The Apple laptop lineup recently expanded with the all new MacBook Neo, an entry-level Mac laptop aimed at students and more casual everyday users, while the MacBook Air recently got upgraded with the powerful M5 chip, making it more capable than ever before. This is leading many Mac shoppers to ask the obvious shoppers question; should I buy a MacBook Neo? Or should I spend more and get a MacBook Air?

Both the MacBook Neo and MacBook Air are lightweight, silent and fanless, both run the latest MacOS, and both computers are more than capable of handling every day computing tasks. But there are important differences between the two Macs, in price, performance, features, and long-term compatibility.

If you’re trying to decide between the Neo and the Air for general use, studying, light gaming, word processing and spreadsheets, occasional photo editing, and more, here’s how they compare.

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Update: Apparently NotePad++ for Mac is unofficial and not associated with the Windows version or developer. According to a blog post by the Windows developer Don Ho, the Mac release has “nothing to do with Notepad++. It’s not authorized, not endorsed, and not affiliated with the project in any way. The owner is using the Notepad++ trademark (the name) without permission;”, to which the Mac developer has updated their site stating the app will be renamed to “Nextpad++” soon. Users should proceed with reasonable caution. The original article remains below as it was, for posterity.

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For many newer Mac users who come from the Windows side, one of the most commonly missed apps is NotePad++, a powerful text editor that is widely used in the Windows world for development and IT work. In fact, many switchers to the Mac often ask “where is NotePad++ for Mac?” only to discover it did not exist, and many sought alternatives that offered comparable features and capabilities. But that’s all finally changed, because now NotePad++ is available for Mac too.

NotePad++ for Mac brings the longstanding popular Windows favorite to MacOS as a fully native Mac application, and it both feels the same and nearly looks the same as its Windows counterpart too.

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Amazon is offering the first significant discount on the new M4 iPad Air 11″ model, taking $80 off the retail price bringing the iPad down to $520 from $599.

• M4 iPad Air 11″ – $520 (down from $599)

M4 iPad Air 11″ has Apple intelligence support, 128GB storage, 12MP front and rear cameras, Touch ID, LCD retina display, great battery life, support for Apple Pencil Pro, support for Apple Magic Keyboard, and more.

If you’d rather have a full fledged computer as a Mac, the M5 MacBook Air is also nicely discounted from Amazon.

Save $150 on M5 MacBook Air Models

M5 MacBook Air 13″

• 13″ M5 MacBook Air – 16GB – 512GB – $949 ($150 off)
• 13″ M5 MacBook Air – 16GB – 1TB – $1149 ($150 off)
• 13″ M5 MacBook Air – 24GB – 1TB – $1349 ($150 off)

M5 MacBook Air 15″

• 15″ M5 MacBook Air – 24GB – 1TB – $1549 ($150 off)
• 15″ M5 MacBook Air – 16GB – 1TB – $1349 ($150 off)
• 15″ M5 MacBook Air – 16GB – 512GB – $1149 ($150 off)

FTC: OSXDaily is an affiliate partner with Amazon, meaning if you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment which goes towards keeping the site running.

A Release Candidate build for iOS 26.5, iPadOS 26.5, and MacOS Tahoe 26.5, has been released by Apple, to users involved in the Apple system software beta testing programs. Enrolled devices can find the RC builds available now.

Release Candidate (RC) builds are usually the final version of a beta test, that, absent any last minute issues, matches the final version that is made available to the general public. This implies the final versions of iOS 26.5, iPadOS 26.5, and MacOS Tahoe 26.5, will be available to the broader public in the near future, perhaps this week or next.

According to release notes, iOS 26.5 includes support for End-to-End Encryption of RCS text messages, a new Pride wallpaper, and support for “Suggested Places” in Apple Maps (which appears to be the euphemism for advertising), alongside bug fixes and security updates. Presumably MacOS Tahoe 26.5 also receives support for encrypted RCS messaging, along with a few new emoji, bug fixes, and security enhancements.

