A (semi serious) review of my new Mac Pro 2013, from a Windows user perspective

[Noisebox]

Preface: I am not a professional writer, or reviewer. Don't take this as a factual hard-core in-depth review. It's my opinion only, YMMV.
__

So yeah, my Mac Pro 2013 (henceforth referred to as the "Applelith" because "Trash Can" is derogatory and Mac Pro 2013 is too plain. The Mac Pro 2013 looks like the Monolith from 2001 a Space Odyssey, if it were designed by Apple and since this is my Mac Pro 2013 and my review, I'm callin' it what I like. Feel free to use the hashtag #Applelith. I hope it catches on) arrived today in a HUGE cardboard box.

Inside, past all the packing peanuts is the original box (oooh! dark, mysterious... and...and.... rectangular!) and boy is it heavy. That is something I hadn't expected. This sucker weighs more than my main workstation (which is a Dell Precision T7610 which was made out of Cold War-era steel and is about as attractive.)
Now comes the moment of truth...had a bought a nice example, or was it scuffed to heck and back? I apprehensively remove the top Styrofoam and take out the Applelith.

Aside from my new fingerprints, the machine is spotless. Like factory fresh. No dust, no scuffs, no marks of any kin...no wait...I see something! I quickly grab my electron microscope and place the Applelith under it's electronic eye.

Just as I had feared...a 2 micron scratch near the base. I take a deep breath and remind myself it IS used, after all. Disappointed by this callous handling of the Applelith, I set it on the table and ever.so.carefully remove the shroud. I feel like a kid again, catching that magical glimpse of Darth Vader having his helmet put on in his chamber of solitude. What wonders will I behold inside? Alien tech? The remaining parts to the Antikythera mechanism? The black hole generator from Event Horizon? The Eye of Sauron?

Slowly, as not to cause more damage to this artistic masterpiece, I remove the shell completely, steeling myself for Revelation....or Madness. No dust I note. That's good, it's been cared for. No dings or scratches...or any signs it had been used at all for that matter. Had I gotten the Holy Grail? An unused Applelith? No, the original box has seen plenty of wear and tear so....but wait! What's that? A small sticker partially hidden behind the bottom Styrofoam.

"Store Demo Unit"

Hmmmmm the plot thickens. Used...but lightly so. Interesting.

Looking about elsewhere in the box is another sticker with the specs. 6C/16GB/D500/256/10.9 Okay, so those match what I got, a good sign.
Placing the shroud (carefully! no new scratches!) back on the Applelith, I clear a place on my desk for it. I clean the glass desk area, and make various arcane signs in the air, asking for the blessings of the Flying Spaghetti Monster to be bestowed upon the Applelith.

My bleatings are answered and the Applelith fires right up, like some alien artifact reactivating from torpor. I am greeted with the traditional Mac chime. Another good sign, the system lives (it Lives! it lives! My creation Lives! Muhahahahahahahahaha! Ahem....)
The startup process begins, asking for wifi, date/time etc.
So far, so good. It gets to the Apple ID. I actually have one!
Then it asks for my Apple Phone lock.

(insert record scratching sounds)

My what??

I don't own an Apple Phone....
I pause, rigid with fright.

Well...it's not technically mine. It belongs to my Agency.
I type in the passcode.
That seems to mollify the Applelith. It proceeds with a ton of other (mildly intrusive, IMO) questions. Apple iCloud, focus mode, etc.

Weird, I don't recall OS 10.9 asking all that.

Well that's because it's not 10.9. It's 12.6. macOS Monterey. Okay, fair enough, someone went through the trouble to update the system from 10.9 to almost current. That's good, as I wasn't really looking forward to trying to update the system.

The system boots up silently. And I mean dead quiet. My laptop makes more noise than the Applelith. Chalk one up for the engineering team. All the same, I download "Mac Fan Control" because I've read about the overheating issues that plagued the Appleliths.

Not a fan of the constant "are you sure you want to open this?" dialogue boxes that pop up, but I'm sure that can be turned off...somehow. No matter, I'll get around to that later. First things first. Impressions:

It's really pretty. It's clear a lot of thought has gone in to the small details that give the OS an overall polished look. I like that. It makes it nice to use.
My generic wireless mouse is recognized, as is the right click option, which is a must for me.
My generic budget-rgb keyboard is also picked up with an option to configure. An option that won't go away until I configure it, but once done, it's done.
Something on the taskbar called "Launchpad" greets me with a full screen of applications....which I can't seem to drag to the trash. There are a LOT of programs I'll never use. Gotta figure out how to reclaim the space.

