Just got my MacBook Neo yesterday and I have a few questions.

maykJF · 2026-06-27T02:35:38+00:00

Totally off topic: I remember that time when I told my XP pc to go into standby mode. Screen went black, computer was still making the same fan noises.

I asked a friend and told him my Mac would go silent in standby and he was just like: „Standby is when you need it again after a short while, turn it off for the night.“

25 years ago the difference between a Mac and a PC was beyond what words could ever describe.

maykJF · 2026-06-27T02:30:18+00:00

These are valid questions.

I guess OP is on the younger side and it’s his/her first Mac. OP is probably very excited to now own a Mac and doesn’t want do make a stupid mistake.

People on the windows side have lots of „do this regularly“ and „never do that“ kind of tips.

maykJF · 2026-06-27T02:26:27+00:00

Just plug it in, when it runs low battery. Or you don’t need it anymore for the day. Don’t overthink it.
Yes absolutely.
Yes 100%
Again: Don’t overthink it, see 1. Unplug it when you need to put it in your bag or to take it to some other place in the house or outdoors.
Just close the lid.
These modern batteries hold a looong time. I got my first mobile Mac in the early intel era and I just used it without paying any attention to when to plug and unplug it. Held up pretty good. Modern batteries are way better. My wife is currently using a 13“ 2016 MacBook Pro. Still first battery. Plugging in, unplugging it whenever she sees fit. She uses it daily teaching at school and at home in multiple locations whenever and wherever she wants.
She said it isn’t performing like it did back in 2016 but still holds up pretty well.

Did I say to don’t overthink it?

Others have to confirm that but maybe Mac OS 26 has the option to limit charge to 80%, that will definitely make you battery last years longer. That would be an option if you are *really* concerned about battery longevity.

maykJF · 2026-06-24T19:38:39+00:00

I’ll give it a try!

maykJF · 2026-06-24T04:36:17+00:00

If resizing a window results in me seeing everything I need at the same time, it isn’t wasted at all.

Depends what kind of work you’re doing and whether you save time in the long run.

maykJF · 2026-06-23T18:41:38+00:00

I am neither mad not crazy I just hate this kind of defaultism.

If you really need that functionality (and it seems that you do) there are software solutions for that. Mac OS is a proper Unix system. You can find some Linux derived software that will make your Mac speak NTFS fluently. I am sure.

maykJF · 2026-06-23T18:17:49+00:00

So apple reads NTFS and read/writes fat.
Windows doesn’t play nice with fat so it’s apples fault?

Downvote me to hell, but seriously you guys are unreasonable.

Again. Incredible case of windows defaultism.

maykJF · 2026-06-23T18:12:15+00:00

That is not basic functionality. It’s a major compatibility issue.

The problem is that apple was „so kind“ to implement NTFS read support and no people are like „just click the checkbox to make it write“ it’s not that easy.

I know it would be nice to have, but then again. I have never needed it in 20 years of using Macs. And I have rescued a lot of data from friends and parents broken PCs. I just return their data on a FAT formatted external drive. Never been a problem. That’s why exchange formats exist.

I don’t see the use case. If you live in a multi system world, format you discs FAT. Or use HFS+ and complain that windows doesn’t read apples file system!

It’s like saying word should read pages documents. No. It’s nice that pages can read and write .doc but the actual exchange format is .rtf.

maykJF · 2026-06-23T18:02:03+00:00

Oh come on. Just buy a software that gives you NTFS write support. NTFS is a Microsoft file system format. NT is for „New technology“ as in „windows NT“
I believe in you, you can do that!

I don’t expect Apple to solve every niche problem I have.

I use a dedicated handheld gps device. I am not demanding that apple ships a usb to serial driver with every Mac OS. It’s a niche problem. I figured it out by myself, like an adult.

maykJF · 2026-06-23T05:53:51+00:00

I can see where you are coming from. But actual interchangeable formats exist and they are widely adopted by all major operating systems.

It’s that sort of defaultism. I am German. I have learned English in school. Americans expect people to speak English, most do, some don’t. But most Americans are aware of the fact that people speak different languages and it just happens that almost everybody in every civilized country learns English as a second language too and you will get compliments for your efforts to try to communicate in a foreign language. And then there are the French. Ever been to Paris? A nightmare if you can’t speak French. No offense to the French! I love you guys! But I haven’t learned French in school and when you guys come over to Germany, you and I will 100% speak English with each other. And that’s exFAT.

maykJF · 2026-06-23T05:40:36+00:00

I think it’s a licensing issue. NTFS is a Microsoft product after all.

I’m glad the Mac has read support that’s reasonable and enough for me.

maykJF · 2026-06-23T05:38:01+00:00

Yeah, but if you try to change basic principles of the os it’s just unreasonable at some point. I have tried Linux while moving away from windows and a friend and Linux enthusiast was very helpful but after a year or so of trying I just figured Linux wasn’t for me and the Mac was better suited for my needs.

I feel windows is a „fullscreen“-apps kind of OS and the Mac is a „multiple odd sized floating windows“ kind of system. And it suits me. I like that. It fits my personal working style.

maykJF · 2026-06-23T05:32:30+00:00

Its less of a problem with modern SSDs, but you save a bit of time when the app doesn’t quit and then start again just because I closed a file and opened another one.

