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The 2020 MacBook Air
- safog 7y agoIt's hard to take Gruber seriously anymore. I haven't seen anyone with such an obvious bias for Apple and disdain for anything non-Apple so 99% of what he writes about Apple is going to be sunshine and butterflies. If you aren't going to say anything controversial, why bother even listening to you? I'll just watch Apple's PR videos and be happy.
- Tomte 7y agoHe is a big Apple fanboy, but he does call out bad products and privacy mis-steps. Sometimes with pretty drastic words. Furthermore, despite your claim, he sometimes praises non-Apple hardware, even Microsoft's. Honestly, you seem even more biased against Apple to me than Gruber is biased pro Apple. I don't read his reviews to learn things I can learn from Anandtech or The Verge or any other "spec" review. I read his reviews because he captures nuances in feel that others don't, or if he doesn't, at least he links to others who have something interesting and non-obvious to say. Not here though, but generally.
- enos_feedler 7y agoFor someone with obvious bias, he seems to think the old MacBook Air was bad. I would think someone with an obvious bias wouldn’t be very critical of Apple products at all. Can you point to the bias in this article?
- dkarl 7y agoFunny how Gruber can always come up with a list of meaningful shortcomings of an Apple product... when he's reviewing the successor and painting it as a giant step forward.
- scarface74 7y agoHe criticized the feel of the previous generation keyboards when he first had a review unit. This was before the reports came back of actually issues. He never owned a laptop of the previous generation to have any personal long term issues. He famously still uses an old Apple ADB keyboard.
- nostromo 7y agoHe clearly prefer's the Apple ecosystem and general approach. There's nothing wrong with that. He does call out Apple when he disagrees with something they've done. As someone that also prefers the Apple approach but has frustrations with a lot of their decisions, I appreciate his analysis.
- whatshisface 7y agoYou should switch to the Linux approach, where you are guaranteed to only ever be frustrated by your own decisions. ;)
- Eric_WVGG 7y agodunno, maybe you haven't been reading? "This whole thing is an embarrassment for the richest company in the world." https://daringfireball.net/linked/2020/02/17/apple-store-employee-bag-checks https://daringfireball.net/linked/2020/02/17/apple-store-emp... "I consider these keyboards the worst products in Apple history." https://daringfireball.net/linked/2019/03/27/strn-kyboard https://daringfireball.net/linked/2019/03/27/strn-kyboard "iOS 13 Autocorrect Is Drunk" https://daringfireball.net/2019/09/ios_13_autocorrect_is_drunk https://daringfireball.net/2019/09/ios_13_autocorrect_is_dru... "The iPad at 10 is, to me, a grave disappointment." https://daringfireball.net/2020/01/the_ipad_awkwardly_turns_10 https://daringfireball.net/2020/01/the_ipad_awkwardly_turns_... "Then I think about software. And that means thinking about MacOS 10.15 Catalina… Off the top of my head I’m hard pressed to think of anything in Catalina that’s an improvement over 10.14 Mojave, and I can think of a lot of things that are worse." https://daringfireball.net/2020/02/my_2019_apple_report_card https://daringfireball.net/2020/02/my_2019_apple_report_card
- Rebelgecko 7y agoI actually think he's escaped the Reality Distortion Field. If you read through his posts, there's actually a lot that are critical of Apple's recent missteps
- scarface74 7y agoYou mean like in 2007 when he called the “sweet solution” of web apps for iOS a “shit sandwich”?
- Rebelgecko 7y agoYeah. He used to have relatively few takes like that (although I think historically he's been more willing to be critical of Apple's software than hardware).
- scarface74 7y agoBesides the Mac keyboards, what was there to criticize about Apple hardware? He was never in the market for the trash can Mac Pro as a buyer or a reviewer. He never liked the Apple Watch before the 5th gen watch. He’s a big fan of analog watches. He buys the newest phones every year, but he doesn’t buy Macs or iPads that often. If you want to see Apple fans who often criticize Mac hardware and software, check out the Accidental Tech Podcast. Marco and John criticize Apple hardware and software all the time. Marco is famous for dropping money on Apple hardware
- chipotle_coyote 7y agoOr in recent years, as recently as the current year, where you can find Gruber frequently criticizing Apple products, software, services, and design.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- derefr 7y agoGruber isn't really an essayist. He's a diarist. His oeuvre is pretty useless if you just read one piece out of context. But it begins to be useful when you read a bunch of his stuff (preferably in order, as one would if they were following him over the years), and start compare-and-contrasting his takes on e.g. generation N of a product vs. generation N-1 of the same product; or between two different products released to solve the same problem in different ways at different times. There's a lot of detail to be found there, that you won't find in most takes.
