Questions for MacBook M1 folks

[Centex]

I visited the Austin Apple store last week and got some hands-on time with various MacBooks as well as a lot of questions answered / confirmed, albeit with a lot of Apple-spin.

Then a similar session at the local Best Buy, but talking with the resident 'MacBook guru' who also had lots of PC experience (he 'plays' in both ecosystems), an apparently knowledgeable young fellow who related to my PC > Mac transition trepidations and was able to speak about non-Apple branded add-on products which might be helpful.

The outcome is that I've ordered a 14" MacBook Pro with 16GB RAM and 512 GB storage (and the lowest-level M1 processor available for that model). It's to be delivered tomorrow.

Factors contributing to 'upselling' myself from the Air to this Pro include

• Its combination of ports (3x Thunderbolt/USB-C + HDMI) will support the simplest connection/support of my current dual external monitors and other peripherals on the desktop
• Brighter display
• Active cooling

The 13" MacBook Pro offers most of that (display not quite as bright) and was seriously in the running but ultimately I didn't care for the "touchbar" that model uses in lieu of traditional function keys.

YMMV in regard to any of this of course.

So, looking forward to playing with it and learning the Mac idiosyncrasies. Push come to shove I can return it to the local store no questions asked within 15 days (bought via Best Buy online).

Thanks again everyone for the many helpful comments and suggestions!

[cpaharley2008]

Had a Pro, now on a newer Air....

[gbaglo]

Originally Posted by cpaharley2008

Had a Pro, now on a newer Air....

And what??

[Centex]

So the MacBook arrived a few days ago - Oh boy, lovely in many ways, the display is outrageously good, the machine ‘feels’ fantastic (very solid), the keyboard is nice, but I’m on a very steep learning curve as so much is very different with the interface.

I’ve already used a tiny $5 USB-A to USB-C adaptor and proven that works fine for connecting my several external 512GB Samsung SSD’s to the Mac, they were already formatted as exFAT so no problem transferring or storing files on those.

Out of the box I updated the OS, I’ve managed to get my email set up, transferred my contacts, got my browser bookmarks transferred to Safari, and have installed my MS Office 2021 non-subscription (perpetual license) applications. I’ve copied all of my documents to the Mac’s internal drive keeping the familiar PC folder structure intact. All good so far!

I’m currently following a YouTube to keep my huge collection of FLAC music files (~180GB) on an external drive while having the ‘library’ in the Music App on the Mac – I think I’ve about got that figured out. If I let the Mac copy the actual music files to its internal HD as it wants to do by default that’d kill my storage space.

Next step is to connect my desktop monitors and see if I can get those playing nice (seems likely) and then I’ll move to connecting my old Brother laser printer/scanner and label-maker. Those may be a bit more challenging, I don’t find drivers from Brother that are M1 friendly but we’ll plug it into the Mac and see what happens!

The main disappointment so far is Adobe Acrobat Pro 2020 non-subscription; Adobe tells me point blank it will not play nice with the M1 chip – it’ll run in ‘intel chip’ mode but lose its integration with the Office apps and likely have scanner problems. The partial solution is to subscribe to Acrobat DC subscription service so I guess that’s where I’ll have to go finally, but even that may not like my scanner. I use Acrobat to create and edit a lot, create lots of PDF from scans. The Mac PDF preview works fine for viewing files, but like other PDF viewers has none of the scanning/creating and editing capabilities I use so much.

Yep, we're Having Fun now!

[oldwave]

Originally Posted by Centex

I visited the Austin Apple store last week and got some hands-on time with various MacBooks as well as a lot of questions answered / confirmed, albeit with a lot of Apple-spin.

Then a similar session at the local Best Buy, but talking with the resident 'MacBook guru' who also had lots of PC experience (he 'plays' in both ecosystems), an apparently knowledgeable young fellow who related to my PC > Mac transition trepidations and was able to speak about non-Apple branded add-on products which might be helpful.

The outcome is that I've ordered a 14" MacBook Pro with 16GB RAM and 512 GB storage (and the lowest-level M1 processor available for that model). It's to be delivered tomorrow.

Factors contributing to 'upselling' myself from the Air to this Pro include

• Its combination of ports (3x Thunderbolt/USB-C + HDMI) will support the simplest connection/support of my current dual external monitors and other peripherals on the desktop
• Brighter display
• Active cooling

The 13" MacBook Pro offers most of that (display not quite as bright) and was seriously in the running but ultimately I didn't care for the "touchbar" that model uses in lieu of traditional function keys.

YMMV in regard to any of this of course.

So, looking forward to playing with it and learning the Mac idiosyncrasies. Push come to shove I can return it to the local store no questions asked within 15 days (bought via Best Buy online).

