The first thing I want to do after buying an M1 Mac [Developer edition]

Mac mini (M1, 2020) Source: Apple

The applications and settings required by developers vary depending on the job. In this article, I will introduce some initial settings and applications that are most useful for most developers. As the first work to do after purchasing the M1 Mac, I think you should keep this area in mind.

In addition, if you have not purchased an M1 Mac and set it up, refer to "What to do first when you buy an M1 Mac [Basics]" for the first care.

Display Setup

If you have a Mac, especially a MacBook, the first thing you should do is adjust your display resolution to something that works for you. The Mac display can be changed by selecting "Display" in the system environment variables and then "Display" → "Change". If you shake to "enlarge text", the display will be larger and easier to see, but the amount of information that fits on the screen will be smaller. If you shake to "Expand space", you will be able to display a lot of information, but the display will be difficult to see in detail.

The Mac offers five options. Some developers may want to make more granular changes. It's easy to see and has a lot of information, and there should be a more exquisite resolution. The MacBook display has more resolution options, so you can customize the resolution using a third-party app.

There are a few applications that do this, but here we'll take a look at the simple and highly modifiable "Display Menu". It can be installed from the App Store.

When Display Menu is installed, a Display Menu icon is added to the menu. Clicking on this icon will bring up a list of available resolutions as shown in the screenshot below. You can choose from these and find the best resolution you want.

Display Menu needs to be running to change the resolution by Display Menu. For this reason, select "Users & Groups" → "(Me)" → "Login Items" → "+" in System Preferences, and add Display Menu to the applications that start automatically at login.

Please note that Display Menu is a free application. If you find it useful and helpful, you may want to purchase the version with more features. If you upgrade to Display Menu Pro, you will be able to set resolution shortcuts and more. At the time of writing this article, it was 250 yen, so if you find it useful, you may want to purchase it.