content: my-mac-session-with-apple
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| ryan | technology | For Christmas I bought myself a 2017 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar. Several bonuses were associated with the purchase: 1. A \$150 Apple Gift Card because I bought the MacBook Pro on Black Friday and Apple had a special going (w00t!) 2. The Credit Card I use to make **ALL** of my purchases at Apple has a 3% cash back (in the form of iTunes cards) 3. A free 30 minute online / phone session with an ‘Apple Specialist’ Now I didn’t know about item number 3 when I made the purchase, but was greeted with an email informing me of my great luck. This is my fifth Mac1 and I don’t remember ever getting this kind of service before. So I figured, what the hell and decided to snooze the email until the day after Christmas to remind myself to sign up for the session. When I entered the session I was asked to optionally provide some information about myself. I indicated that I had been using a Mac for several years and considered myself an intermediate user. My Apple ‘Specialist’ was _[Jaime](http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/Jaime_Lannister "No ... not that one")_. She confirmed the optional notes that I entered and we were off to the races. Now a lot of what she told me about Safari (blocking creepy tracking behavior, ability to mute sound from auto play videos, default site to display in reader view) I knew from the [WWDC Keynote](https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2017/101/ "WWDC Keynote") that I watched back in June, but I listened just in case I had missed something from that session (or the [10s / 100s of hours of podcasts](https://relay.fm "All the Great Shows!") I listened to about the Keynote). One thing that I had heard about was the ability to _pin_ tabs in Safari. I never really knew what that meant and figured it wasn’t anything that I needed. I was wrong. Holy crap is [pinning tabs in Safari](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-ssw5MKAno "Pinning Tabs!") a useful feature! I can keep all of my most used sites pinned and get to them really quickly and they get auto refreshed! Sweet! The other super useful thing I found out about was the [Split Screen](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204948 "Split your screen ... increase your productivity") feature that allows you to split apps on your screen (in a very iOS-y way!). Finally, Jaime reviewed how to customize the touch bar! This one was super useful as I think there are 2 discoverability issues with it: 1. The option to `Customize Touch Bar` is hidden in the `View` menu which isn’t somewhere I’d look for it 2. To [Customize the Touch Bar](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207055 "Customization!") you drag down from the Main Screen onto the Touch Bar. After the call I received a nice follow up email from Apple / Jaime > Now that you're more familiar with your new Mac, here are some additional > resources that can help you go further. > > Apple Support Find answers to common questions, watch video tutorials, > download user guides, and share solutions with the Apple community. [Visit > Support](https://support.apple.com/mac) > > Today at Apple Discover inspiring programs happening near you. [Visit Today > at Apple](https://www.apple.com/today/) > > Accessories From the Apple accessories page, you can learn about all kinds > of new and innovative products that work with iPhone, iPad, Mac and more. > [Visit Accessories](https://www.apple.com/shop/accessories/all-accessories) > > How to use the Touch Bar on your MacBook Pro - > [https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT207055](https://support.apple.com/en- > us/HT207055) > > Use Mission Control on your Mac - [https://support.apple.com/en- > us/HT204100](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204100) > > Use two Mac apps side by side in Split View - [https://support.apple.com/en- > us/HT204948](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204948) > > Websites preferences - [https://support.apple.com/ guide/safari/websites- > preferences-ibrwe2159f50](https://support.apple.com/guide/safari/websites- > preferences-ibrwe2159f50) I’m glad that I had the Mac session and I will encourage anyone that buys a Mac in the future to schedule one. 1. They are in order of purchase: 2012 15-inch MacBook Pro, 2014 27-inch 5K iMac, 2015 MacBook, 2016 13-inch 2 Thunderbolt MacBook Pro; 2017 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar ↩︎ | 2017-12-27 | my-mac-session-with-apple | For Christmas I bought myself a 2017 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar. Several bonuses were associated with the purchase: 1. A \$150 Apple Gift Card because I bought the MacBook Pro on Black Friday and Apple had a special going (w00t!) 2. The Credit Card I use to make **ALL** of … | My Mac session with Apple | https://www.ryancheley.com/2017/12/27/my-mac-session-with-apple/ |