- JohnBooty 7y agoMy brother once told me he liked a certain music blog because even when he disagreed with the review conclusion and score, the writing was informative and insightful enough to let him make up his own mind. That's how I feel about Gruber. I probably agree with him 2/3 of the time, and 1/3 of the time I wonder if he's living on a different planet. But even in those 1/3 of cases, he does a good job of laying out the facts and the process by which he arrived at his conclusion. So for me, he's well worth reading even in those times.
- throwaway55554 7y agoRene Ritchie is worse. I've seen Gruber call Apple to task a few times this past year, but Ritchie just continues to make excuses.
- fetus8 7y agoRitchie often just reiterates what's on the press release, and then praises said products with little to no contextual input on how or why a product is great.
- toasterlovin 7y agoFWIW, I think mostly your impression of Ritchie is a result of the format he writes in (high-traffic tech site). When he's on Gruber's podcast, he has pretty nuanced and thoughtful opinions on things. So much so that I'd say that he's easily one of the best regular guests.
- fetus8 7y agoInteresting. I've listened to Gruber's podcast before, but don't think I've heard Ritchie on as a guest. I'll find an episode and dig in. I've watched Ritchie's Youtube channel on and off over the last few years, and he still gives me the same feeling as his written work.
- bluedino 7y agoI like "I don't know, maybe the option to add the touchbar?"
- tpmx 7y agoSo eight years after the first retina MBP there's finally a good retina MBA.
- chambo622 7y agoSeriously. Wondering if I should get one of these to replace my 2015 13" rMBP, which, as of late, has pretty poor battery life and degraded performance. Wouldn't mind something a bit more portable. Or, if the obvious move is a new iPad Pro.
- ilogik 7y agothe 2020 mbp 14 inch should be just around the corner. I just replaced the battery in my 2013 mbp
- nicoburns 7y agoHow much did the battery replacement cost? Mine's still ok, but it probably won't be long before I'd consider a replacement. But that does rather depend on the price...
- sintaxi 7y agoI have replaced the battery in both my rMBP (2015). It costs about $100 and can be done yourself.
- rconti 7y agoI did a DIY on my 2011 Air for $70ish and while it seemed to solve my problems at first, after a short while it seemed like every time i went to use the machine it was dead. (I only use it once every week or three). I'm not sure if it's not sleeping, or waking from sleep, or what. I use it too little to even troubleshoot. But that was enough to get me to pull the trigger on a new i9 Air yesterday.
- jhawk28 7y ago
- minikites 7y agoI'm not sure why Apple gets all this credit for making a reliable keyboard, something the rest of the industry figured out decades ago.
- gnulinux 7y agoI bought a ThinkPad X1 Carbon 7th Gen a few months back. I can't say the keyboard is amazing. Compared any other laptop, sure it's better, but still subpar. I think old Macbooks had better keyboard.
- thrav 7y agoBecause they’re usually making it a fraction of the size / depth of most of the rest of the industry.
- Traster 7y agoAt 0.13cm thicker than the dell XPS13, I don't think they're really doing anything crazy slim.
- cpach 7y agoThe rest of the industry…? At work we have lots of Lenovo and HP laptops and those keyboards are, IMO, clearly inferior to my MBA 2012.
- mx24 7y agoThinkPads are well known for having great keyboards. Apple’s do not compare.
- pfranz 7y agoI think it's fair to compare. Excluding Apple's recent scissor switch keyboard, they've both been reliable and serviceable. They've both had a following over many years. Aesthetically, I've preferred Apple's keyboards and I'm sure many people feel conversely.
- 7y ago
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- m0zg 7y agoJust before they abandon all the Intel crap and switch to ARM.
- JohnTHaller 7y agoPro Tip: The MacBook Air line of today has taken over for the MacBook line of old. It's not like the original air which was so much thinner and lighter than everything else. Thickness of the 13" MacBook Air is 0.63" vs 0.59" of the 13" MacBook Pro and weight of the Air is 2.8lbs vs 3.0lbs for the Pro. The MacBook Air is the lower-end MacBook now.
- Ididntdothis 7y agoHopefully they will make the MBP “pro” again and focus on features and power instead of thinness.