Much exploring needs to be done I can see that, but my Mad Skillz(tm) using Windows all these decades gets me around the system well enough.
This will be a fun learning experience. One one hand, I kind of wish I'd started sooner, but on the other hand, the price of this kit was right today, so there's that.

Cheers!

 

[Randy B. Singer]

...Not a fan of the constant "are you sure you want to open this?" dialogue boxes that pop up, but I'm sure that can be turned off...somehow....

Doing so requires use of the command line (i.e. the Terminal app inside of Applications/Utilities).

How to Disable the “Are you sure you want to open this file?” Warning Dialog in Mac OS X
https://osxdaily.com/2010/03/29/dis...-open-this-file-warning-dialogue-in-mac-os-x/

And while are are at it, you may want to make sure that you can use software downloaded from places other than Apple's Mac App Store:

Apple menu (far upper left) --> System Preferences --> Security & Privacy --> click on the lock icon in the lower left if locked and put in your administrator password --> Allow Apps Downloaded From: --> check App Store and Identified Developers

 

[Noisebox]

Doing so requires use of the command line (i.e. the Terminal app inside of Applications/Utilities).

How to Disable the “Are you sure you want to open this file?” Warning Dialog in Mac OS X
How to Disable the “Are you sure you want to open this file?” Warning Dialog in Mac OS X

And while are are at it, you may want to make sure that you can use software downloaded from places other than Apple's Mac App Store:

Apple menu (far upper left) --> System Preferences --> Security & Privacy --> click on the lock icon in the lower left if locked and put in your administrator password --> Allow Apps Downloaded From: --> check App Store and Identified Developers

Thank you, also turned on the Firewall (which was off by default? Odd choice...)
BTW, first post from the Applelith. Woo!

 

[Randy B. Singer]

turned on the Firewall (which was off by default? Odd choice...)

Just about no one (who knows what they are doing) uses the built-in Mac OS firewall. Why? Because just about every router has a built-in hardware firewall. Just make sure that it is enabled and you are golden. You don't need two firewalls running, and since the Mac OS's firewall is a software firewall, by definition it has to be using at least some overhead and to some extent impact performance.

I've been using a Mac for more than three decades. In all that time, after being in contact with many thousands of Mac users, I've yet to hear even one believable case of someone having their Mac hacked into. In fact, in hacking competitions, the Macs have traditionally been so secure that the contest had to allow the contestants to have physical access to the Macs so that they could have some hope of hacking into them.

Also, and I know that I'll get pushback on this, but in any case, a firewall is probably entirely unnecessary on a Macintosh.

A personal computer firewall blocks incoming data and commands. But incoming data and commands need something running on your computer that is listening and waiting to receive them. Old Windows computers had a variety of system processes that listened for incoming information and did things with them. When malicious information was sent to these computers, bad things could happen.

But Macs don't have these sorts of processes that listen for general data or commands. Macs are built from the ground up with security in mind.

Citations:

Do I need a firewall? - The Safe Mac

Firewalls have always been poorly understood, even by knowledgeable people. With the recent upsurge in Mac malware, there has been a lot of questionable advice circulating, some of which related to firewalls. People are recommending firewalls for avoiding malware, blocking hackers, preventing...

www.thesafemac.com

https://appletoolbox.com/mac-firewall-what-is-it-do-you-need-it-how-to-use-it/

Your Mac’s Firewall is Off By Default: Do You Need to Enable It?
https://www.howtogeek.com/205108/your-mac’s-firewall-is-off-by-default-do-you-need-to-enable-it/

 

[Noisebox]

Citations

I see. Still used to the Windows world where running without protection is begging for something nasty. I'll switch it off then. Thanks for the advice

 

[Rod]

I concur, never used, never needed the native Firewall.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

What Randy said. Probably the only GOOD case for a firewall is if you are running something like an FTP server or remote in to your Mac from outside your home. In those cases, you want a 3rd party adaptive firewall that will block unwanted intrusion attempts. Some time back, I briefly ran a server on my iMac so I could remote in away from home and by necessity had to open the port up on my router to forward directly to that iMac. I was pretty quickly besieged by unknown parties trying to brute force my credentials. An adaptive firewall was needed to automatically block those IP addresses after x number of failed attempts.