Getting a New Mac For Coding

Hello everyone. Welcome to another installment of the vlog series.

It's getting a lot colder these days, so I'm taking every opportunity to ride the scooter towards the end of the season.

But on the positive side, the city is in its festive mood already, and they are setting up the fair and everything.

But that's not so important.

What's important is that today I'm going to pick up a new Mac. You know, I tried working on the iPad and I even recorded a video about it a couple of weeks ago, but it doesn't really work for me and I do need a second computer.

I will explain exactly why that's the case.

But for now, I will just say that I am kind of sorry that the weather is turning cold because the scooter is just amazing.

It's a true workhorse.

It just handles everything well in the city and it's just so much fun. There's just no other way to put it. And today it's been raining all day and I got splashed by a car along the way. And honestly, I didn't think it was this bad. But when I got off and I saw myself in one of these glass windows, was like, "Holy fuck.

" But anyhow, I just got inside real quick, didn't waste any time, and I just picked up the Mac that I already decided on.

So, I'm really super excited to unbox it and discuss my choice, tell you my experience and impressions, and overall why I think this is probably a good machine for a lot of people, including myself.

On the way home, I decided to take the train after all, because I couldn't risk another car splash with the Mac hanging just from the scooter like this. And on the way there, I decided to actually get off early and visit a well-known coffee shop here on this channel to actually unbox the Mac right there. And the reason is it's got these really big amazing windows and the days are getting darker and I don't really have a studio light at home.

So this is just for you guys to get a better idea on what this machine looks like straight out of the box and in good lighting and with as much detail as I can record. But secondly, it also felt really good to get inside and get warm for a change because I was getting a little bit tired of all the rain and the cars and buses splashing water all around.

So, I decided to go with the MacBook Air 15in. So, the Mac itself is the M4 chip base model with 16 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage. And I know you have two main questions at this point.

Number one, why didn't I just wait a couple more months for the M5s to come out?

And secondly, why only the base model?

And why just the Air and not the Pro?

So, here's my reasoning. I had this exact same configuration on my iMac for a while now. And honestly, in everyday work and in the kind of development that I'm doing these days, there's just no noticeable slowdown coming from my now broken M4 Pro MacBook Pro.

And then secondly, I heard somewhere that the MacBook Air is the most popular laptop in the world. So, I wanted to see what's up with that. I never really had an experience with the MacBook Air.

And most importantly, if that's really true, then this is a very representative machine of what most people will get, including the users of my app.

And I wanted to be able to test not with a super high-end spec, but with a more realistic machine.

And secondly, comparing to my old MacBook Pro that was 14-in, I really wanted just a slightly bigger screen.

That's really part of the reason.

And the 16-inch MacBook Pro is really way too big and way too heavy.

And not to mention that the Air comes in at half the price or less than half the price of a 16-inch MacBook Pro.

And you know, the moment I picked it up out of the box, it really felt amazing.

The proportions of it, the weight, it just felt really well balanced and just right for what I wanted and what I needed.

And in the box, the tiny 35 watt charger, you know, it didn't make me insecure.

I'm not that insecure about the size.

The Mac itself, I got it in the midnight blue color, if that's even a color name.

But I will say one thing, it is a fingerprint magnet.

However, if you keep it clean, it does look kind of awesome.

And again, it just feels so good in the hand in terms of the weight and the proportions.

However, I am not going to be setting up the Mac here because I have a suspicion because this is an M4 model that's been sitting around probably in a warehouse for some time that it will immediately want to update Mac OS.

And the Wi-Fi here is not that great.

Overall, I was very happy to put it in the bag instead of this cardboard box to protect it from the rain.

And I finally got going home. One fun fact I wanted to share with you guys that is totally unrelated is that this building right in front of me is entirely made of wood.

I watched it actually being constructed a couple of years ago and everything from the columns to the floors to the roof, it's all made out of wood.

quite interesting and unusual for Europe, but I understand it's maybe a much more common occurrence in the US.

Anyhow, it was fun for my engineering brain to just think about it and watch the whole process. But let me get back on the scooter, traverse the rain, and in the meantime, a quick sponsored segment helps me pay the bills on this channel.

So, today, a quick word from AFlow.

AFlow is a unique app that acts as a catch-all inbox for things like tasks and emails. It connects with pretty much any productivity app and pulls in all your tasks in one place so that you can organize them on the calendar view.

Here on my calendar view, I have all my tasks blocked out so that I can make sure I get the right things done at the right time and that no one on my team is blocked waiting for me.

Aciflow has a two-way sync engine which ensures that when you check things off from here, the change is reflected in the app where the task originated from.

You can also treat emails themselves as to-do items, which I often use to directly add bug reports that come into my inbox from my users.

It's really easy. AFlow's AI assistant is good at taking simple requests like if there are tasks in my inbox for more than 2 days, suggest a good time to schedule them.

AFlow helps you truly understand just how much capacity you have in a given week.

Even if you use many apps for different purposes, you can give a flow a try for free. So, check out the link in the description to create your account on the website. And once you have your account, you can use the iPhone app as well, and it really works on all of your devices. Now, there's no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing.

And that piece of Norwegian wisdom, I wholeheartedly agree with.

And in terms of the battery life on the scooter, 25% used for 13 km in this weather is not that bad at all.

But let's get to the Mac setup.

The first impression is that the keyboard is definitely different from the Pro and I'm really looking forward to test it out a little bit later.

But anyhow, first I completed the basic setup.

I let it update and I noticed one really cool thing that didn't really cross my mind at first.

So on the iMac, just as I left it last night, I had my Xcode open and the window is the same exact size as a 15-in laptop.

And that gave me some confidence that I chose the correct size for myself because this is completely coincidental.

I didn't plan on making them match up so perfectly.

But anyhow, let's discuss why I got the MacBook in the first place. And I mentioned I needed a second computer. But why?

Am I really that die hard of a consumer?

Well, maybe. I don't know.

But what's really been happening is that I noticed that the number of people who are purchasing the multi-achine license of my app one menu has been increasing.

And that's partly because it has iCloud sync for all your settings. And even though I did a major refactor of most areas of this app, iCloud sync was one of those things that I was just too scared to touch because I had no way of testing it.

I mean, I had a few hacks here and there by deleting my data and then restoring it again and trying to see if it will sync, but I was never sure if my hacks are representative of a real scenario.

So, here I was relieved to see all my settings and clipboard history sync immediately.

But that being said, I have big plans now, specifically when it comes to the system monitoring feature, for example, to start syncing some more information about all of your devices over your iCloud. So, for example, you could monitor the usage and performance of all your machines on the dashboard running on any one of them and that would of course sync over iCloud.

But now, I can test that case and I can confidently build that feature.

Otherwise, it would be practically impossible.

So, if you would like to follow along with that development journey, see how exactly I'm going to develop this feature, subscribe.

It really helps me out here on YouTube.

And I will make sure to post detailed content about all of this development work for you guys to enjoy.

Even though it might not be the most impressive code you've ever seen, it could be interesting to follow along.

So, thank you for watching and I will see you in the next one. Oh, if you have any questions about the MacBook itself, let me know in the comments. I will try to answer them as soon as I see