- prewett 7y agoI have a 2018 MBP, 2.9 GHz i9, 32 GB ram, Radeon Vega 20. The thing is like a portable server, I'm not sure what more features and power a laptop user would realistically neeed. (Obviously real servers are more powerful, but I worked at a company that ran MMO game servers written in Python [i.e. not that fastest] off of similarly spec'ed hardware a few years ago, it's certainly sufficiently for all of my development needs)
- Ididntdothis 7y agoCPU power is fine. I wouldn’t mind having at least one USB-A port and HDMI port so I don’t constantly have dongle anxiety when I am traveling. I would also prefer a bigger battery even if it makes the laptop thicker.
- silviogutierrez 7y agoAs I understand it, the new 16 inch macbook has the biggest size battery you could have while still allowed on an airplane as a carry on. Security theatre, but... that's life.
- pilsetnieks 7y agoThat has been the case for very long now. Only the very first Airs were the premium ultrathin ultralight laptop, and that was more than 10 years ago.
- mortenjorck 7y ago"Jony Ive was the hero long enough to become the villain" may be an overdone take at this point, but this just continues to prove it true. Ive led Apple's design org through a renaissance that lasted two decades, but it ultimately collapsed in a string of vanity projects that put a serious dent in Apple's design credibility. Maybe it was not having Jobs as a counterbalancing force that wasn't afraid to say "no;" maybe it was something else. But it's clear Apple is both immeasurably better for having had Ive from the 90s to the early 2010s, and is now better for his having given up the reins.
- chipperyman573 7y agoWhat vanity projects?
- npongratz 7y agoRemoving useful ports to shave off a tenth of a millimeter.
- ProAm 7y agoRemoving ports from MBPs for one.
- unlinked_dll 7y agoThat's been a trend across all laptops for awhile now. You're lucky to get a mini display port or mini hdmi these days.
- bambataa 7y agoI have a non-touchbar MBP with just two USB-C ports and nothing else. Two, on the same side, and one is always used for charging. So one free port on a pro laptop. I still can’t understand how they ever thought it was acceptable. Why bother moving to USB-C if you’re going to cripple their usefulness?
- robotresearcher 7y ago
- dna_polymerase 7y agoThe ARM comparison in terms of power efficiency doesn't really make sense, does it? I guess he's right about the efficiency but there isn't a real competitive ARM-based laptop available right now, at least I haven't heard of one and even if there is one: Apple couldn't just go for ARM they'd have to adapt their OS for that and I assume by now there is a lot of code in there making use of x86 quirks not easily adaptable to ARM
- insaneirish 7y ago> Apple couldn't just go for ARM they'd have to adapt their OS for that and I assume by now there is a lot of code in there making use of x86 quirks not easily adaptable to ARM If you think Apple doesn’t have macOS running on ARM today, then you’re probably missing something.
- dna_polymerase 7y agoI guess it could make lots of sense for them to support ARM and build ARM-based devices, that said I'm not an Apple dev in any capacity so I don't know what's going on internally. But right now there is now ARM-based Apple device running MacOS, is there?
- snazz 7y agoUmmm... iPhones? iOS and macOS share almost completely the same kernel (https://github.com/apple/darwin-xnu https://github.com/apple/darwin-xnu).
- kitsunesoba 7y agoiOS, tvOS, and watchOS share a great deal with macOS (past the surface, they’re almost identical). They’ve probably had an ARM build of macOS running internally for years now, much as they had an x86 version of macOS years before the PowerPC -> Intel transition. The transition will be harder for third party devs, but there having been popular ARM Apple platforms for over a decade will speed things up considerably. Many Mac apps will have ARM versions available overnight.
- CapriciousCptl 7y agoAbsolutely glowing review. Personally, I'm not as enthusiastic about its design. My 2016 Dell XPS 13 (Ubuntu) with a 4k screen is lighter at 2.6lbs and smaller without a bezel around the screen.
- scarface74 7y agoOf course and most Mac users are just dying to use Linux....
- asdff 7y agoimo macos is the best unix distro
- bluedino 7y agoAnd how much thicker is that thing? The edge around that machine is the worst as well.
- extragood 7y agoThe Dell is 37% thinner than the Mac at the tallest point: * Macbook Air 2020: 0.16–0.63 inch (0.41–1.61 cm) [1] * Dell XPS 13 2019: 0.3"- 0.46" (7.8mm – 11.6mm) [2] [1] https://www.apple.com/macbook-air/specs/ https://www.apple.com/macbook-air/specs/ [2] https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-laptops-and-notebooks/xps-13/spd/xps-13-9380-laptop https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-laptops-and-notebo...