Thanks again everyone for the many helpful comments and suggestions!

You will like this machine for a long time.

[Centex]

Originally Posted by oldwave

You will like this machine for a long time.

I'm thinking so. I'm just now starting to realize the full implications of the M1 vs Intel chip in the Mac, more significant than AMD vs Intel in PCs.

There's some apps I'd really like to have that simply aren't available as full-featured M1 or universal versions at the moment. But clearly it's the future with Macs and software developers will catch-up with true native M1 applications sooner than later I hope.

One example, not Adobe .... I've been a big user of old-school MS Paint, I'd looked forward to Patina on the Mac but upon trying to download from the new machine learned it's not yet M1 compatible. Ah well, hopefully soon!

[cpaharley2008]

Apple enabled/helped me make 25,085 posts.......

[Centex]

Originally Posted by cpaharley2008

Apple enabled/helped me make 25,085 posts.......

Not sure if that's a favorable endorsement or not!

[Mike Lewis]

Consider Vuescan for software to run your scanner. It is compatible with hundreds of scanners and it will make PDFs of your scanned documents. It has an OCR built in, and it will run on the M1 MacBooks. Vuescan is good for scanning photographic film with film scanners as well.

[Centex]

Originally Posted by Mike Lewis

Consider Vuescan for software to run your scanner.....

Thanks Very Much for that tip, Mike

My Brother HL-2280DW is among those listed as supported, I'll definitely be taking advantage of the free trial for a test and hope for the best.

[oldwave]

M1 photo editing alternative is Pixelmator Pro. I got it last fall for it’s integration into Apple Motion . However it’s a fine photo editor, no subscription and very reasonable. The other options I’ve heard about is Affinity. I’m not sure the open source Gimp is M1 enabled yet, but it’s very powerful for free. My next years computer will be an M1. Good luck.

[UncleTim]

Originally Posted by oldwave

M1 photo editing alternative is Pixelmator Pro. I got it last fall for it’s integration into Apple Motion . However it’s a fine photo editor, no subscription and very reasonable. The other options I’ve heard about is Affinity. I’m not sure the open source Gimp is M1 enabled yet, but it’s very powerful for free. My next years computer will be an M1. Good luck.

I use the entire Affinity Suite every day. I used the Creative suite since InDesign was created. And before that Aldus PageMaker. Yeah Quark too.

I greatly prefer the affinity suite to Adobe's suite. Their metaphors are current and next generation compared to Photoshop and the rest. I still have the Adobe CS loaded and use it. I use them both. I wrote all my books in the Creative suite. All the photos were edited in Photoshop (Lightroom too), the illustrations done in Illustrator and the books were laid out in InDesign.

Affinity is $49 for each of the three apps. Photo, Designer and Publisher. The software is totally professional, the equal of the CS and bug free (for the most part). They write really great software. I would not be without it.

I totally recommend it.

[Centex]

Y'all have been so very helpful, I'm continuing to chronical my progress as a way to invite any more tips / suggestions that come to mind

• My Brother HL-2280DW (2-in-1 B&W laser printer + flatbed color scanner) is up and running. USB to the Mac, the printer setup was a snap with Apple detected drivers, a few clicks to add the printer and done.

• Mike - the suggested VueScan software works great for the scanner, thanks again for that tip ; it instantly detected the Brother and all is good, so I know I've got a scanner solution that works.
  
  For now I'm running the trial version which watermarks all scanner output. I'm holding off on purchasing that as my 'permanent' scanner solution pending a trial of Acrobat DC. IF Acrobat DC will work with the scanner I'll probably go that route for my permanent solution; I dislike the Adobe subscription cost but that seems to be the only way to get all of the PDF creation and editing functions I use. I'll give it a try this evening.

• My other 'printer' is a Brother QL-570 thermal label maker (uses roll-stock and prints adhesive-backed paper 'mailing' labels of various sizes which I use to label much more than mail).
  
  The Mac printer setup recognized the device but reported no driver available from Apple. No worries, Brother's website had the download for a MACOS 12.x compatible version of the "P-Touch" printer application. When installed that instantly recognized the printer and everything functions just as it did on my PC (good!). The app runs in 'Intel mode', and it's sorta interesting that the device doesn't show up on the printers list, but it functions great so happily on we go

Playing with the printers delayed my external monitors connecting exercise, that will be the final step in completing my home workstation migration to the MacBook. We'll make that final step this evening I hope.