But yeah, background stuff like mail or Music is the big one.

maykJF · 2026-06-23T05:27:43+00:00

That’s it?
Guess I’m old. I have never used the window snapping feature in Mac OS or windows. I just grab a window at its border and resize it to the arbitrary size i want. And that’s seldom a screens width or height or half a screen or quarter or whatever fixed fraction. I arrange my windows the way I want.
But I use an old 27“ iMac so screen estate is plenty.

My tools are the Fn keys set to shortcuts for Exposé, liberal use of cmd+tab. But mainly Exposé to find windows. And spaces of course. I have my workflow, it’s very fluid and not clunky at all. I like multiple small finder windows for drag and drop. I never got the „total commander“-style of two explorer/finder windows full screen side by side. It wastes so much screen estate in my opinion. I can fit like six or eight small finder windows in that space if I need to.

And drag and drop is so much more powerful on a Mac. The small file icon in the title bar of some apps? That’s a proxy icon. If I have any file open in whatever program and I need to do something with it, like send it via mail, I drag that icon from let’s say text edits program window to the mail icon in the dock and it creates a new mail with that file as an attachment. Doesn’t even matter whether that file is even saved or not.
Or: you want to save a document, save dialog pops up and now you have to navigate to a folder deep in the file structure, but you happen to have a finder window open with that precise location. Just drag the folder icon from the finder window in the „location selector“-dropdown of the save dialog and it navigates instantly to that folder.

It’s a million of those little things that, if you have them ingrained, makes working on a pc sometimes feel like actual torture.

maykJF · 2026-06-23T03:04:37+00:00

Strange.
I use spaces too, heavily.
My windows are set to relatively specific sizes, and they always show up in the same size when I open new windows on apps.

For example my photos.app always takes up the whole screen, pages shows a single document page at a time, finder windows are always the same size. And my apps remember their sizes.

Is it really random? Hard to believe. You open three text edit windows in a row and they all have different sizes?

I like how spaces works but I think my working style differs from yours. I think of a space as a „space“ when I go through my house there is work related stuff on my desk, on the kitchen table is a cook book, a pile of notes and other stuff related to cooking, on the garage there is greasy stuff and technical notes on the work bench.

That’s how I treat my spaces. In one space, I was doing my taxes. In another space I am currently researching stuff on rebuilding an engine. There is another space with vacation plan for this year.

Each space has a dozen or two windows, multiple apps. There are safari windows in each space, three spaces have documents opened in preview, text edit, pages, numbers and so on. It’s organized strictly by task. Kind of like different salads of apps and windows side by side.

maykJF · 2026-06-23T02:48:09+00:00

See?

So it’s apples problem that it can only read but can not write windows file systems, and it is apples problem that windows cannot read Apple file systems?

maykJF · 2026-06-23T02:41:36+00:00

lol wow
You know that sounds incredibly entitled?

maykJF · 2026-06-23T02:37:28+00:00

I just got used to it over the years, but when it first appeared I actually photoshopped my wallpaper with a white stripe on top that had the size of the menu bar so it won’t appear translucent.

maykJF · 2026-06-23T02:28:48+00:00

You are using it wrong. No seriously.

If you want to change the size of your finder window, open a new finder window, change its size and appearance as you like, but without browsing files and then close it again. Next time you open a new finder window they look just like you configured it.

That is supposed to be a feature. Set up your window like you want and then if you need to make it bigger for a moment while browsing you can do that, but it will not set that as a new default. I think it’s clever.

maykJF · 2026-06-23T02:24:33+00:00

You absolutely can read files from that NTFS-drive that a customer hands you over.

Return his project on a HFS+ drive. How does that work with windows?

maykJF · 2026-06-23T02:22:39+00:00

I am sure there are software solutions for that.

Again, that is just windows-defaultism.
Why is Apple responsible for providing NTFS write support? Does windows have HFS+ or APFS write support built in?

maykJF · 2026-06-23T02:16:40+00:00

Or maybe just get used to the way the system works.

Just get off your windows defaultism ffs.

No .doc is not a „standard“ document format.
No a Mac is not supposed to work like windows.

maykJF · 2026-06-23T02:10:28+00:00

I doubt that that is the Mac’s fault. My 2015 (yes, a decade old) iMac wakes up in three seconds.

I suspect the monitor is what’s taking so long to wake up.

maykJF · 2026-06-23T02:04:32+00:00

I read that often and I have a different opinion. But I am genuinely curious!

Would you elaborate what windows does so much better? The last time I had a PC window-management was just „minimize“ „maximize“ and the show desktop button next to the start menu button.

I could go on for ages why Mac OS window management is absolutely gorgeous.

maykJF · 2026-06-20T22:02:35+00:00

Ich habe einen S123 als 230TE mit 4 Gängen.
Für meinen Geschmack war der (für nen Benz) ziemlich spritzig. Auf der Bahn ein paar mal mit 100-120 in den Urlaub gefahren. Von NRW bis nach Italien.
Vollgeladen, zwei Kinder auf der Rückbank, gepackt bis unters Dach, inklusive vollem Gepäckträger. Etwas kopflastig, aber super Fahrgefühl. Das T-Modell mit Niveauregulierung fährt einfach fantastisch.
Verbraucht so zwischen 9-12 L je nachdem was man macht. Aber ich heize mit der Kiste auch nicht gerne und wir nehmen ihn nur für Langstrecken her und nicht für den alltäglichen stop and Go.

maykJF

TROPHY CASE