🏆 A Golden Age of Mac: Celebrating 5 Years of Apple Silicon

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Hey there!

We’ve been living in the heat dome here in the eastern US this week and it’s been a scorcher. 🥵 But, that’s perfect weather for sitting indoors and putting together this edition of your newsletter. Here’s what I have coming up:

• Celebrating 5 Years of Apple Silicon Macs

• My Mac Buying Guide for Students is Updated for 2025

• Thanks for the Love

• Using Apple Watch and Athlytic App for Stress Awareness on Basic AF Show

And there's a new word scramble puzzle and plenty more news you should know about!

Let's get it!

🥳 Celebrating 5 Years of Apple Silicon Macs

In the 2010s, the Mac was a mess.

The MacBook Pro had thermal issues and an insane amount of keyboard problems. The Mac mini felt abandoned with years in between updates. The Mac Pro looked cool, but its design related thermal issues limited updates.

At the same time, the iPhone became an incredible success, and many of us wondered if Apple even cared about the Mac.

Then, in June of 2020, everything changed.

At that year's Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple announced a two-year plan to transition every Mac off of Intel processors and onto its own chips.

Apple had done these types of transitions before when it moved from PowerPC processors to Intel in the mid 2000s and to PowerPC from Motorola in the 1990s. Even so, few of us were prepared for how great things would be.

The M1 MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and Mac mini

In November 2020, Apple released a new MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and Mac mini, each powered by its new M1 chip. The laptop models delivered unprecedented battery life and each model performed at very high levels while running silently or with minimal fan noise.

Not long after its release, I had the M1 MacBook Pro on my desk at work. I'll never forget how blissfully quiet it was compared to the Intel model I had before, especially on Zoom calls, which were a daily occurrence because of the pandemic.

(I have an M1 Mac mini and M1 Pro MacBook Pro that are still running brilliantly.)

Five Years of Progress

Since then, Apple has been full-speed ahead. We're now up to the M4 family of chips, and along the way, Apple has:

• Completely redesigned the MacBook Pro into an incredibly great family of laptops.

• Updated the MacBook Air's design to make it even better (it's probably the best Mac for most people who need a Mac laptop).

• Released the Mac Studio, a powerhouse which has effectively become the new pro model (even though the Mac Pro still exists).

• Introduced a new Mac mini that's ridiculously small but incredibly powerful.

I don't want to drag this out too long, but I had to take a few minutes to recognize what Apple's done over the last five years. It's been incredible, and we truly are in a golden age of Mac.

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📚 Best Mac for College 2025 Update

Last year, I published my "Best Mac for College" guide to help students (or their parents) determine which Mac would be right for them to take off to school. I've just updated it for 2025.

I'm still recommending the MacBook Air for most students.

Some key takeaways:

• Apple improved the value this year by lowering the starting price by $100 while doubling the base memory from 8GB to 16GB.

• Save more by shopping on Apple's Education Store.

• My suggestion is to upgrade the RAM to 24GB and go with 512GB storage.

• There's a new Sky Blue color.

• In my experience managing 30,000+ devices in higher education over the last 10+ years, we see cracked displays and liquid damage as the most common issues. AppleCare+ is a must-have.

Apple recently launched their Back to School promo, which runs until September 30. In recent years, Apple has provided various gift cards based on what you bought, but it's changed things up this year by offering certain accessories instead.

• Eligible products include MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iMac, iPad Air and iPad Pro.

• Accessories include Magic Mouse or Trackpad, AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation, Apple Pencil Pro, AirPods Pro 2 (with additional payment), Magic Keyboard for iPad (various models).

• There are quite a few options, but again, it depends on what you buy, so be sure to see Apple's site for the details.

There's plenty more in my guide, including what to do before you buy anything, reasonable options for spending less, software considerations, backup strategies to protect your data, and much more. The link is below.

🧩 Word Scramble Puzzle

❤️ Thanks for the Love

Big thanks to everyone who’s taken a moment to share feedback about the newsletter. The latest kind words come from Jeff P. and Daniel P. Much appreciated!

Their comments are now featured on the signup page. Want to add yours to the mix? Just reply with a quick note!

PS: I have a Basic AF Show sticker and magnet set for the next three to respond. 😀 

🎙️ Basic AF Show: 90 Days of Forever*Notes & Stress Awareness with Athlytic and Apple Watch

In this episode, we dive into three fun segments: My updated Mac recommendations for students, Jeff's update on his Forever*Notes system using Apple Notes, and how both of us use health-tracking apps to better understand our stress and recovery. I unpack how Athlytic and Apple Watch are helping me recognize stress and reduce habitual tension, while Jeff shares how Gentler Streak has helped him optimize sleep and workouts.

Chapter Listing:

00:00 - Intro
01:22 - Best Mac for College Students Updated for 2025
03:23 - Follow Up: Forever*Notes
21:27 - Apple Watch, Athlytic, & Stress Awareness
29:41 - Follow Up: Gentler Streak
41:00 - Close

Episode Transcript

Listen to and follow the show in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, all the other podcast apps, as well as on YouTube and YouTube Music.

📣 News to Know About

Here’s a quick rundown of other recent and noteworthy news, hand-selected just for you:

🧩 Word Scramble Answer

Apple Fitness+ is Apple’s subscription-based workout service offering guided fitness and meditation sessions. It integrates with Apple Watch for real-time stats.