Making an M5 MacBook Pro Actually Feel Fast

TL;DR: An Apple M5 Max can compile code and run local models at ridiculous speeds, but macOS still insists on cinematic, half-second UI animations for everyday interactions. Here are some Terminal tweaks and settings I've used to strip out the artificial lag. Photo by Marc Sendra Martorell on Unsplash I recently picked up a new MacBook Pro—an M5 Max for work. By every measurable hardware metric, it is an absurdly fast machine. And yet, right out of the box, it often felt sluggish. Not because of compute or memory pressure, but because Apple’s interface designers are deeply in love with theater. It looks elegant in a keynote demo, but my brain feels it like a papercut. Artificial animation latency registers as system lag. If I’m on a machine with this much horsepower, I want the UI to snap when I ask for it. All-in-One Snippet So, here it is, for future-me and anyone else. Here is the whole batch in one shot: # Remove Dock hover delay and accelerate slide defaults write com.apple.dock…