Part of that workstation is an external keyboard and mouse (the laptop sits on the desktop with the other two monitors, out of reach). I've got a Logitech MX Keys for Mac full keyboard (I like a 10-key number pad) and MX Anywhere 3 mouse to try out. It's a membrane keyboard unlike my old favorite Dell switch keyboard, we'll see if that's a keeper or goes back to Best Buy.

The steep learning curve continues - I have to think (hope) there's many keyboard shortcuts I've yet to learn, I'm finding navigation with the trackpad a bit tedious and cumbersome.

But, we're Having Fun!

[Centex]

Originally Posted by oldwave

M1 photo editing alternative is Pixelmator Pro. ....

Originally Posted by UncleTim

I use the entire Affinity Suite every day. ....

Thanks, guys, my photo-editing is limited to the occasional cropping and overlaying text (as seen on pics with notes I've posted on this forum). So I'm not in need of 'real' photo-editing software.

As far as graphics and creative art, again my wants and needs are very simple. I'm not an artist, I'm a simple draftsman. MS Paint has met my needs for many years, quickly creating primarily orthogonal drawings with geometric shapes of known scale on a single layer. Even the most basic 'CAD' software is beyond my need (I've dabbled with many).

I've had the 'full featured' Corel Draw, Graphics, and Photo Suite on my PC for a decade but have very rarely used it. So 'real' graphics capabilities just aren't an interest for me.

I'd sure like to find an M1 compatible tool that's as similar to MS Paint as possible. The previously mentioned Patina seems ideal, but alas there's an M1 compatibility problem.

But thanks for mentioning things that work for y'all truly creative folks!

[Mike Lewis]

For PDF editing try PDF Expert and PDF Reader Pro. Neither is as slick as Adobe Acrobat Pro but they are not on subscription. PDF Expert is probably the better program but it doesn't have a built-in OCR. You won't need that if you use VueScan for scanning as it does. There might be trial versions for both PDF Expert and PDF Reader Pro but I don't remember.

I wish I had tried Affinity Photo for photo editing software before buying the complex and expensive ($300) Capture One. But there you go.

[Centex]

QuickTime on my macos 12.x plays FLAC music files, no problem

The Music App (for managing music access and playback) however does not recognize FLAC files at all; folders containing FLAC files cannot be added to the Music App Library. .

I have a portable SSD (250GB Samsung T3) with my FLAC music files that's maintained for playback in my car. I'd like to use the same drive as a source for music playback with the MacBook.

The drive is formatted exFAT, has ~250 Artist folders in the root, then ~400 Album folders within those, then ~5000 Song files within those. NO problem at all using Finder to browse that drive and if I click on a song on the Finder list it plays great using QuickTime.

All of the song files have artist, album, and song-title metadata as well as a track# (01, 02, etc) in the sequence they were recorded on the album; I have no 'album art' metadata on this drive - the purpose is listening not looking. BTW, these albums are all 'ripped' from the original non-DRM CD or vinyl which I own.

I'm an 'album listener' - I usually want to play an album from start to finish and hear the songs in the order that they were originally recorded on the album.

So, I'm looking for a music player / manager app for my MacBook Pro M1 which will:

• Support FLAC files
• Provide a text-list display of artists, albums, or songs
• Play all of the songs on a selected album in the as-recorded (track#) sequence with a minimum number of keystrokes / gyrations
• Allow an external drive as the music source
• I'm fine with the music player / manager maintaining its small 'library' files on my 512 GB Macintosh HD but I do not want it to copy the actual music files to that drive (it's ~150GB of data)
• The app must not write any files to the external drive, those would interfere with playback on the car system.

Anyone have any specific app suggestions? Google and the App Store yield a plethora of options which are not easily filtered to find those meeting my 'wants and needs'.
__________

Aside, the MacBook is now running full-time as my primary home workstation computer, I'm posting from that machine now, it's playing nice with my 2 external monitors, my 2 printers and scanner, and with ethernet connection to my modem (my rural internet service is via AT&T cellular data).

Some things I like a lot, some things are very frustratingly cumbersome, but the latter is getting better with every day of learning the shortcuts and tricks.

The old dog is slowly learning, and generally having fun in the process.

[Centex]

Originally Posted by Mike Lewis

For PDF editing try PDF Expert and PDF Reader Pro. Neither is as slick as Adobe Acrobat Pro but they are not on subscription.

Thank you for that tip, Mike, the product description makes PDF Expert looks very promising though the ~$140 'lifetime' non-subscription license lacks the new product updating that the $80 annual subscription license offers.

I'm not sure how important that updating might be, but in either case it along with VueScan is much less $ than Adobe Acrobat and that combo is proven to work with my scanner whereas Adobe Acrobat is not.

I've not yet downloaded the trial version of PDF Expert but that's the next step toward PDF support for my wants.