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MacBook Pro M1 Max Initial Impressions

Last week I ordered a new MacBook Pro, and then a few days later, I changed my order to something even beefier. The net result was a ship date around Christmas. While I was okay with the idea of waiting for this dream Mac to arrive, I couldn’t help but check the local store on Tuesday’s public release, just in case. Since I’d upgraded to the loaded one, I figured there might be a chance. “Turns out” they had my exact build in stock: even my chosen color, Silver. So I canceled my online order and reserved the one in the store. A few hours later, I had a new precious on my desk. Here are a few thoughts after using the 16″ MacBook Pro M1 Max for a few days.

The Build

  • Everyone has made the Titanium MacBook comparison, but it rings true. Particularly with my silver color, it looks familiar.

  • The radius of the curves on the bottom is bigger than that on top. I expect that is because they don’t have the room on top, given that crazy screen, but I dig the look. Also, it’s effortless to pick up with that nice curve underneath.

  • It’s big and heavy compared to my prior M1 MacBook, but Apple makes it, so it is still pretty svelt and nothing like those massive gaming laptops on the market. Indeed, when I read reviews that list “big and heavy” as a downside of the MacBook Pro, it makes me want to throw something through the window. We finally got Apple to come around to the idea that “big and heavy” is a good idea for professional laptops. Please don’t give them a reason to go back “thin and light” (and underpowered).

  • There are big vents on the underside. If you would like to set your laptop on your lap, I’d caution against it. Instead, get a lap desk, so you don’t block those vents.

The Guts

  • Jason Snell called this MacBook Pro the Mac Pro that fits in your backpack. He was right. I’ve never used a computer so powerful. This shows itself in so many ways.

  • 4K Renders, no problem. I’m doing a lot more 4K video as of late, and the M1 was perfectly capable of handling it. However, it did require me to make tea and generally leave the computer alone for a while. I’m now getting 4K renders around three times as fast. Screencast renders are even quicker. It’s just ridiculous.

  • The other thing that stands out is disk access speed. Moving data on the internal SSD (even massive files) feels near-instantaneous.

  • Overall, all the paper cuts that came with delays resulting from multiple builds and render times are gone. All that forced downtime is gone too. Now I can make tea when my body needs a break, not because my computer forces me to.

That Screen

  • The screen is fantastic. I don’t know how else to put it. Vivid colors to the edge, all the way around the screen. Whether you are watching a video or working on your task list, you will love this screen.

  • A separate point about the screen is the text sharpness. I’ve been using an M1 MacBook for the last year, and I never had any problem with how it rendered text, but the MacBook Pro renders text just that little bit sharper (because it is genuinely a 2x screen), and it was immediately noticeable. It’s like when you go to the optometrist, and they flip the lens in their lens doohicky, and suddenly everything is really clear.

  • Apple has a lot of statistics about the screen, but I’d recommend going in and looking at one at a local Apple Store if you can. I expect folks will buy these computers without needing all the processing power but just because they want that screen. It is that good.

  • I’ve heard from readers who say they won’t buy this machine because of the notch. I disagree. The only reason the notch exists is that they pushed the screen so close to the top edge. It’s been a few days, and I don’t think about it. It is, however, to play hide and seak with the mouse pointer behind the notch. (You can do that.)

The Ports

  • Nice to have them back. I’ve got the new MacBook Pro hooked up to all my gear. The only dongle is an Ethernet to USB-C adapter.

  • The SD Card reader is really shallow. If third parties try to make a flush mount USB storage card, they aren’t going to have much real estate to work with.

Heat and Fans

  • The fans, when they run, are not loud.

  • So far, I’ve only noticed the fans running when doing long 4K renders.

Battery Life

  • As with all Apple Silicon Macs, the battery life is excellent. Especially when you consider how much more power this M1 Max chip requires.

  • I ran it all day yesterday off the battery. That included a full day of work and a bunch of test renders. I made it through the day fine.

  • I think the M1 Pro/Max chips are being stingy about harnessing all that extra compute power. For most tasks, I expect it’s doing most of the work off the two efficiency cores and turning off the more powerful cores until it genuinely needs them.

