I'm getting a new Macbook Pro. What's your favorite apps and tips?

PetitPrince
2024-10-06T01:19:40Z

Hi Tildes !

I was passively looking for an refresh of my current laptop (Thinkpad X1 carbon Gen 5; it's still working fine except some mysterious thermal profile¹), and a friend of mine working in retail told me he could sell me a Macbook Pro (the mid-range 14in one with the M3 Pro chip² at a heavy discount (more than half the price; it's a display model but he tells me it wasn't mistreated). It's a too good of a deal to pass on, so I accepted.

¹ it's constantly at 70C; I already changed the thermal paste and the battery.
² does that mean it's Macbook Pro Pro ?
³ and I guess the Thinkpad's going to be recycled as a home server. I half hope that running Linux on it will solve the thermal problem

My use case would be (in no particular order):

photo/video processing: I know what I need and I already have a CaptureOne license. Davinci Resolve is enough (and plenty) for me

programming (web dev, arduino; VScode's probably gonna be the second thing I'm going to install)(I'm kinda interested running a LLM locally, but have no experience with that)

light CAD for 3d printing,

gaming? My old gaming tower runs Elden Ring fine but struggle a bit with Baldur's Gate 3 (it's really the loading time, and loading textures), and it seems this MBP can run it fine.

regular day-to-day browsing / office and adulting work

I would qualify myself as a power-user.

Background: I'm not entirely new to the Apple ecosystem. Back in uni I had the first unibody MBP sporting Leopard and then Snow Leopard. I then went with a X220t and then a my current X1.

Some questions:

I see that BetterTouchTools is still a thing (back then I mapped three fingers swipe up to new tab, three finger swipe down to close tab, and twist to change tabs). I half remember one that was just a staging area living on a sidebar when moving file from one part of the finder to another (the name eludes me). Is there any other handy utilities I should be aware of ? That's also your prompt to plug in your favorite apps :)

How's the dongle life (and what's the recommended one) ? While most of my stuff can be USB-C, I still have important stuff that requires USB-A (my photo printers, several portables hard-drive)

Any interesting (gasp!) Android integration ? I'm not currently using any with my Windows machine (having Whatsapp/Telegram/Discord is sufficient), but I'm curious anyway.

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