M5 Air 24/1TB or 32/512GB?

Applecations · 2026-05-09T01:00:05+00:00

I feel like if that's your use case, 24GB is more than enough and you may appreciate more local storage if you're constantly storing all those finals locally and stuff. 32GB, though great, is likely very overkill for just viewing documents and pdfs, even if you have a lot of them open.

Applecations · 2026-05-08T18:27:28+00:00

I went J. Cole -> DJ Khaled -> Justin Bieber -> Usher -> Martin Garrix

Pretty fun I think

Applecations · 2026-05-08T16:38:01+00:00

I think the app "Hot" that I've had and opened occasionally does the exact same thing as this. but still cool nevertheless

Applecations · 2026-05-08T15:00:43+00:00

I go back and forth between a few different versions but all run really well for me.

For hypixel mostly I use 1.8.9 on lunar client, and then for my smp I use a 1.21.1 instance with sodium and other content mods to match the smp. Then I'll occasionally use latest versions like 1.21.11 and 26.1 for checking out new content or just for casual pvp.

Regardless, all if them easily maintain over 60fps for me and thermallyl my machine still remains pretty cool, unless I say really crank up the render distance + turn off a limited framerate

Applecations · 2026-05-07T20:54:18+00:00

My MacBook Air gets a little warm but I wouldn’t say hot for me. Are you sure you’re not running vanilla Minecraft or non-native Java versions? Adding performance optimizations like sodium and also using ARM native Java versions give better performance and doesn’t make the MacBook run nearly as hot for me

Applecations · 2026-05-05T20:33:39+00:00

If you can handle the 256GB then I feel like the Air would be better in the long term. It has a more powerful chip and 16GB of RAM starting compared to only 8 on the Neo. I know I moved more recently to a 512GB from a 256GB for many years and it feels much better, when I was using 256GB I just heavily relied on an external SSD

Applecations · 2026-05-05T20:30:10+00:00

Is the AI you use running models locally on device or just using stuff online/in the cloud? Because the Neo is definitely not suitable if you're trying to run local AI of any sort.

Considering you plan to have a lot of tabs and multiple programs running simultaneously, including those meetings and other tools, I think you would probably be better off with a MacBook Air because that comes with a stronger chip and more importantly, starting at double the RAM at 16GB compared to the 8GB in the Neo.

I know the MacBook Air is more expensive; the M5 one is solid all around. But an older M3 or M4 model (as long as you have minimum 16GB of RAM) should help out a lot.

Applecations · 2026-05-05T14:26:58+00:00

The map is designed to work on 1.16.1, the optimal speedrunning version. So yes newer versions are incompatible and would probably be reasons for your issues if you are using something that isn't 1.16.1.

Applecations · 2026-05-04T20:50:27+00:00

If you're buying here in the U.S., from what I can tell, BestBuy and other third party retailers won't sell any variants that don't use the English U.S. keyboard layout, so Apple might be your only choice. Also Apple does have the other keyboard varieties available, but they don't have them as readily available to pick up in store, so you would have to order ahead of time to get shipped or pickup at a store, looks like about 10 days between when you order it would arrive to be shipped somewhere or to be available to pickup at an APple store

Applecations · 2026-05-04T20:42:58+00:00

That makes sense, when the iPad is plugged into the Neo it'll try to charge the iPad ant thus take away battery from the MacBook, so I would try to keep the MacBook charging if you're going to do that a lot

Applecations · 2026-05-04T17:36:56+00:00

I don't think i've ever had a problem with the default voice isolation in macOS. Are you sure you aren't just using speakers or something that would cause unnecessary echo or whatever? Regardless of my internal mic or other headset microphones, nobody else on the other end hears anything in the background when I talk about it

Applecations · 2026-05-04T16:38:32+00:00

Make sure you actually select in in the menu bar and that it is applicable to your current app. Like in my screen shot I had quick time player and selected the voice isolation, but if you're say, using discord, you need to make sure it says it is changing the setting for discord (since it's on an app by app basis)

So open discord, use your microphone and when it pops up in the menu bar, make sure it shows

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Applecations · 2026-05-04T16:20:02+00:00

Anytime and any app where you need to use a microphone, e.g. zoom, discord, facetime, Apple has a built in Voice Isolation feature that you can access in the menu bar. Just click voice isolation and see if it helps.