Comparison with M1

  • This is a professional laptop made for heavy lifting. It is shockingly better at big compute projects than the M1 (and the M1 is no slouch).

  • I can detect no performance difference between this fully loaded expensive MacBook Pro and my M1 MacBook for low-performance tasks like web browsing, writing, email, and the like. I expect that is because (as mentioned above) that work is not taxing and being done on the more power-efficient cores. Put simply, if that is the only type of work you do, the MacBook Air and fully loaded MacBook Pro are going to perform about the same for you.

  • The screen, however, is much better than the M1 MacBook screens. If that is the selling point for you, get the lowest-priced MacBook Pro (but make sure to get enough storage). If I were not doing so much video work these days, that is what I would have done.

Overall

I love this Mac and the options it gives me. I think Apple nailed the balance between power, efficiency, and battery life in my initial testing and usage. The screen is the biggest surprise for me. I knew it was better but had no idea how much better until I started using it.

Focused 137: Managing Busy




Mike and I return to the insidious problem of “busy” on the latest episode of Focused. We are not beyond getting caught in this trap, and we share some ideas about how to avoid it.

This episode of Focused is sponsored by:

  • Privacy: Smarter payments. Get $5 to spend on your first purchase.

  • Timing: The automatic time-tracking app for macOS. Use this link to save 10% on your purchase.

  • Setapp: More than 200 powerful apps for your Mac. Try it free for a week.

Shortcuts for Mac Field Guide Update

I had really hoped to be announcing the Shortcuts for Mac Field Guide this week but, alas, between some unexpected legal work and the rough Shortcuts for Mac beta, it’s not done. When it comes to Field Guides, “Good” is always better than “Fast.” What I can tell you is that I’m deep into recording now and making good progress. Moreover, the software is at a state where (most) of my planned videos can be recorded. I’m hoping to release it in November. I’ll have more updates soon.

In the meantime, if you are playing with Shortcuts for Mac and have any particular issues or topics you’d like to see me cover in the new Field Guide, there is still time. Just drop me a note with “Shortcuts for Mac FG” in the title. I will read them all but no promises about what gets added. This one is already looking like it will be a long one.

Some Monterey Features of Note


Today marks the release of the latest iteration of macOS, Monterey. The usual disclaimers apply. If you have production software on your Mac that you use to pay for your shoes, you should seriously check all of that out before installing this update. That said, I’ve been running the beta for months, and it’s been largely stable (except for Shortcuts, explained further below). Once you get it installed, there are several features that I found delightful through the beta:

Focus Mode


Focus mode is my favorite feature this year. It lets you set contexts that control what apps show up on your iPhone and iPad, along with what apps and people can interrupt you. It’s more powerful than I could have expected, but there are limitations. With the release of Monterey, you can now have your Focus mode reflected in your Mac, iPhone, and iPad. This ability to launch a feature across the spectrum of Apple’s computing hardware is something new and a testament to their changes over the last few years to unify the experience across devices. This unification comes at a price, but also pays dividends like this. I’m putting together a free webinar on Focus mode in the next few weeks to explain how I use it. Stay tuned for an announcement in the next few days.

Mac as AirPlay Receiver


Red 5 = My Mac

I’m surprised more people aren’t talking about this. Still, now, in addition to transmitting your Mac’s screen and audio to a different AirPlay device (like an Apple TV), you can also turn your Mac into an AirPlay receiver, which allows you to share a screen from another Mac or transmit your iPad screen to your Mac. This also works for audio, so if you’ve got some nice speakers connected to your Mac, you can play your iPhone audio through your Mac’s speakers.

The Nuke Button

Deleting your data from your Mac has always involved multiple restarts and visits to the system recovery tools. Now you just go to the System Preferences menu and choose “Erase All Content and Settings…” to get started. Deleting your data from your Mac is now as easy as it is on your iPhone and iPad.


Improved Window Management

Window management on the Mac leaves a lot to be desired. Indeed this is one of those areas where I think Microsoft has done a better job than Apple has with macOS. There has been some improvement this year, however.