- sys_64738 7y agoHow is the fan noise?
- asdff 7y agoImagine a world where you could really haul on the fan past the max speed. Get them singing at 20,000 RPM and that macbook air could be pinned at 3.8ghz, provided you had earplugs of course.
- Niccizero 7y agoI don't see the reason to buy a such a compromised machine over a X1 Carbon or a XPS 13. No ports, crappy soldered everything, worst company for consumer rights, etc. They have nice screens I guess? And you can't deny the brand appeal of the Apple logo.
- snazz 7y agoFor the kinds of people who wouldn’t be running Linux on the other laptops, maybe they just like macOS better than Windows? It’s not like Hackintoshing is trivial. It’s not necessarily a developer machine.
- thelittleone 7y agoThis is pretty much it. OSX is what locks me in to Apple. Ironic that it (OSX) is free.
- vulcan01 7y agoNitpicking, but I wouldn't necessarily consider it "free". There is a cost to get it, which is the price of your Mac.
- thelittleone 7y agoFair point, although OSX can be installed on non-mac hardware (if one has the patience) or in a virtual host.
- TheSpiceIsLife 7y agoI haven’t checked recently, is Windows still available off-license?
- asnyder 7y agoWindows now has native Linux: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10 https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10, https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/6/18534687/microsoft-windows-10-linux-kernel-feature https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/6/18534687/microsoft-windows... Personally I just recently switched back to a Lenovo Yoga from a MBP and am much happier.
- dillutedfixer 7y agoI wish Apple would bring back a true anti-glare matte display option. I can't stand the reflectivity on any of their laptops despite their claim that it's "anti-glare." I love the macOS ecosystem, but I REALLY love the 100% Adobe matte 4k screen on my Dell Precision.
- abathur 7y agoYeah. I like the newer displays indoors, but I think I would take the old display for reduced glare and battery use if it was an option.
- asdff 7y agoYou can buy a matte screen protector
- dillutedfixer 7y agoNot the same. I added one of those to a 13" MBP I used to have. The protector alters the way you see the color on the screen, and adds a kind of weird pixelated look. As someone who does professional photo and video editing, that's a deal breaker. Not to mention how difficult they are to get on without bubbles or dust trapped underneath, and the fact that they just eventually start to peel off at the edges. There was a company in the bay area that used to swap out the glossy screens with a true matte display and a dark bezel, cant remember their name but once the retinas came out they stopped doing the swaps.
- everetm 7y agoAny opinions on mba 2020 vs xps 13 2020? Bezels = xps Color = mba? Ports = xps? Webcam = both bad? Keyboard = maybe mba?
- IAmEveryone 7y agoMacOS
- systemvoltage 7y agoThis cannot be stated enough. Why is it so difficult to understand for most people that MacOS is a much larger part of the equation than simply comparing mac vs. pc hardware?
- everetm 7y agoI'm an Android user and don't see myself moving to entire apple ecosystem. So if I had a MacOS I don't directly see many benefits. (correct me if I'm wrong)
- wodenokoto 7y agoDoes anyone know how the mba speakers and mike compare to the 13” pro?
- talkingtab 7y agoUh no. 8GB memory is not okay. 16GB is marginal but $200 more. Can you upgrade the memory?
- dean177 7y ago8GB is absolutely fine for most people, but it is an expensive upgrade.
- pivo 7y agoIn my experience with family members who have 8G laptops, they are not fine. Even my mother who just uses a web browser, mail.app and occasinally Photos is not fine with 8G. Her MacBook Pro regularly ground to a halt. I replaced it with a used model that was almost exactly the same except that it has 16G and now she is fine.
- dangus 7y agoI don't in any way believe you, sorry. There's absolutely no way anyone with that workload is hitting RAM limits. Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnuNs_Nu46Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnuNs_Nu46Q
- wtallis 7y agoI get by with 8GB in my 2015 MPB, but only because I use aggressive ad blocking to keep browser memory usage somewhat in check. I still have 3.5GB of swap in use and 1.25GB of RAM compressed. I suppose for a light user who doesn't keep as many browser tabs open, 8GB may be sufficient even without an ad blocker, but it's close. 16GB is definitely more than "marginal". There's nothing wrong with a mid-range laptop shipping with 16GB of DRAM.