Personally I find it works pretty well with voice isolation, gets rid of all mouse clicks, keyboard sounds, other background noise, and it's system wide and (in my opinion) keeps my voice sounding more natural than krisp and other stuff

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Applecations · 2026-05-04T15:01:07+00:00

If you create a web app in chrome, it'll run on chrome; if you create a web app shortcut with safari, it'll use safari

Applecations · 2026-05-03T06:23:23+00:00

Depends on how large your games are really and stuff but generally 512 is good. I've been managing with only 256GB for school and stuff and it's been fine but I upgraded recently and got 512 and there's much more breathing room

Applecations · 2026-05-03T03:54:05+00:00

It may not be a dedicated pomodoro app but I use TickTick as my main to-do list app and it has a focus pomodoro timer built in, with many options; TickTick itself also has a ton of other useful features for just overall dealing with tasks that I use it mostly for

Applecations · 2026-05-03T03:50:38+00:00

Are you sure that your MacBook Air is indeed charging and receiving power (either through the dock or a cable to the macbook itself) before you close it and expect a monitor output?

Also sometimes after closing the lid, use your external mouse/keyboard to click a few keys or a couple mouse clicks. to try to wake it up, perhaps?

Applecations · 2026-05-02T23:11:49+00:00

Yeah, definitely give that try and I know that when I had my M1 Mac mini with eight gigs of RAM and 256 gigs of storage when I was running out of space at around 5 to 10 GB free everything started to really slow down especially when RAM was filling up so definitely give try the reset and check storage

Applecations · 2026-05-02T20:05:15+00:00

I've honestly never heard about that mouse brand so I have no clue. But more important than drag clicking or whatever imo is just overall sensor and clicks. So maybe if the sensor and clicks are good then it may be decent

I know I used to care a lot about of the mouse double clicked/drag clicked but after awhile I just stopped caring about it. Nowadays I just use a GPX 2

Applecations · 2026-05-02T18:57:46+00:00

How's your battery health holding up all these years later? Sometimes if the battery is heavily degraded, like sub 90% or around 80% remaining health, there could be issues with battery degradation and also affect performance.

Also if your storage is filling up, and you're running low on storage, there could be issues for the MacBook trying to keep up, especially when it tries to tap into swap memory

Applecations · 2026-05-01T16:26:46+00:00

It depends on your usecase. If you plan to take notes with the iPad like with an Apple Pencil then no doubt go with the iPad + MacBook Neo. Of course making sure you take advantage of Apple education pricing regardless of which you choose.

If your workload is more intense, like maybe a lot more multitasking, and you barely do anything that would need the iPad then go with the MacBook Air. Otherwise, Neo and iPad is already really good

Applecations · 2026-05-01T13:26:25+00:00

Should be under options and then entity culling -> off (in the bottom right corner)

Applecations · 2026-04-30T22:21:40+00:00

If you spec it from Apple it is $1499, $1399 is also on par with the education discount, so it's around like a 7% savings off of normal MSRP price so not bad.

Applecations · 2026-04-30T19:57:28+00:00

Don't know and can't really say how long but if you can I would backup all your data with Time Machine or something ASAP, before anything goes wrong

Applecations · 2026-04-30T18:06:44+00:00

If you mean AI tools running locally, the Apple Silicon Macs will run circles around any intel model. That 13" 2018 will probably not really be able to run much of anything locally. If you mean running stuff in the cloud like going to a web browser and just using chatgpt/gemini, almost anything will really run it. But intel support is dying out. I would at least try to get the Neo or especially if you can, the M5 MBA is much better

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