatever I want to do.

This is a setup primarily for working from home, rather than for portability. It's also one that has been constructed with budget being a major factor, and so changes have been very gradual over the years.

You'll probably recognize a lot of stuff from the last time AppleInsider's editorial team pulled back the curtain. The location has changed multiple times within the same house, but the setup is largely static.

The entire arrangement is on a Flexispot standing desk frame bought a few years ago, that has a leftover kitchen worktop placed on top of it. This was both a good and bad idea, because it's durable but a pain to drag upstairs.

Since it's a standing desk, a lot of cable management has been performed, with many setup elements also attached to the underside. This has included a Raspberry Pi and a network switch in the past, but largely it's now power extension cables and other wiring.

The main setup itself is almost identical to the two-year-ago version of this article, with an M1 Mac mini at its core and a 1TB SanDisk Extreme SSD for extra storage capacity. However, while this is not true for most, given what I do here, the Mac's starting to show its age, and an upgrade to a newer Mac mini is becoming more attractive. Maybe a 2025 project.

Software I use regularly on the Mac includes Pixelmator Pro for image editing, Adobe's Creative Cloud Suite, Chrome with way too many tabs, and LibreOffice. That last one doesn't seem unusual, but since I'm in the UK, it's set up to be the only writing tool on my Mac that works in American English for this role.

Other notable software I use includes Notion for ideas and task management, and Microsoft Remote Desktop for connecting to other machines in this house.

The keyboard and mouse of Malcolm's workspace

The displays still consist of the 31.5-inch 4K BenQ screen as well as a 1080p AOC version that is positioned vertically and with an extra desk lamp attached to it. This second one serves a few purposes, including displaying communication apps like Slack or Discord, or for reading documents without necessarily scrolling.

The keyboard is a Keychron Q8, a mechanical keyboard with the Alice layout to help save my wrists. It's a considerable step up from the ancient chicklet-style Logitech keyboard, but a much-needed one given that my work and my relaxation time are based around typing.

The mouse is a Logitech G402 that has been disassembled for cleaning so many times that the stickers on the base are having trouble adhering and staying in place. I really should be considering a mouse upgrade at some point.

A recent addition to the setup is the Epomaker EK21 number pad, since it's really helpful to have one for things like using Blender. I have half a mind to turn it into a macropad, since Streamdecks continue to be very expensive.

iPads and other desk dwellers

The desk also has an iPad Pro on either side. The left 9.7-inch iPad Pro is used for timing and music playback control, and as a timer for writing articles.

The other, the 11-inch iPad Pro with M2, is equipped with the Apple Pencil Gen 2 and a Magic Keyboard. Though I chiefly stay at the desk for work, this is used for those rare occasions when I need to be somewhere else.

Behind the keyboard is a well-hidden rat's nest of cabling, including a cheap switching USB hub acting as a partial KVM. There's a metal phone stand for my iPhone 15 Pro Max, with a Belkin MagSafe charger stuck in place with masking tape to facilitate charging.

I also still have my iPhone XR, which is in a Smallrig smartphone mount on a tripod. It's helpful to have, since it allows me to occasionally check differences in Apple's developer betas between Apple Intelligence versions and those without.

Malcolm's 9.7-inch iPad Pro is still being used today

A SanDisk memory card reader, an Anker USB hub, wallet, Beats Solo Buds, a half-dead iPod touch, and two decks of playing cards sit on the monitor shelf.

To the left of the desk is a Canon EOS RP on a tall desk mount, which can be used when I need to look smarter on camera than the webcam. Since I've been using Continuity Camera for similar purposes, I may change this setup at some point so I can use the camera as a camera again.

Both sides have a ton of books, with the right-hand side also holding a HomePod mini for audio, networking equipment, and a lamp to illuminate the wall behind the displays. It's to help eyestrain, a problem that many desk jockeys will deal with in time.

Aside from the Mac mini speaker and the HomePod mini, I also rely on a few personal audio accessories. The Beats Solo Buds are for out-of-house audio needs, while I have a set of OneOdio noise-cancelling headphones, Beats Solo 4, and a Razer BlackShark V2 for gaming purposes.

Audio recording duties are handled by the Rode Wireless Go II, a pair of wireless microphones that work very well, albeit overkill for my needs.

The extended desk and outside of work

There's a lot more surrounding the main workspace, with it largely consisting of items used beyond my writing work.

Above the monitors is a row of whiteboards, used to write to-do lists and to generally work through ideas in my head. This is mostly used for non-work tasks, including trying to learn how to use Blender and the Unreal engine, including game feature ideas.

Being able to draw out how a game mechanic works using some markers and a whiteboard makes it easier to fine-tune the idea before messing with Unreal's blueprints system.

The other iPad Pro. Just below is a Meta Quest 2 and a gaming PC.

Mounted below the desk is a gaming PC, which is unsurprisingly chiefly used for gaming. My Steam library has breached 1,337 games thanks to Humble Bundle's subscription, which I really should start working through and streaming on Twitch at some point.

With photography also being a passion, the PC and the Mac mini are used for photo editing in Lightroom, though sometimes that spills over to an iPad Pro.

There's also a Meta Quest 2, which works with the Mac using a remote desktop tool, and as a VR headset for the PC when connected using a very long USB-C cable.

A secondary desk is to my right, which is used as overflow from the main one. It's currently got a lot of hardware being recharged, as well as a heat press for transferring prints to clothing, which really should be in storage by now.

The last and really most important purchase for this office is the Noblechairs Hero, a very sturdy gaming chair for my bulky mass. It may have been expensive for a gaming chair, but it's held up very well over the years and floor moves.

If you spend your time sat at a desk all day, you need to get a decent chair. Your back and your posterior will thank you for it.

Future additions

While the setup is already pretty good, there are always places that can be improved. As alluded to above, the Mac mini could be updated to an M4 version, but there are other paths forward as well.

For example, why get another Mac mini when I could instead use a MacBook Pro, and have a truly portable Mac workspace. With the right Thunderbolt dock, it could become a single-cable setup to switch from desk to portable setups.

The mouse is also probably in line for an upgrade. I've been quite partial to Razer mice in the past, but I think the bank balance will play more of a factor in selecting what I get next.

A Streamdeck or something similar may also be a good expansion point, if only to provide more macro-based automation. The Logitech MX Creative Console or Loupedeck seem like they could be a smart addition, too.

My old Blue Snowball microphone died in the last year, but while I can record using my wireless video mics, I do want to have a desk-bound microphone once again. A better webcam wouldn't go amiss either.

Lastly, an upgrade of networking infrastructure would be nice. I pay for a 2Gbps Internet connection, but all the home networking is gigabit, though I have laid it out so that the office gets its own private gigabit slice while the rest of the house gets the other half.

Going to 2.5Gbps Ethernet would at least allow us to use the entire available bandwidth on one device, but that would mean upgrading switches, cables, and ports to hardware.

At this point, having a NAS wouldn't be a bad idea either.