The latest stable builds of system software are currently MacOS Tahoe 26.4.1, iOS 26.4.2, and iPadOS 26.4.2.

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Whether you’re preparing to sell, recycle, or repurpose a Mac, or you’re going through old hard drives and storage disks that you wish to clear all data from, securely erasing the drive is an important step. Simply deleting files or formatting a disk isn’t always enough, especially for hard drives and external storage, since data can sometimes be recovered with recovery and forensic tools. The last thing you want is to discard an old hard drive with some important data or private information on it, and then have that data be recovered and used for nefarious purposes. Securely erasing disks and hard drives is particularly important for many professions that work with a lot of private personal data, like as is common in human resources, payroll, medicine, healthcare, CPA, or financial advising.

On modern Macs, including with MacOS Tahoe and Sequoia, the options to secure erase a drive or disk can be a bit more nuanced than they once were. Sure, sometimes you can simply connect a drive to the Mac and use Disk Utility to secure erase, but you might also find that the familiar “Security Options” settings in Disk Utility are not always available, depending on the type of storage device that is in use. This has led some users to believe that secure erasing is no longer possible in MacOS with Disk Utility, but that’s not necessarily the case. While this can be confusing if you’re expecting to secure erase and overwrite a disk the traditional way, it does not mean that you cannot securely erase disks and drives anymore, but you might need to look beyond Disk Utility to achieve this objective.

We’re going to run through the steps to use secure erase for disks and drives on modern Macs, with MacOS Tahoe 26 or later, and what to do when the standard security options feature is not available within Disk Utility, so that you can perform a secure erase on the drive/disk anyway.

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AirPods 4 and AirPods Pro 3 are both on sale with some great discounts, don’t miss these deals if you’re in the market for some new wireless earbuds:

• Get AirPods 4 for $99 (down from $129)
• AirPods Pro 3 for $199 (down from $249)

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The Calendar app on iPhone, iPad, and Mac offers a handy automatic event detection feature, able to find details like dates, times, and locations, through the Messages app and even Mail app, of presumed events and appointments. The auto detection system is part of Siri, and recognizes dates as potential events, placing them in a central location for quick review for approval or rejection.

This is very convenient feature that can help speed up your Calendar management, offering a super simple method of modifying your calendar events, instead of manually creating and editing Calendar events and entries. If you’re unfamiliar with this feature, we’re going to walk through how it works on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

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The Passwords app, Apple’s built-in password manager for Mac, iPhone, and iPad, not only stores your logins and passwords for easy authentication, but it can also alert you to security risks. Passwords app makes it easy to quickly find compromised, reused, or weak passwords, and take action to secure your accounts.

If you’re a Passwords app user and you haven’t investigated this on your own yet, it’s a worthwhile endeavor to do so. It makes it easy to determine if you should be changing a password that has been compromised without your knowledge (and that’s usually the case, since data breaches happen all the time and they can be hard to keep track of).

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The MacBook Neo remains incredibly popular, so much so that the Apple Store’s delivery window is around three weeks out for any model in any color or storage configuration… But if you’re in the market for a MacBook Neo now and you don’t want to wait several weeks for delivery, Amazon has the answer, plus you get a little discount too. Amazon is offering next-day delivery for many popular Neo configurations, including the desirable Citrus color, and even same-day delivery for certain configurations. If you’re in the market for a MacBook Neo, check out the color and storage options from Amazon to see which models you can get right away with minimal delay:

• MacBook Neo – 256GB – Indigo Blue – $589
• MacBook Neo – 512GB w/ Touch ID – Indigo – $689
• MacBook Neo – 256GB – Silver – $589
• MacBook Neo – 512GB w/ Touch ID – Silver – $689
• MacBook Neo – 256GB – Citrus – $589
• MacBook Neo – 512GB w/ Touch ID – Citrus – $689
• MacBook Neo – 256GB – Blush pink – $589
• MacBook Neo – 512GB w/ Touch ID – Blush pink – $689

MacBook Neo is a phenomenal Mac, but if you need a larger screen, more memory, more storage, and more power, the M5 MacBook Air is also discounted from Amazon with quick delivery.

