Apple Operating Systems (macOS, iOS, watchOS, & tvOS) Catch-All

I actually reformated it. nothing is supposed to be on it at the moment, but it isn't showing 300gb

FiveIron's disk is ExFAT, not NTFS.

FiveIron, while MacOS can read and write ExFAT drives, it sometimes has trouble with drives formatted on Windows with a block size >1024 bytes. If you can, you might try reformatting it on Windows with a 1K block size. Or, if you don't need the data on it, just reformat it on the Mac.

That did the trick! I just had to reformat it in APFS. Thanks,

so as I've alluded to, i just switched over to a macbook air m1.

For the most past, it seems like this is some sort of alien technology. The stuff that this can do is so far ahead of every laptop in it's price point and even better than any laptop at any price.
The things I've noticed:
When i took it over seas for a 30 hour journey, i didn't have to charge it once even though i used it for at least 20 of those hours.
The games that i can play on it w/o cross over or parallels run very well. I was playing league and was getting 120 fps, and dying light with no hiccups.... and with no fan noise. so strange to play a game without the constant noise in the background.

The design keeps it just short of perfect though. why am i confined to two thunderbolt ports? The hdmi adapters i've used with it so far get extremely hot, can't even do 4k w/ 60 hertz and also can't seem to handle any games on the external monitor. seems like a mini display port would be so simple to implement but they choose not to... I'm guessing because it looks ugly? also, I was forced to get the entry level just because the storage space upgrades are unreasonably costly. as long as you can make do with an external ssd, it doesn't ever seem worth to buy any of their upgrades. I'm also a bit bummed i couldn't wait for the m2 air where i imagine 512 will come standard and they might make more sense of the ports.

I've got one of the Intel MacBook Pro models that only has Thunderbolt. I've found the best way to handle an external display was to get a Thunderbolt/USB-C to Display Port cable. I'm not pushing 4k with it, but it's worked well so far. The cost was in the same price range as other cables. Also with my layout it's easier to swap the cable plugged into my monitor than it would be to pull the Display Port from my desktop machine.

that's a good tip thanks, i didn't realize they made these kinds of cables, I assumed that some computing had to be done from one end to the other and that's why you had to buy a dock

My wife got me an Apple TV 4K as an early birthday present. I had discounted them as not being worth the price, but now that it's hooked up the thing is growing on me. I hadn't realized that the TV app would stitch together a bunch of different streaming services, or that I would appreciate that feature if I had it. But having the old Muppet Show beside the new Fraggle Rock and Babylon 5 beside Mandalorian beside Star Trek Discovery is just nice.

I think what put it over the top for me is the Steam Link app. That meant I could pull both the old 720p Apple TV* and the Steam Link hardware, which helped clean up that cabinet significantly.

So is there anything else cool I can do with this thing? Any iPhone or iPad games that are smart about how they use the TV when you do Airplay mirroring?

*It's outdated for video but was still the easiest way to get our phones to play music through the big stereo, especially with everything locked up for baby-proofing.

If your family is into Just Dance then the Apple TV has a solid port. Otherwise, I mostly use it for Amazon video and the Infuse app for my own home media storage.

Edit: I also have some legacy content on iTunes Homesharing.

Apple TV is fantastic. Every other streaming box feels like an ad spam hellscape in comparison.

Yeah, my main use of it is that’s the box I stream everything on. The 4k support is excellent. Everything I’ve watched in 4k has been pretty great since I tuned our TV properly.

We also use a pair of HomePods for sound, which works really good, although I imagine a sound bar would do just as good.

Vargen wrote:

I think what put it over the top for me is the Steam Link app. That meant I could pull both the old 720p Apple TV* and the Steam Link hardware, which helped clean up that cabinet significantly.

I have had a much better experience with Moonlight (also available on the app store) than with SteamLink (though it requires nVidia hardware).

I love my Apple TV’s.

I ditched TiVo years ago for Channels DVR. Plex works great as well.

One thing I do all the time is launch YouTube, then connect my tv from the iPad app to browse and queue up videos.

I really like the Magic Window screensaver apps as well.

I also love how easy it is to connect AirPods. And now I want to get a HomeKit doorbell to see the camera video on my tv. HomePods work great as speakers as DSGamer said, and you can use Siri and the iPhone app instead of the remote. Shouting, “Hey Siri, what did they say?” is great instead of fumbling for a remote.

