I can’t help myself but I felt in love with that thing. Perfect!! I’ll go for it.
Have you ever seen a SSD with that much lower read than write speed? Technically that makes absolutely no sense, because writing is the slower process.
it’s just different chips and different configurations between the M4 vs M4 Pro, iirc the 256 setup on the M4 is 2x128GB chips and the 512 is 2x256, on the Pro it’s different too but the whole system is a bit different so you get different speeds for each. the bigger the storage config the bigger the buffers on the drives etc.
it’s not throttling it’s just the way it’s built.
and imo for $600 device the speeds are impressive as is even if it’s lower than the more expensive models.
but yeah I always say go for the highest you can afford you’ll get best performance and internal storage > external storage.
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Right, I don’t know what the “tech review” YouTubefluencers are suggesting but if you think there’s a point at which arbitrary bottlenecks are being introduced, you’re going to need to provide receipts. “Its less than I would expect” is not necessarily useful, context is key.
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well, tbf apple did get caught throttling all kinds of things in the past like the iOS for older iphones and iirc not so long ago with certain thunderbolt/usbc cables for external storage, so one might easily jump to conclusion that the base mode intentionally crippled but in this case it’s just the config
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Ok, I’m looking to buy a macbook and ditch Windows for personal use (and maybe some mobile music making, we’ll see). I’m fed up with MS’s BS. Sorry if this is covered elsewhere - there are a lot of posts in this thread.
What annoyances, gotchas, and ‘things you wish you knew’ am I likely to run into? Will I run into issues if I buy an M3 rather than the new M4 models?
I know I’ll probably need to buy all new accessories. I assume I’ll need to buy new licenses for some applications, and that I’ll need to specifically buy a usb hub of come kind for use with other devices. I’ve got an iPhone so I’m familiar with at least the most basic Apple terminology.
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If you haven’t used Mac before you’ll need some time to get used to it.
Different file system. different UX patters, different apps, different ways to do the same things. You might be frustrated in the beginning and that’s absolutely normal.
I highly recommend to not try to use Windows apps in any types of emulators and virtual machines. Apart from some specific professional software there is almost always a native Mac alternative (if the app is not multi-platform)
Will I run into issues if I buy an M3 rather than the new M4 models?
You will know that you own not the latest Mac. That’s it. But there is always a new Mac on the horizon.
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One thing to think about when deciding between an M3 and an M4 is that Apple ties its supported OS versions to (roughly) the release dates of the computers. So an M3 will stop getting new OS support (and install-ability without hacking) before the M4s do. That equates to 1-2 years, depending on the Mac, roughly).
I take that into consideration since I buy Macs to last a decade or more, and they generally do.
Depending on the accessory, things might actually be easier. If they’re USB and fairly recent then a lot of them will just plug in and go. The only drivers I have installed are for my MOTU interfaces, and only because they theoretically perform better than just plugging them in and using the built-in ‘standard’ drivers.
Like has been stated, it takes a bit of time to get used to. Everything’s there; but getting to things can be a bit different. They used to be FAR easier to configure and customize than Windows, but they’ve sort of killed that progressively with each new ‘Settings’ version they release.
Get SuperDuper! for backups. That’s an opinion. Some people like Time Machine. I prefer SuperDuper! (the ‘!’ is part of the name). Bootable cloning of the System drive is easier with it, for me anyway.
(more techie):
If you’re going to partition SSDs, do some reading on APFS (file system). You don’t partition APFS drives (though you can)… you create volumes. I find it easier, but it took me a minute.
And on that note: if you’re used to getting a new machine and wiping the drive and fresh-installing the OS, then I have two things:
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You don’t really need to do this. New Macs will come with a pretty small number of extra apps, that are free with the machines, but that can be fairly easily removed IF you’ve never opened them when you first boot. Just drag them to the trash and empty it. (if you open them they write a bunch of files all over the place (prefs files, cache files, project files, etc. and it’s more work to clear all that out). Just: GarageBand, Pages, Numbers and Keynote on my last Mac.
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(edit because I forgot ‘2’):Be VERY careful when wiping the internal primary drive, as this has ‘activation’ information on it, as well as some security stuff, and you can end up having to connect the machine to apple and re-activating the machine before it’ll let you complete the install.
And most of the time, when you want to click ‘Control’ don’t… click ‘Command’ instead. 
Oh, and I didn’t have any problem buying new licenses for things that were dual-platform. I lost some Windows only stuff (some that I liked a lot, like Sound Forge). The only ‘stickler’ where licensing was concerned was Adobe, who did a one-time license transfer from Windows to Mac… so nice of them. I don’t think they have any single-platform software anymore, but I dropped them for Affinity apps a while ago.
