Understanding each of the four stages in the Secure Booting of an M1 Mac. These are summarised in diagram available here.
startup
There’s a fundamental difference in the way that Intel and M1 Macs store and load their ‘firmware’, which enables the M1 Mac to load and run difference versions of iBoot.
This article has now been extensively corrected and modified.
Odd things can lead to some Macs starting up or waking up spontaneously. Here’s one solution to those mysteries.
Four popular and straightforward ways to set your Mac to run an app or other software when it starts up. Includes AppleScript code.
Now lists the time of the start of all boots in the last 24 hours, and helps you with Unicode normalization problems.
How boot security has changed in the M1 Mac. What it allows you to do, and how it restores flexibility and versatility of external boot disks.
It would be much easier if the log contained entries detailing the loading of extensions. Instead, there are long gaps. This explores how you can use those in diagnosing problems.
Use the log show command, Ulbow or Consolation to browse your M1 Mac booting, and they can fail to show tens of thousands of log entries. How to work around this bug in 11.1.
There’s no SMC, so you can’t reset it. Although there’s still NVRAM (PRAM), that can’t be reset either: full details of both for M1 models.
The Eclectic Light Company 