Menu Bar in Full-Screen Apps

If you go into the Dock & Menu Bar preference pane, there is now a Menu Bar section with a checkbox to “Automatically hide and show the menu bar in full screen.” This was always a sticking point for me with full-screen apps. If the apps take the full screen, I can certainly afford a few pixels at the top for the Menu bar. Now I can put it there by default by leaving this box unchecked.


Better Tiled Window Support

For several years now, the Mac has been able to tile two apps on the screen at once. But it has been garbage. Assembling the tiles takes a lot of dragging, and if you minimize either window, you break the tiled window set up. The feature has been unusable for me. It just felt like the guy doing window management went out for a pack of cigarettes and never returned.

With the new Monterey release, there is a new feature where you can have the opportunity to replace a window with another application if you click and hold onto the green button. I don’t think this is ultimately going to lead me to start using tiled windows. There are still too many other problems. It is, however, better. I just wish they did more with window management on the Mac.


Safari Improvements

There are lots of things that go on inside Apple that are pretty boring. The running battle over the latest iteration of Safari is not one of them. I would love to hear one day what happened over the summer of 2021. Safari’s visual design got turned on its head and then turned back to its original position again. That wasn’t the only change of note to Safari, however.

Intelligent Tracking Prevention

One particularly nefarious practice online marketers have been doing is building profiles of you based on your online activity and your IP address, and you don’t need to sign up for an online account for them to creep on you. Apple has been engaged in a running battle with these people. This year’s Safari update added intelligent tracking prevention, making it harder for marketing companies to profile you. You get this for free, and I like it.

Tab Groups

I like to think of the new tab groups feature as bookmarks 2.0. It’s a little more intuitive and makes it easier to group tabs based on the area of research. You could set, for example, a group of tabs based on your personal life, your scuba diving habit, or your work. A lot of nerds have dismissed this, but I can see plenty of uses for Tab Groups. Moreover, I think a lot of people that don’t dream in binary will find it helpful.

Quick Note

Quick Note was a banner feature for the iPad this year, but there is also support for the feature on your Mac. Just put the mouse cursor in the lower-right corner and click. A Quick Note will appear on the screen with a link to your current focus. This is a rudimentary but zero-effort way to get started with contextual computing. You can later jump between the website or source app and the note with a click. I’m not sold on Quick Notes. (I do something far more powerful with Obsidian.) That, however, doesn’t change the fact that this is an excellent way to get started with linking contexts.

And, of Course, Shortcuts

Shortcuts for the Mac was touch-and-go for much of the beta, but made a lot of improvement towards the end. There are still some broken pipes in there, but essentially you can start automating with Shortcuts right away.

You can download the Monterey update today from the App Store.

Automators 87: Email Rules Automation




Email automation is a thing, but email rules-based automation is another thing entirely. Join Rosemary and me on the latest episode of Automators to learn more.

This episode of Automators is sponsored by:

  • Stripe: Learn more about how Stripe and their products can support your business.

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  • Hunter Douglas: Take advantage of Hunter Douglas’ ‘Season of Style’ rebate savings event – until December 6, 2021.

  • The Intrazone, by Microsoft SharePoint: Your bi-weekly conversation and interview podcast about SharePoint, OneDrive and related tech within Microsoft 365.

Eating Max Crow

So a few days ago I posted my new MacBook Pro spec and explained why I didn’t see the upgrade from M1 Pro to M1 Max as worth the $1,200 price increase for me. Then MPU Forum member MereCivilian pointed out that with my spec the actual difference in price wasn’t $1,200, but $200. (It was actually $400.) I don’ know whether to thank him or curse him.

So I slept on it.

And I woke up realizing that: 1) this will be my primary machine for years; and 2) every time I render a video (which in my case is almost daily), I’ll be reminded of the fact that if I had spent an extra $400 in 2021, it would render twice as fast. I realized that this fact will drive me nuts.

I don’t buy the fanciest cars … but I do like fancy computers. So this morning I got on the phone with Apple support and paid a few extra bucks (and managed to push my ship date back to December) with my new MacBook Pro holding an M1 Max chip. All that stuff I wrote a few days ago about me not needing this particular chip? Never mind.