If you have iLok (app), make sure you de-activate everything so you can re-activate on the Mac, but that part’s probably obvious.
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Adobe license works without any problems on any device where you can install Creative Cloud
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I did the same thing a few years ago. I didn’t have to buy any new licenses and there are very few issues to worry about. The main one is the fact that Apple update the OS every year and a lot of plugin manufacturers can be slow to update/test for compatibility. If you buy a new Mac now it will have the latest OS (Sequoia) which might not be compatible with all plugins. If you want to learn about MacOs there’s a good Youtube channel called Macmost
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Another thing to consider about the M4 machines is that they all come with 16GB memory. The old machines mostly came with 8 as a stock option, and a $200 upgrade to 16 so factor that cost in unless you can find a blowout sale on them, which Best Buy does, Costco does, and a few others… and Amazon almost always more-or-less matches Best Buy I’ve found.
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Command + Spacebar is your friend 
It helped me a lot when I first used a Mac.
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What does that do?
It opens a popup prompt to search, but also runs things. So if you’re trying to find things like “midi”, you just type that and you can either click on something it finds or press enter to run it.
Looking for the calculator? Command + Spacebar then type calc. Etc.
It’s a lot like Windows search (which I think copied Apple in this case).
Full list of keyboard shortcuts is here: Mac keyboard shortcuts - Apple Support
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Eventually, or sooner than that, yes. I am a proponent of buy the computer you need now, except in this case. If you can wait for the M4 MacBook Air, wait. It’s not the CPUs, or GPUs, in this case, or even the RAM size–it’s the Neural Engine. It is much, much more powerful in the M4. This will become increasingly important as Apple continues to integrate “Apple Intelligence” features and workflows into the MacOS.
Without a tangible use case?
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Thanks for the insight, everyone!
Yeah, I anticipate some frustration while learning the differences. I’ve tinkered with Macs briefly so it won’t be totally alien but I haven’t done anything in depth.
Is there any issue with running an older mac with an unsupported OS once that time comes, apart from potential security issues?
I tend to tinker and poke around the depths of my computer, this is exactly the kind of info I was hoping for.
Yeah, I was thinking about this. My current plan is to try and catch one of the 16-gig M3’s on sale if I can still find one. If not, I may just wait and save for an m4/ wait for the air. This isn’t an urgent need, although with the potential of massive tariffs looming on the horizon I may buy sooner rather than later.
They still receive security updates for a few years after the big updates finish, and then you (at least at this point in time) can just update them manually
if you plan to get external monitor plan ahead, scaling on mac works super weird, if you scale down to non linear resolution it will actually double the resolution and then half it, so if you plan to go from 4k to 2k it will actually scale up to 5k and then half it, they want to provide better visual experience so that’s how they do it and that costs gpu cycles, the gui scaling is not possible except from internal apps zoom so for example on 4k 27" monitor everything is super small, so if you go to 2k that would require some constant stress, and the linear scale down is 1080p and that’s too low.
the silicon macs handle this thing pretty easy compared to old intels but still, if you do graphics/video that will take some of the processing towards the resolution scaling.
not at all but if you can get the latest - get it.
except for magic keyboard with touchid which I can’t live without there’s nothing you need.
so is software, don’t buy stuff, just look for OS alternatives, there are plenty of these. and even then, try sticking with what apple provides, it actually includes A LOT these days so don’t be in a hurry to install stuff, try getting by with what’s included, I find uninstall a lot of stuff these days just because I don’t need it.
things I recommend
- iTerm2 with zsh of fish
- homebrew - try installing everything with it, glorious package manager
- Kap/OBS for video screen recording
- Clipy - clipboard managed
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My Mid 2015 Macbook is still alive and functional. It doesn’t support modern MacOS features, sometimes useful. It has worse integration with modern Apple devices (iPad sidecar and so on). It doesn’t support the most recent iOS dev tools. If you plan to develop anything for Apple devices this will be showstopper. But I still can use it for various tasks, including running Ableton with some relatively simple projects.
It’s always better to buy the most recent Mac because of a year or two of additional support. But most likely you will want to change it much earlier than it gets unusable because of lack of support. So I wouldn’t say it’s too critical. Newer is better, but prev generation is fine too, especially if you found some discount.
Historically, MacOS is even more UNIX-like system than Linux. You can do a lot of things with Homebrew and Terminal. Just make regular backups before experiments
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