This could be heaven, or this could be hell...
My new Mac laptop arrived more than an hour ago, and I've spent the past while slowly setting it up. During setup, I said no to a lot of offered features, like Siri, and I'm ignoring the Apple Intelligence feature for the moment because I'm fairly chary of AI. (My chats with ChatGPT are of very limited scope.) Yeah, call me old. As is usual with Mac, the laptop, a 2024 MacBook Air 13 M3, 10-core GPU, 24GB memory, 512GB storage, blah blah blah. I can use it while I'm in the States. It occurs to me that I need to buy a tote bag for slight protection and easy carriage. Alas, like my 2019 desktop Mac, the laptop has a chiclet keyboard, which I and my strokey fingers don't like. In the name of materialism, some unboxing photos:
And of course, the first thing the laptop did was flag me with a software update. Christ. Well, this is a 2024 machine, and it's now 2025, so I guess it's only fair that there'd be an update. While the laptop is updating, I've switched to my desktop to complete this blog post, and I'd used my cell phone to upload the above unboxing pics. The laptop's screen lit up right away because the laptop was charged with 50% battery life, and it started flashing "hello" in all the world's languages until I snapped out of my hypnosis and found an arrow button to move me forward through the setup process. I saw Korean (annyeonghaseyo), English, Chinese (I think that's ni hao), and other languages ranging from French to Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. I think I even saw Arabic and Amharic, and maybe Sinhalese before I turned the "hello"s off. Setup wasn't too hard, but it's definitely gotten more complex over the years. Wi-Fi took a second to set up because I didn't remember the password to access Wi-Fi, which is being broadcast by my computer (I'd set it up to be a hotspot). I then realized I had the password on my phone, which takes advantage of the Wi-Fi-hotspot feature.
Aside: while I'm in the States, I won't be able to use LTE unless I take along my GlocalMe portable hotspot, but that'll mean spending I-don't-know-how-much money for the data. I'll look into prices and decide whether to risk going to the States using only Wi-Fi. If I'm driving or in a restaurant with no Wi-Fi, though, I'm going to feel the pinch, so I might have to bite the bullet and buy some Glocal Me data. We'll see.
There's plenty still to set up (I just ordered a laptop pouch), but I'll get to those things over the coming weeks. Today's the 5th; I leave on the 24th. There's time.
While out of the U.S., I use Google Voice, via Wi-Fi, as it is free, and gives me a U.S. based number for any U.S. forms that need a phone number. If you don't need your South Korean number while in the U.S. and want to have physical and unlimited Wi-Fi with you at all times and a working phone number to make calls on at all times, check into Straighttalk.com deals. $55 gets you a new Samsung or Motorola phone and unlimited everything on their gold plan until April 15th. You can pre-order it to arrive before you do, or you can get it in person at Walmart.
ReplyDeleteThanks for reminding me what a pain setting up a new laptop can be. Downloading all the apps, remembering long-forgotten passwords, and adapting to the strangeness of something new takes the joy out of the purchase for me. Sounds like you got through better than I would. Enjoy your bite of the Apple!
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