What led up to a New Purchase…

For the past few years, I have worked primarily on a pair of computers – a Windows-based HP laptop for my job, and my personal M1 MacBook Air (MBA) for everything else.

I was a big fan of the 12” MacBook (sometimes affectionately called the “ManagerBook” and the MBA is basically a slightly larger, more powerful version of the same.

I recently found the need to replace a family member’s computer, and my usual process is to replace my own computer and then hand my old computer down to the family member.  The M1 MBA I am handing off is a model with 16GB of RAM and 1TB of SSD storage – considered a bit of an upgrade at the time I bought it.

So now I needed a new computer, but I didn’t want to go crazy with my spending either.  I was seriously looking at the M4 MacBook Air, but I really wanted more RAM and storage.  Getting one with that was going to be difficult because the MBA with more RAM and storage was backordered for about a month at the time I was looking.  I wanted to move a little faster, if possible, so I started to look at the MacBook Pro.  I really didn’t want the bigger, thicker device, and I didn’t need the extra ports, but the screen was so much nicer (it is something like 100 NITS brighter) and it had 24GB RAM, and the M4 Pro processor, which meant even better graphics performance.   OK, you’ve got my attention now.

After a bit of hemming and hawing, I ended up buying the MacBook Pro with the M4 Pro chip.  I got it with the same 1TB SSD storage amount I had on the MBA (albeit a bit faster than what I had before).  It also has an SD card slot – this will become important in a moment.

One of the reasons I like a lot of storage is that I carry my movies and music with me (as much as I can) when I travel.  I don’t like having to rely on streaming or cloud services, which, even in this day and age, are far from ubiquitous.  I like having as much of my stuff “with me” as possible, so I like having a decent amount of storage.  I had hoped for a bigger drive than 1TB, but again that would mean ordering and waiting a few weeks, so I decided to try something – I bought a 2TB micro SD card (a higher speed one), and one of the MB adapters so that the whole thing kind of goes into the SD slot sideways and therefore sits flush rather than sticking out of the side of the laptop.  I then changed my settings in the Apple Music and AppleTV apps to “move” the locations of my music, movies, and TV shows to that SD card.  I then copied my libraries from my old MBA to that location on my new M4 MacBook Pro, and away I went.  It’s all been working great so far and has allowed me to have a lot more free space than I had before.  Perfect!

 

Let’s Talk About the Latest…

When I bought M1 MacBook Air, the world was still all excited about the first “M” series chips and whether or not the conversion from Intel-based apps to ARM-based apps was going to be a success or a problem.  Well, here we are a few years later, and the fact is the Intel-based machines are gone, and ARM is here to stay and doing quite nicely on the platform, thank you!

I have rarely – if ever – run into problems with apps running on my M1 MBA and quite honestly, nothing has changed – the M4 MacBook Pro runs apps, whether Intel-based or ARM-based, without any issues for me whatsoever.  The few times there might be an issue, the app installer usually says something like “this app is not designed to work on your computer”.  It just isn’t a problem these days.

The M4 MacBook Pro runs the same OS, the same way as the M1 MBA, with a few differences:

• The Pro chip in the M4 MacBook Pro has more CPU/GPU/cores and each core is faster than before
• This MacBook Pro has 24GB of RAM, whereas my M1 MacBook Air has 16GB of RAM
• Both my devices have 1TB of storage
• The MBA has a 13.3” Retina display (IPS, 2560*1600) and the MBP has a 14.2” Liquid Retina XDR (HDR IPS, 3024*1964)
• Battery life is up from 18 hours to 22 hours
• Many more ports on the MBP (including an SD memory card slot)
• Weight is a bit heavier – from 2.8lbs (1.29kg) to 3.5lbs (1.58kg)
• The MBP handles multiple external monitors, whereas the MBA can only support 1 (albeit that monitor could even be an ultra-high-res widescreen device).

The M4 MacBook Pro is, of course, new and faster than its predecessor, but basic functionality is unchanged.  The few games I do have, do take advantage of the speed and additional GPU power.  I can run them more smoothly and at higher resolution rates than before and still get great performance and framerates out of them.

 

Let’s Talk about Moving from Old to New…

To move from the old Mac to the new Mac, I decided to use Apple’s Migration Assistant application.  In the past, this application was – if I’m being generous – fair to middling.  It mostly worked, but there was usually a lot of clean-up afterward, unlike iOS and iPadOS migration apps, which are a really, really smooth experience.   I really wasn’t sure about how well this would or wouldn’t work.

I launched the app, made sure both devices were on the same network, and I followed the on-screen steps exactly.  And although it took a lot longer than it probably should have, it did complete, and it completed successfully.  The only app that didn’t migrate smoothly was my Sophos app (for virus scanning/malware protection), and that breaks with every new OS upgrade, so I already knew that the “fix” was reinstalling that app.

My photos, iTunes Library, messages, etc., all migrated beautifully.  A few app logins later, I was up and running as if I had never changed computers.  It couldn’t have gone better.  The process is clearly not perfect, as I have mentioned, but it is so much better than past experiences and completely better than manually building the new device up from scratch.