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Performing a clean install of macOS Tahoe can be a necessary task in some situations, offering a way to start fresh on a Mac. Since a clean install removes everything and reinstalls MacOS from scratch, you are presented with basically a brand new Mac from a software standpoint. Clean installations can be useful for users who want to start fresh, for troubleshooting persistent issues, preparing a Mac for someone new, or for a sale or transfer, or various other situations.

It’s critical to remember that a clean installation of MacOS Tahoe removes everything from the computer and reinstalls MacOS Tahoe from scratch, meaning all data on the disk will be erased and removed. It is therefore imperative that you backup your important data before proceeding.

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The newest versions of iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 have another Accessibility toggle that can help to further reduce the intensity of the Liquid Glass interface appearance for iPhone and iPad, called “Reduce Bright Effects”. As you might have guessed by the name alone, toggling the switch on will eliminate the brighter and flashier effects when interacting with elements in the user interface, like the little flashes of highlights that appear on embossed glossy buttons, search bars, icons, and more.

Because it’s a relatively new setting, I missed including this one when covering the various tips for disabling Liquid Glass on iOS 26 to the extent at which it can be disabled, anyway, but it’s worth mentioning for users who are not enthusiastic about the Liquid Glass look.

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Apple is back with an accelerating beta timeline, with the fourth beta version of iOS 26.5, iPadOS 26.5, and MacOS Tahoe 26.5, now being available for developers to test. Anyone participating in the beta testing programs, developer or public, for Apple system software can get the newest beta releases on their enrolled devices.

Presumably the new betas are working to fix various bugs in the OS 26 suite, but also seem to include a few new features and changes, like support for RCS encrypted text messaging. There’s also apparently support for stuffing advertisements into Apple Maps, which is likely to make advertising enthusiasts and corporate bean counters excited, but whether or not an average Maps user finds it beneficial to see ads as they attempt to get directions and lookup businesses remains an open question.

With a new beta arriving just a week after the last, it’s reasonable to expect the final version of iOS 26.5 and MacOS 26.5 to arrive perhaps as soon as sometime next month. Currently, the most recent stable builds of system software are MacOS Tahoe 26.4.1, iOS 26.4.2, and iPadOS 26.4.2.

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MacOS includes a built-in way to assess memory usage, called Memory Pressure, and it can give you a lot of insight into your Macs performance, and whether or not you need more RAM. This is particularly informative if you feel like your Mac is slow, apps and media are stuttering, or you’re experiencing the annoying spinning beachball cursor.

By using Activity Monitor, you can quickly determine whether your Mac has enough memory for your workload, or you can see if upgrading RAM (or choosing more RAM on a new Mac purchase) would make a noticeable difference.

If you’re in the market for a new Mac, don’t skip this, as assessing your current Mac’s Memory Pressure status can let you know if choosing the higher RAM models on a new Mac will make sense for you.

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ASCII art is a unique plain text art style that you might have seen over the years when connecting to a remote server via the command line, or perhaps a BBS, or something silly like watching Star Wars in ASCII art from the Terminal. It’s a distinct style of artwork for plain text situations on shells, man pages, MUDs, BBSs, readme files, and more, and originates way back in the world of text-based command prompts of Apple II, unix, DOS, and the BBS days of pre-internet (and maybe before that!). If you’re a longtime reader here you might even recall using the command line to create an ASCII art banner.

If you’d like to create some really fanciful ASCII artwork, a neat web based tool is available called Mockdown, that offers a simple and easy to use grid for building ASCII artwork and diagrams. It’s all ASCII, creating plain text boxes, arrows, labels, and style, and is an impressively capable tool for building ASCII layouts right in the web browser.

