So, I finally did it. I got my MacBook Air. I went for 16GB because it was cheaper, and I want to dip my toe in before even thinking about committing to the Mac ecosystem. And so far, with the few days I’ve had it, it’s been really good, although with some big caveats.
The Good
Well, I do like macOS in general. I got used to it quickly, tbh. but there are some things that came up in particular, whether it’s from the hardware or the operating system.
Full-screen app switching
A lot of people coming from other operating systems hate this, but I for one love it. It’s like what Niri was supposed to give me – a scrollable environment for me to focus on tasks – but without the inherent jank of having to use Wayland and broken X11 backwards compatibility. Each screen is per-app (for up to two apps divided split-screen) rather than with definable workspaces.
True Tone
True Tone is basically your Apple device checking the ambient light of your room and matching its display settings to the ambient light. I forget how much I appreciate this on my other Apple devices because it’s just in the background doing its thing, but my MacBook gives me a new-found appreciation for it.
Better emoji support across the board
Windows absolutely sucks for emoji due to the legacy cruft preventing emoji from being shown in old apps, as well as their political stance towards country flags by not having any. Apple, being the one who popularised emoji for the West, has always had good emoji support and coming to Mac it was nice to have emoji that showed up properly. Eurovision posts no longer look awkward without installing a font. It’s worth pointing out that Linux is also getting better on this regard, but that’s because “backwards compatibility” is not a real thing in the Linux world so they have the flexibility of doing so.
Espanso’s stabler here
I use Espanso, a text replacement application. On Windows, I’ve had some weird issues with it when I first used it, where it’d replace text then undo itself, on Mac it seems robuster in comparison.
Integration with the Apple ecosystem
I already have an iPhone, and an Apple Watch, and because I’ve got my MacBook tied into my Apple ID, I also get access to integrations between those two devices. I can control my iPhone and receive messages from it. My Apple Watch unlocks my MacBook if I’m wearing it. This feels less “magical” than the iPhone, whose integration with Apple Pay felt that way and was part of me wanting to get a Mac, but nonetheless it’s genuinely some really nice conveniences I got here.
This also extends to an extent towards some applications outside of their ecosystem. When I voted in Bhutan’s national final for Eurovision Asia, I noticed that macOS wanted to fill in the one-time number that was sent to me by the voting provider and was retrieved by Apple’s Mail client. This was on my e-mail provided by Fastmail, and with Vivaldi as the web browser. I’m surprised that I was able to do that on Vivaldi.
Apple Music on Mac is simply better than on Windows
Wow, shocker, innit. Apple thing works on Apple thing better than on Windows thing. But Apple used to be really good at developing Windows apps in the Jobs era, and they dropped the ball during Tim Cook’s tenure. Anyhow, Apple Music doesn’t feel anywhere near as clunky here like it does on Windows, and it also adds some creature comforts from iOS, such as AutoMix and the word-by-word lyrics syncing. This was something I heard a lot from Mac users, but this feels like a breath of fresh air tbh.
Efficiency
It’s just so efficient. Like, the battery has lasted longer than any laptop I’ve used and some applications are running faster even if a bit, like JetBrains Rider. I want to think it’s a placebo, but when I use Rider it really is snappier on my MacBook than it is on Windows or Linux. I’d have to presume they’re better able to optimise for Apple silicon.
The Bad
1Password doesn’t AutoFill on Mac
1Password supports AutoFill on iOS and iPadOS, but not macOS, which I find disappointing. As far as I know, this was a deliberate decision by 1Password, as they felt Apple’s AutoFill wasn’t up to their standards, but honestly I just want to use my existing passkeys across macOS. If you’re on 1Password, expect to use your phone for this.
Gatekeeper is annoying as fuck
If you use any FOSS that’s considered “hobbyist”, well, have fun with macOS telling you that you should delete the app because it isn’t signed and notarised. Yes, Apple, I know OpenRCT2 is safe, let me have my £1500 RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 machine, damn it. This is genuinely worse than User Account Control and Microsoft SmartScreen because of how strong-handy Apple is about you deleting it instead of doing the right thing and forcing macOS to keep the damn thing. I hope Golden Gate lets you disable it for good.
Monitor problems
I’m way too used to 120+hz screens. The screen on the MacBook Air is stunning, but also very choppy if you’re used to high refresh rates like I am. That’s a nitpick though, because I can just use my 4K monitor, right? Well… kind of. It’s got problems.
I’m not sure what’s going on here, and I’m sure I had this happen on my Hackintosh a while back too but never really thought to research on this, but my current monitor (an MSI MAG 4K gaming monitor, up to 160hz) seems to have washed out colours on macOS but not on Windows or Linux, unless I enable HDR. Unfortunately HDR doesn’t get enabled unless I set macOS to use 1080p or the full 4K resolution which I don’t want to do on my 4K display, I prefer the 1440p I get from fractional scaling.
I was able to override it using BetterDisplay, by forcing it to enable HDR + 120hz. It seems like SDR on HDR-capable displays revert to Limited colours for some reason? Google’s AI thought it was because gaming monitors report similarly to televisions and Apple defaults to that, but who knows.
You need extra peripherals/apps to make the most out of it
If this is your main computer, be prepared to spend more money on a docking station or USB hub. Given it’s a laptop I have I’m not too surprised but I would love for more I/O. If you want to take advantage of the Apple ecosystem more, be prepared to pay more for replacement apps. If macOS is misbehaving in weird ways, be prepared to buy an app to make it behave.
The Bottom Line
There are some really great things with my MacBook Air and macOS, and some really outright dumb shit that it does too, and it’s these polarising wins and losses that at first did make Mac overwhelming for me, and I did end up overthinking about it, and I’m glad I’ve given it a go at least. But the underlying experience of macOS (when not trying to tinker with it) has still been better than Windows, and the MacBook Air is genuinely a great bit of kit. If I had the money, I’d probably go for a MacBook Pro, but the Air will suit me fine I think. macOS had made me realise that Windows was becoming annoying in the background for me, in a way. Not the ads or anything, just this constant stress and I need to figure out what it is – I suspect it’s me not adapting from KDE to Windows well, but some stuff that applies to macOS here can apply to KDE to, such as the virtual desktop/workspace support (while not scrolling, virtual desktops are solid on KDE) and emoji suppor. That means ironically, while using my MacBook and switching to my Windows machine, macOS made me appreciate KDE even more!
That being said there are still things I’m tied to Windows to, such as MusicBee (music library organiser) and Hydrus Network (tag-based filesystem similar to boorus), and last time I tried Linux I couldn’t get along with it. Hell, I couldn’t tell you what distro to even use, now. These are just set up in a way where Windows is the superior way to run it – well, MusicBee’s case is more that it was designed for Windows and only Windows, and getting it to behave under WINE can be stressful. Hydrus can technically run on Mac but getting it to run is a faff, even more so than Arch Linux which has an AUR package. However, given that I’m avoiding Arch as much as I can nowadays due to their complacency for crap, I’d probably need to go through the “run from source” rigmarole on Linux anyways, since no-one has wired Hydrus’ Flatpak to run every Wednesday when the developer pushes an update, and it’s so niche that no-one outside Arch users bothered to package it in a convenient manner.
I don’t know if this MacBook will end up being my main machine, I don’t want to put any bets on that right now. There’s a lot that needs to happen for me to even think about considering that. However, I’ve already planned to use the MacBook in times where I need to lock the fuck in, because it’s genuinely great for focusing. And in the event I get the Linux bug again (look, I’ve got the tech autism and I’ve got combined ADHD, I’m fucking hopeless lol), Mac has apps I’d miss if I did make the move, such as Affinity.