Such a great, underrated device that is way more than an “overpriced Roku.”

PaladinTom wrote:

One thing I do all the time is launch YouTube, then connect my tv from the iPad app to browse and queue up videos.

Oh hey, me too. I found the other person.

That’s my favorite thing to do late at night if my wife and I don’t feel like putting on a full show or movie. We’ll just watch funny clips or trailers, but I use a phone or iPad to select them.

Oh, and the YouTube Kids app is perfectly serviceable. Wish there was a native Google Photos app.

Anyone know if it's possible to make the middle mouse button (usb) act like it does on windows? It would be nice to have something that i can scroll faster with without having to keep flicking the wheel.

What kind of mouse? If it isn't an option in Mouse Settings then your mouse's manufacturer might have drivers that will do it.

it's a steel series mouse... cheap gaming mouse from walmart.

i tried to install their drivers but it ended up being something else. i don't think there is a driver to be installed for this.

FiveIron wrote:

Anyone know if it's possible to make the middle mouse button (usb) act like it does on windows? It would be nice to have something that i can scroll faster with without having to keep flicking the wheel.

BetterTouchTool might be able to do this.

anyone know if there's a way to keep your macbook charged at less than 100%? i keep my mac plugged in 90% of the time so i don't want the battery to be damaged by keeping it always fully charged.

Hmm... I know my phone would do something like that overnight automatically--it would hold at 80% until a little before the usual time I unplugged it. Apple devices are certainly capable of such behavior. I don't know how to tell a Macbook to do that though. Have you looked at the settings available under the control panel? There might be a "prioritize battery health" setting in there somewhere.

Macs from the past few years have smart enough charging you don't have to worry about it.

LeapingGnome wrote:

Macs from the past few years have smart enough charging you don't have to worry about it.

Yep. My work machine is a docked MacBook Pro (which I'm on right now when I should be doing actual work), and MacOS is capping its charge at 80% because it detects that this machine rarely is used on battery:

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/s05YYny.png)

When I start unplugging it and using it on battery (like when I travel for work), MacOS will then start letting it charge to 100%, and it will go back to this 80% lock behavior once the machine goes back to docked usage. No user intervention needed, though as you see in the screenshot, I can manually tell it to let it charge to 100% (which I might do the day before a trip, so that it's at 100% when I head to the airport).

FiveIron wrote:

anyone know if there's a way to keep your macbook charged at less than 100%? i keep my mac plugged in 90% of the time so i don't want the battery to be damaged by keeping it always fully charged.

I've heard of, but not used, Al Dente.

Apple has finally given us a desktop in between the Mini and the Pro that doesn't have a built-in monitor:

https://www.apple.com/mac-studio/

Honestly this reminds me of the old cylinder Mac Pro, except they didn't call it "Mac Pro" this time so maybe people will like it.

I hope these are still around the next time I need a video editing computer.

I literally laughed out loud when they announced the price. They spent like 20 minutes hyping up the new processor and machine and then put up a price of $4,000. I get that for professionals where time is money or companies pay, it might be worth it. I agree with you, it is basically a Mac Pro replacement.

They're still not selling an iMac-without-the-Mac display to use with the Mac Mini.

A $1600 Studio display makes no sense for a $700 Mini.

The funny thing is their new chips are ridiculously powerful. You can get a lot done with hardware far *under* what you think you might need. I feel like they need to do more to sell people on why they need to spend $4000.

I bought an M1 MacBook Air last fall and I can basically do all of my software development on it in spite of it being the class of laptop previously reserved for executives.

LeapingGnome wrote:

I agree with you, it is basically a Mac Pro replacement.

Except the cylinder Mac Pro was rather crap as a Mac Pro, even if it was an interesting machine in its own right.

I would totally be in the market for the $2000 model Mac Studio if I hadn't bought the last Intel model MacBook Pro.

LeapingGnome wrote:

I literally laughed out loud when they announced the price. They spent like 20 minutes hyping up the new processor and machine and then put up a price of $4,000. I get that for professionals where time is money or companies pay, it might be worth it. I agree with you, it is basically a Mac Pro replacement.

That's for the M1 Ultra version. The M1 Max version starts at US$2000.

I was hoping for an updated MacBook Air and Mini so I can pull the trigger on the "last" get M1 version of those systems. Those are more than enough for my needs.

Hopefully later this year...?