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If you’ve ever heard a bird and wondered what it was, the free Merlin Bird ID app for iPhone offers one of the easiest ways to find out. Developed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Merlin has quietly become a favorite among everyone from casual birdwatchers and more serious enthusiast birders alike, thanks to its ability to identify birds by sound of a bird call, photo of a bird, or even a few simple questions.

What makes Merlin especially compelling is how little effort it requires to use, all you need is your iPhone and the Merlin app. You don’t need to know anything about birds to start using it, making it perfect for everyone from beginners, the curious, to lifelong Birders. It works this simply; open the app, tap a button, and let it listen, and in moments it will report back the type of bird. Think of Merlin as kind of like the Shazam music identifier, but for bird calls and bird song.

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AirPods 4 are available at 22% off Apple’s retail price, offered for just $99. AirPods 4 feature the iconic design, and many great features like gesture support, spatial audio, voice isolation, water and sweat resistance, Siri support, USB-C charging, and more.

• Get AirPods 4 for $99 (down 22% from $129)

MacBook Neo from $589, Rapid Delivery Available

The MacBook Neo is wildly popular and has lengthier shipping times from Apple, but you can get many MacBook Neo models and configurations from Amazon delivered either same or next day, plus at a small discount.

• MacBook Neo – 256GB – Indigo Blue – $589
• MacBook Neo – 512GB w/ Touch ID – Indigo – $689
• MacBook Neo – 256GB – Silver – $589
• MacBook Neo – 512GB w/ Touch ID – Silver – $689
• MacBook Neo – 256GB – Citrus – $589
• MacBook Neo – 512GB w/ Touch ID – Citrus – $689
• MacBook Neo – 256GB – Blush pink – $589
• MacBook Neo – 512GB w/ Touch ID – Blush pink – $689

Save $150 on M5 MacBook Air Models

The latest M4 MacBook Air series is available at a nice discount as well:

M5 MacBook Air 13″

• 13″ M5 MacBook Air – 16GB – 512GB – $999 ($100 off)
• 13″ M5 MacBook Air – 16GB – 1TB – $1149 ($150 off)
• 13″ M5 MacBook Air – 24GB – 1TB – $1349 ($150 off)

M5 MacBook Air 15″

• 15″ M5 MacBook Air – 24GB – 1TB – $1549 ($150 off)
• 15″ M5 MacBook Air – 16GB – 1TB – $1349 ($150 off)
• 15″ M5 MacBook Air – 16GB – 512GB – $1149 ($150 off)

FTC: OSXDaily is an affiliate partner with Amazon, meaning if you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment which goes towards keeping the site running.

iOS 26.4.2 has been released by Apple for iPhone, along with ipadOS 26.4.2 for iPad. Both updates include important security fixes, as well as unspecified bug fixes, for the iPhone and iPad. The security patch apparently addresses an issue with data being retained in notifications, which had allowed extraction of deleted Signal messages from notifications retained on device.

Additionally, iOS 18.7.8, and iPadOS 18.7.8, are available for iPhone and iPad devices that are not running the iOS 26 version of system software.

As for the Mac, the most recent version of system software is currently still MacOS Tahoe 26.4.1, so if MacOS Tahoe 26.4.2 is to come out it has not done so yet, nor has the Apple Security Updates page been updated to mention anything there.

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If you have felt your Mac is curiously sluggish, you may have opened Activity Monitor to investigate at some point and noticed a process called “WindowServer” using a large amount of CPU or memory. High CPU usage and memory consumption of WindowServer has been a long reported issue on MacOS with various system software versions, but a resurgence of new complaints about WindowServer have surfaced with the release of MacOS Tahoe. Some Tahoe users feel that WindowServer is using excessive amounts of system resources, leading to sluggish behavior, poor performance, laggy animations and interactions with the user interface, and even excessive battery drain.

WindowServer is a core part of MacOS, and these complaints are often justified, but it’s important to understand what is likely causing the problems with WindowServer resource usage, and what you can do to manage it. Let’s dive in and learn more about the WindowServer process, what it does, and how to troubleshoot its resource usage.

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