 

Let’s Talk about “Cleaning Up” the Old Mac for Handing Down or Selling…

To start with, a word of caution:  This section talks about cleaning up and erasing your Mac.  This discussion is based on my experience in using these things and your mileage may vary so please be VERY careful if you are looking at any of these things and ALWAYS make sure you have good and solid backups of your apps, data, and anything important to you on your computer BEFORE you clean up or erase anything!

That said:

On newer Mac operating systems (macOS Monterey 12 or later, according to the Apple website), the process is usually very easy.  Apple says, you just need to:

• Back up your “old” device as a precaution
• Make sure you back up/keep track of any app installation keys you might need again if anything doesn’t transfer correctly. Apps like Parallels and many 3rd party system apps use keys to authorize the app usage.
• In the System Setting App (in the latest OS versions) you:
  • Go into the GENERAL menu and select “Transfer or Reset”
  • From there, you press the “Erase All Content and Settings…” button
    • NOTE: the last few steps may vary slightly depending on OS version

If you aren’t entirely comfortable with that, or for some reason you can’t use the “Erase All.” feature, you can still do things manually to make sure you don’t miss anything.  Please note, the following list may be incomplete depending on other apps you might have on your Mac or other special circumstances you might have, but, in general:

• Backup your Mac (or transfer it to another device FIRST)
• Make sure you back up/keep track of any app installation keys you might need again if anything doesn’t transfer correctly. Apps like Parallels and many 3rd party system apps use keys to authorize the app usage.
• Go into the Apple Music and AppleTV apps
  • Under the ACCOUNT menu, choose AUTHORIZATIONS -> “Deauthorize this Computer”
  • Sign out of Apple Music and Apple TV
• Sign out of or deauthorize any other apps/accounts you might be worried about like virus scanners or any apps that utilize machine-based subscriptions (rather than user-based subscriptions).
• Sign Out of iCloud (and Apps that utilize iCloud services)
  • Sign out of iMessage (Messages)
  • Sign out of iCloud (this should make your device disappear from “Find My” as well
• If you want to take another step, you can unpair your Bluetooth devices as well, but make sure you have a cable attached mouse/keyboard if you aren’t on a MacBook.

 

If you aren’t able to use the “Erase All…” options on the computer, you may need to reboot the mac into macOS Recovery mode and use the Disk Utility to erase your computer and then reinstall MacOS from the Recovery process.  Note, that goes way beyond the scope of what I wanted to talk here, but it is talked about a lot on the Apple Support site and other places on the internet.  And again, ALWAYS make sure you have done a backup or otherwise protected your data in case something goes amiss!

 

A few Overall Impressions…

So, it’s been a few weeks now and I have been very pleased with the new MacBook.  It’s very fast and powerful, the screen is gorgeous, and everything has been pretty smooth and flawless.

On another “plus” note:  I bought the BaseQI microSD card adapter for the MacBook Pro with basically lets you use take a microSD card, put it into this adapter from the side of the adapter and insert it into the SD card slot of the MacBook Pro, but it is half width (half height?) and as a result it fits flush in the MacBook – nothing sticking out (but there’s a kind of ledge so you can remove it later if needed) and I end up with another “drive” basically built in.  I put a 2TB MicroSD card in that slot and moved my Apple Music and Apple TV libraries to that drive, freeing up a lot of space on my primary SSD.  Very handy and it never needs to be removed or disconnected like an external HD or SSD would be.

Are there things I don’t like?  Yes.  As I mentioned before, I was a big fan of the original 12” MacBook and I like the 13” MacBook Air a lot, but it always felt “bulky” compared to the 12” MacBook.  That said, the 14” MacBook Pro feels even heavier, and bulkier.  I’m not crazy about that, but I have accepted the tradeoff for the better screen and all the additional ports.  I decided it was more than worth the additional bulk to me.

Would I recommend this device – yes, yes, and YES!  It’s a great device.  Probably one of the best MacBooks Apple has released.  It hits a sweet spot for me between power and price and meets all of my daily computing needs.  I am even able to run Windows (for ARM) on it via the Parallels app, for the occasional Windows app I need due to my job requirements.  It’s a great machine!

 

So, What’s Next?

I recently also purchased a used Apple Vision Pro (AVP).  I am fascinated by the technology (I also have a couple of Oculus devices in my collection) and I wanted to learn more about what Apple was doing in the Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality (AR/VR) space.  So far, I’ve been very impressed.  From the perspective of using it with a MacBook, the AVP behaves as a wide screen (or ultrawide screen) monitor for the MacBook, giving you and interesting option for using your Mac apps on a huge monitor without actually needing another physical monitor.  I’ll talk a bit more about that in my upcoming AVP article.

It’s important to know, however, that I wrote the article you are reading now, and an upcoming AVP “first impressions” article using the MBP/AVP combination as well as just the MacBook Pro and I’ll be giving a few thought on how well the AVP works as a productivity tool (by itself and paired with the MacBook Pro), so stay tuned to this website for more soon!

 

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