3 Known Issues with Apple’s New MacBook Pros

This year’s new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros have been highly praised by the Apple community from the moment they were unveiled, which is no surprise considering they come with the most powerful chipset in Apple history and other notable upgrades. However, soon after the release, reports of issues began to surface.

MagSafe Charging

Various users have taken to Reddit to report issues they’ve encountered while trying to charge their M1 Max Macbook Pros while it’s completely shut down.

One of the first reported issues came from a Reddit user who wrote that the LED light on the MagSafe charger “repeatedly turns on and off and with each time it does you can hear the charging sound effect.” Various other users responded in a thread expressing that they have had the same issue, including one with a 16-inch M1 Pro MacBook.

Apple Support instructed the user on what steps to take to resolve the issue, and it was temporarily successful. However, once the user shut down the computer again, the problem reappeared, and Apple Support then instructed her to do the following:

Please know that Apple is aware of the issue and investigating. And based on the instruction given by Apple, please keep your macOS updated and do one of the following:

1. Charge the computer while in sleep mode
2. Charge the computer with the lid open
3. Attach the MagSafe cable first, before shutting down the computer.

Apple Support

As Reddit User _Trillionare_suggested, the 140W charger may be the issue here. So, unfortunately, that means most 16-inch M1 Pro and M1 Max MacBook Pro users are pretty likely to deal with this MagSafe problem.

One other Reddit user experienced a different charging issue unrelated to the MagSafe blinking.

My MagSafe just completely stopped working after a week of working fine.Plugged it in to different outlets all over the place to no avail. Restarting MacBook Pro does nothing. USB-C will charge it fine. Nothing was done that could’ve harmed it either. It has sat in the same outlet the entire time and just stopped working. Babied the thing, too.

 Reddit User Xephia

The user said they tried waiting a while with the charger connected to see if it would kick in and tried unplugging and plugging it many times but had no luck. They also noted that they tested the brick, and it doesn’t appear to be the problem, so the issue must stem from the MagSafe cable or the port.

SD Card Slot Issues

Unfortunately, another fairly widespread issue that owners of the new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models are having is with the SD card reader. There have been reports of slow transfer speeds and inaccessible files when users attempt using an SD card with their new Mac.

Users wrote into MacRumors complaining about various issues, suggesting inconsistency in problems regarding the SD card. For example, while some SD cards crash and can’t be accessed, others are dealing with extremely slow transfer speeds.

One user wrote this complaint about the new 14″ M1 Pro:

Just seems to be super flakey and inconsistent. Half the time it’ll recognize the card successfully (though it takes anywhere from 30s to 1m) and half the time it’ll throw an error. These are all Sandisk Ultra cards, both XC and HC, that were formatted in my camera. I tried reformatting them w/ the MBP and that didn’t seem to make a difference. All my cards work as expected in my 3 other USB card readers.

Wildct (MacRumors Reader)

As of now, Apple has not officially addressed the SD card problem. Whether it is a software or hardware issue remains unknown. We can only hope that Apple is aware of the problems and will soon release a software update to fix it soon.

Notch Obscuring Menu Bar

Near the end of October, social media began to buzz about how the macOS status bar items on the new M1 MacBook Pros get hidden under the notch.

The first solution that Apple Support shared was to enable the “Scale to fit below built-in camera” setting on your Mac.

If app controls or menu bar items appear blocked or hidden behind the camera housing, you can turn on “Scale to fit below built-in camera” for the app to adjust the active area of your display. This ensures the menu bar and app windows appear below the built-in camera on your Mac and are always visible.

Apple

However, this week Apple released macOS Monterey 12.1 to developers for testing that is meant to resolve the “camera housing” that obscures the menu bar items on the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro. Still, for top-level menu items like File, Edit, and View, it is up to developers to update their Mac apps to work with the notch.