Setting up a new MacBook Pro (16")

ChrisR

ChrisR

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I have a new MBP that I'm setting up, on a temporary basis (will do the full setup and transfer later, for... reasons). I've always had my Macs named in a specific way, and I wanted to continue that tradition. I don't remember being asked in the setup process, but it turns out the new one is named Chris's Macbook Pro. Has anyone any suggestion for how I can rename this the way I want?

(Sorry, there may be more dumb questions later, despite my having been an off-and-on Mac user since the very first Macintosh!)
 
Thank you Glenn @GeeJay57 . Managed to change it, so far with no ill effects.

The screen is delicious, particularly compared with my mid 2014 15" MBP with staingate! The keyboard, not so much, though I'm sure I'll get used to it. I would really like to make the transfer now, but, gorra wait...

One further question. Pretty much every MacBook I've had so far has suffered minor screen effects from the keyboard impressing on the screen. Is there anything I can do to stop this?

The new one (as the old one did) comes with a thin piece of, I dunno, plastic fibre sheet (??) between screen and keyboard. I remember always using this for the first few months, then it would inevitably get lost, and the damage happened anyway.
 
I had a new MacBook Pro and a MacBook Air last year (personal/work) and mostly use both of them in clamshell mode, but I am not getting any of the key outlines on the screen that I used to get with my previous MacBooks.
 
That's encouraging Lewis, thank you.
 
OK I'm now fully transferred to the new MBP. I did the transfer from a Time Machine backup on a 1TB Seagate drive. At times it was only doing 19 Kbps, although the 450 MB in the end took about 3 hours to transfer. I had not made a "fresh" backup from the old machine, so I'm guessing it had to dot about a bit on the disk to find the "next" bit to download. I think if I were doing it again I'd make a complete TM backup first (although I suppose it's doubtful the overall time would be less).

Loving the screen, getting used to the keyboard (though I hadn't noticed it doesn't appear to be backlit like the old one?). However, so far I'm hating the click feedback from the trackpad. It's really hard to know if I've clicked or not! I can't find any setting to adjust this; anyone here any ideas?

It's a 16" MBP with the lower spec M1...
 
I have the 16 MPB Max and love it. After a life (and career) with nothing but Microsoft and Android, MacOS has (once up to speed with it) been great. Hardware wise the battery life is incredible for such a powerful machine, and best of all I've yet to hear the fans on it. During the day it sits next to my work Dell XPS 15 which sounds like it wants to take off.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by the click feedback. Mine has a very even click all over the trackpad. I have to admit I rarely use the 'force click'. Might be worth a rummage in the trackpad settings to see if you can get it to your liking.


Hope you enjoy yours as I do mine,
 
Cupotea said:
I have the 16 MPB Max and love it. After a life (and career) with nothing but Microsoft and Android, MacOS has (once up to speed with it) been great. Hardware wise the battery life is incredible for such a powerful machine, and best of all I've yet to hear the fans on it. During the day it sits next to my work Dell XPS 15 which sounds like it wants to take off.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by the click feedback. Mine has a very even click all over the trackpad. I have to admit I rarely use the 'force click'. Might be worth a rummage in the trackpad settings to see if you can get it to your liking.


Hope you enjoy yours as I do mine,
Click to expand...
Thanks Peter. We also have a PC at home, but I haven't used a PC seriously since 2005! Used Macs at work from then. After retiring, I bought my own 15" MBP in 2011, one of the infamous batch that developed motherboard problems out of warranty. Cost me over £400 for a new motherboard, then that went, so they replaced it free, then it went again... there was some backchat including an email to tcook at apple... took it in again to the Apple shop, they took it out back, came back and said they were replacing the whole machine. The original was 8 MB, the new one 16 MB. I even persuaded them to give me a CD/DVD drive as well, as I needed it to get scans back from the lab. So I was pretty pleased, new Mac for £400. Then a few months later, they refunded the £400! So after a torrid few months, good service in the end.

Anyway, I digress. I'm really happy with the old machine, except it's screen is getting hard to see properly (a problem known as "staingate"; I found out about it too late to participate in the screen exchange programme, and now there are no screens available anywhere). Hence the replacement. As noted, all well except when I click, I can't work out whether it's happened or not. The trackpad settings don't really contain anything useful, more about gestures AFAICS.

I've just turned off the "force-click" setting, we'll see if that's any better!
 
Maybe it's because it's suddenly had 450 GB loaded last Sunday, and is rebuilding indexes or something else weird, but it's strange that it's been running with WindowServer at around 33%, and also DropBox Helper (Renderer) at around 30%, all day. DropBox Helper (GPU) around 15%,, and Kernel Task also around 15%. Obviously they all bob up and down, but these 4 Tasks have been at that sort of level all day and maybe yesterday, when I first noticed it. I only have a free 2 GB DropBox plan. Any ideas?
 
ChrisR said:
Maybe it's because it's suddenly had 450 GB loaded last Sunday, and is rebuilding indexes or something else weird, but it's strange that it's been running with WindowServer at around 33%, and also DropBox Helper (Renderer) at around 30%, all day. DropBox Helper (GPU) around 15%,, and Kernel Task also around 15%. Obviously they all bob up and down, but these 4 Tasks have been at that sort of level all day and maybe yesterday, when I first noticed it. I only have a free 2 GB DropBox plan. Any ideas?
Click to expand...
OK I think I fixed this one, by opening DropBox itself and signing in. It appears that the login didn't make the transfer to the new Mac. Should have been obvious to me, but it wasn't! At the moment all the DropBox tasks are way down below 1%.
 
Currently reviewing the various cables and adapters I bought for the old 2014 MBP. I'm guessing these will be for sale:

- Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter

- Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter

The 16" MBP has a HDMI port, but no Mini DisplayPort (AFAICS). Would there be any advantages in trying to get a USB-C to Mini DisplayPort Adapter (if such a thing exists) if I need an external screen (advantage over the HDMI connection, I mean)?

It's always a good thing to have an Ethernet adapter (or used to be). Should I try to get a USB-C to Thunderbolt (1) adapter, or get a USB-C to Ethernet adapter?

EDIT: I've also found a Lightning to SD Card Camera Reader, again redundant I guess, as the current MBP has a SD card slot. Would this adapter be useful with an iPad? (Sorry, I have no idea what "Lightning" means!)
 
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HDMI is fine.
USB-C to ethernet could be useful, although I've never needed one, macOS seems to prefer wireless, as a lot of the cross-device features need you to be on wireless.
Lightning to SD is for iPad.
 
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