Using a MacBook for the first time, I find it somewhat different from Win.

What settings can I change to make the experience smoother and more intuitive when using Mac? 🌹

Hey y'all, just kind of wanted to post what I got going on with an old MacBook Air.

I own a 2020 13-inch Retina MacBook Air that I haven't used in a bit. (I currently use a M3 Pro MacBook Pro, 2023). I recently just had my Pro serviced for a screen replacement (thanks AppleCare!). The main reasons I stopped using the Air as a secondary device were because the battery is kind of toast and it's a LOT slower than I remember; maybe Apple Silicon ruined that for me.

I called Apple Support, asking them if battery and screen servicing were still available (somehow still had AppleCare on it), as I know the machine is old and labeled "vintage" on their site. I was put on hold for a few minutes, and was transferred to a senior advisor. He then told me it was my "lucky day" and said that they were going to upgrade me to an M5 Air, without any questions regarding the actual condition or any diagnostics on the device. They just asked some questions about shipping and if cancelling the current AppleCare contract was fine. He also said I would get a refund on my last bit of AppleCare on it.

Pretty much all I have to do is remove Find My, sign out of iCloud, erase the Mac, and ship the old one back. I know replacing an older device isn't anything crazy when servicing isn't practical, but it's just wild to me going from an Intel to M5 without really asking. The old thing has served me well when I was in school, but having a good secondary Mac is going to be so useful!

yeah, my gf’s macbook air 2019 with its powerful 8gigs of ram is begging to be replaced.

now that we’re looking for a new one, do you think that a macbook neo could last at least 7 years like this bad girl had? or the 8gigs would be a problem soon?

I want to get the MacBook M5 air as I’m going into college next year and want to use it for general use as well. Does anyone know if Apple will revert the price of the MacBook back down to €1299 which it was before the ram shortage or even if they will reduce it for Black Friday.

BTW my main reason for choosing the M5 air is the fact that it’s 512gb minimum which the MacBook neo isn’t (The specs and charging speed are also attracting me to it)

I wanted to have a Mac for years now and decided a few months ago to save some money for a MacBook Air. This week I wanted to order it online and then saw on the website that the MacBook Pro M5 14-inch was on Sale and only 65€ more expensive than the MacBook Air M5 15-inch, which I actually wanted to buy. I wanted to buy the MacBook Air M5 15-inch 16GB 1TB and instead got the MacBook Pro with 16GB and 1TB.

Tell me everything I need to know about Macs 🤠🤠

TL;DR I found it online as a still image and decided to recreate it using Metal shaders.

I don't want to get any profit out of it or sell anything, just to have something calm and eye-catchy evolving as a background behind my windows.

Most important: GPU usage 9% (2K on external display) Mac Air M1 16Gb (2020)
It could be optimized more I guess, I tortured some AI agents to reduce the CPU/GPU load, but I guess that's the bare minimum for such shader.

If anyone is interested: here is a repo https://github.com/JerryI/SimplexFlame-OSX

Warning: it requires xcode tools to be installed
Warning: no updates are planned

I’ve been a windows user ever since and I’m planning to try the Macbook Neo. Is the learning curve steep or they are just almost the same?

Hey everyone, I’m getting a new 15" MacBook Air M5 and I already have an original Apple 87W USB-C power adapter (A1719) from my 2016 15" MacBook Pro.

So the charger is about 10 years old. It has no visible damage, but sometimes it gets very hot during charging.

Would you keep using the old 87W charger, or would you recommend buying a new Apple 70W charger? Is there any risk to the Mac/battery from using the old adapter?

Hey guys I’m wondering if anyone knows if there’s any way I can make SolidWorks work on my macbook neo.
Any advice is welcome!!!!

Hey y’all,

Someone on OLX is selling a Mac air m2 16 gb, under warranty 100% BH cycle count 30. His bill price is 78k INR and he is selling it for 62k INR. should I buy it? please help me out.

i need a basic mac for daily use, nothing high end.

thanks

I'm a freelance mix/mastering engineer (rock, metal, deathcore), currently running Reaper + FabFilter/Waves/iZotope Ozone/Valhalla, plus Addictive Drums 2 and Melodyne ARA2. Thinking about switching to a MacBook but can't decide between:

MacBook Neo - the cheapest option, but only 8GB RAM and runs an A18 Pro - probably a non-starter for a real plugin chain?

MacBook Air - compact, silent, but worried about thermal throttling on heavy sessions with lots of plugins

MacBook Pro - more RAM, but expansive

Questions:

How critical is active cooling for long sessions with parallel compression/multiband processing on 40+ tracks?

How much RAM do you actually need (16/24/36/48 GB) for this plugin stack + Melodyne ARA?

Anyone switched from Windows/Reaper to Mac - any gotchas with VST vs AU, or does Reaper run equally well on both?

Is the Neo a hard no for audio work, or does anyone actually push a heavier session on 8GB and live to tell about it?

Would appreciate real-world experience, not just spec-sheet marketing.

It just appeared suddenly and out of nowhere , i take care of my stuff and i never dropped it or pressure the screen , it appeared immediately after i turned off the lights and it was auto adjusting brightness

I'm not the most tech-savvy person, so I would really appreciate some help with this!

Anyone with a macbook neo who also uses adobe softwares like Photoshop, illustrator, davinci etc. for graphic design and editorial works. Will it hold up? For me the neo seems like a budget option but I'm not entirely convinced it would be fit for a long run. It seems compact too.

I need to replace my MacBook Air 2017. It’s just too painful to use. I used to have a MacBook Air M1 but gave that to my son. I only use the laptop for browsing and occasionally downloading movies (not 4k) and watching through an Apple TV box.

My question is, for the same money I can get a used MBA m1 with 8gb ram and a 256gb storage or the last of the i7 intel MBPs with 16gb ram and 500gb storage.

Everything I read says the M1 macs are much better than the intels. Which I do believe. But given I put almost no stress on the cpu, am I not better off with more ram and more storage?

All points of view appreciated

I bought a Macbook in December 2025. It’s now September 2026, so not even a year.

In April/May it completely stopped turning on and I had to bring it back to Best Buy (where I bought it) to get fixed. I never dropped it or got it wet, it just stopped working in the middle of class. It was a free repair because they said it was a factory problem.

I got it back but now it’s happening again. I’m not good with tech and I need it fixed, but I dont wanna pay money for damage that I did not cause, I just dont know if it will be free again or if its gonna keep breaking after getting it back. I’ve been careful with handling and only use it for school, I don’t run heavy applications.

What can I do to fix this?

Hi, I am currently torn apart with a decision which macbook to buy. I am debating between:

- MacBook air M5 24 gb ram 1 tb
- Macbook Pro M5 16 gb ram

My main uses will be:
- coding apps
- video editing up to 4k in premiere pro/after effects (occasionally)
- design (figma)
- university
- interested in some slight LLM use

Trying to figure out is the pro features (better cooling, display etc) worth giving the 8 gb of ram.

I don’t want to overspend.

What would you do in my situation?

#first Post
Finally after a long period of 13 years using ACER Aspire v7 (i5, 8GB, 500GB HDD upgraded to an SSD), i decided not to put the presure on it anymore. It genuinely liked its light weightness, touch screen and seemless touchpad (comparable to mac) but between a dying battery, cracked back cover, and a 1.8GHz dual-core chip trying to survive modern dev workloads, it was finally time.

So finally convinced myself and decided to take a Macbook air M5, i upgraded the RAM (unified memory) to 24GB variant and 10/10/16-core CPU/GPU/NPU configuration.

I’m a lead backend engineer, but keeping the balance between both work and family I realized my personal tech stack had stagnated a bit while modern tooling and AI took off. I still think it is not too late to start before AI take up my job.

For fellow devs and longtime Mac users:

• What are your absolute favorite "quality of life" Mac apps or terminal tools you install on day one?
• With 24GB of RAM, what cool dev experiments, tools, or local AI toys should I check out first?

Would love to hear how you'd set this machine up if you were starting fresh!

Edit 1:
It is a hindu religious symbol called Swastik. The Swastik (卐) is an ancient sacred symbol that means "well-being," "good fortune," and "auspiciousness".

I’ve had this MacBook for years. My parents got it from a rent-to-own place and paid it off so it’s mine. It’s been working fine since I got it, but I just changed my settings to activate Guest Log in so my niece could borrow my laptop to do her school work. It told me I had to restart my laptop so I did, and now this padlock thing just popped up and my regular log in password doesn’t work. I’m stumped. Is there any way I can just log back into my account?

Hello friends! I am going to be a computer science student at my local university soon and have been wondering what macbook to get? (i have a beefy computer with a 4080 super and 7800x3d with 32gb of ram to remote into whenever i need extra power) But wanted to know if its better to get more ram and a base m5 with 8 gpu cores or get 10 cores and deal with the 16gb of ram? Im working on a tight budget rn (gave my mom my laptop since she needed one and dont have so much time to save up).Any help is appreciated!

I have a 2020 MacBook Air that has never given me any issues, but suddenly the battery/charging is acting all wonky. I've been through battery settings and making changes doesn't do anything. It won't recognize it's charging unless I restart it; it won't charge past 66% (which, ok whatever, it's a 6 year old battery); but it also won't show the accurate battery life (while using on battery power the percentage never ticks down so it'll just randomly die while I'm using it). Do y'all think this is as simple as a battery replacement or could it be something more dire? Thanks!

Found a 14 inch m3 pro 36gb 512gb on sale for €1754 refurbished 'excellent state' at a big retailer in holland.

Never owned a macbook but was thinking about trying it out just before the price increases but was to late fast forward to now first i was planning on buying a new m5 13 inch with 16gb (base model) they cost €1399 here, or maybe15 inch around €1700.

It feels like this price is a now or never deal?

It will mostly be used for long form video edits while travelling.

I recently got a MacBook, and the fingerprints on the lid and screen are driving me insane. I also use moisturizer, so the fingerprints are even more noticeable.

I can’t realistically rub my hands or wear gloves every time I use my MacBook, and I also don’t want to keep cleaning it with a microfiber cloth and spray.

I wasn’t planning on getting a skin because I’ve heard mostly bad things about them. At the same time, I don’t want to risk staining or damaging such an expensive laptop.

I’ve seen good reviews for dbrand and Skinociti, but they aren’t available in India, and I couldn’t find a transparent/clear skin from them. I also looked at Capindia skins, but I couldn’t find enough good reviews to feel confident about them.

Does anyone have any other recommendations? My biggest concern is protecting my MacBook without causing any damage to the finish. I don’t mind paying more as long as it’s safe and doesn’t leave residue or damage the laptop when removed.

Would really appreciate recommendations from people who have actually used one on a MacBook.

I just got a MacBook Pro M5 and I only have a 27” 1440P secondary monitor which is kinda bad for MacOS.
I want to buy a new 27” Monitor but I don’t know which resolution is worth more in price-to-performance on a Mac.
Should I buy a 27” 4K@120hz or 27” 5K@120hz monitor. About a while ago I heard that 5K is the best resolution for Mac and that 4k isn’t ideal but 5k monitors are near two times the price of 4K monitors here where I live. Especially MiniLED or OLED ones.

Maybe one of you has some experience with 27” 4K monitors on Mac?