- blackhaz 7y agoWith browsers eating half a gig just to launch these days, I agree 8 GB is borderline. I often hit the limit even just doing web browsing, e-mailing and a mix of other apps here and there, nothing fancy.
- monadic2 7y agoUnrelated, but something about the font/color combo makes this quite difficult to read on ios.
- monadic2 7y agoRevisiting: probably how thin the font is.
- Phrodo_00 7y agoI started disagreeing in the first paragraph and it kept coming, but my tastes are different than your typical Apple buyer. To me the workhorse mac is the mbp. I tolerate my work 2015 mbp, and while I could upgrade it, I'm still waiting for Apple to release a decent keyboard before I do. I tested the keyboard on the 2020 16" mbp, and it still felt worse than my lenovo yoga (non-thinkpad), which is not a high bar at all.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- ebg13 7y agoThe only interesting part of this was the performance comparison chart showing that Apple's ARM chips from 2018 and 2019 are significantly faster than the 2020 Intel chip. MacBook Air 2020 (4-core Core i5) 1,127 2,854 11″ iPad Pro 2018 (8-core A12X) 1,118 4,477 iPhone 11 Pro (6-core A13) 1,321 3,387
- 2muchcoffeeman 7y agoCan the iPad and iPhone sustain the performance? I think that’s the kicker. Your regular laptop even an air will have a fan. The A series chips look amazing on paper but iPad and iPhones don’t have the cooling for sustained performance.
- snazz 7y agoThe 2016 MBP (the only one I've used) has very poor thermals too. The much lower TDP/benchmark point of the A series means that they're surprisingly competitive with the poorly-cooled MacBooks. If MacBooks of that era had better thermals, the Intel chip would blow it out of the water on sustained use.
- ebg13 7y agoI don't think you're making the argument that you think you are. For the right mental comparison, imagine the iPad CPU in the laptop housing with all of the laptop's cooling.
- 2muchcoffeeman 7y agoYou can’t buy one of these mythical setups. I think people bring up the bench marks as though there’s going to be another architecture change. Maybe. But for now the Air is still faster than your phone in general. Don’t get me wrong. The A series chips are amazing. But the benchmarks have looked very impressive for years. Nothing has come from it except fantasising.
- ksec 7y agoThe most important thing to me about the new MacBook Pro and MacBook Air 2020 is ( hopefully ) the confirmation of price trend. $999 Retina Mac with 256GB Baseline Storage? Somewhere along the line in 2016, Apple's product value proposition went off. Everything from Mac to iPhone, they either had the same price but not as much improvement or a price hike with new feature. At first it was thought Apple is moving into higher margin luxury style business, but now it seems it was a cover up for Service Revenue with huge margin. Despite Apple doubled its Service Revenue from 2016, its Gross and Net Margin has been stable over the past 5 years at ~38% and ~19%. iPhone 11, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, iPad in 2020 have all priced like they were in ~2015. Roughly 30% premium to their competitors, So in a way, you can think of Services ( and likely wearables ) is Subsidising ( Edit: Offsetting should be the better word ) these price reduction.
- gowld 7y ago> Baseline Storage Macs don't have baseline storage! They have soldered-down sealed-in storage. Before that, it was fine to get minimal RAM and disk and upgrade it later, like every other OEM did to soak the whales without driving away cost-conscious consumers. Then the soldering-money-gun came and used artificially constrained RAM and SSD to enforce value-based pricing and profitably planned obsolescence.
- Scoundreller 7y agoAnd disappointing that they've removed the SD card slot. I have a nice adapter that sits flush on the Macbook air and holds an extra 128gb.
- snazz 7y agoIs that at all comparable in speed to a SATA SSD? I know that Apple uses NVMe SSDs in MacBooks, but if something over the SD card bus were anywhere near the speed of any internal SSD that would be very impressive.
- Scoundreller 7y ago
- Scarbutt 7y agoA 15" MBA would be nice.
- DeathArrow 7y agoThat guy is absolutely disgusting in his worshiping of Apple.
- huangc10 7y agoThis thing fucks.
- dang 7y agoRelated from a few days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22615719 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22615719 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22615803 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22615803
- pjungwir 7y agoI have a late 2013 Macbook Air and I love it. I do most of my work on a Xubuntu desktop, but the Air is great for travel, working outside, or carrying around the house. I use it every day. I bought it to replace a heavy plastic dual-boot Dell laptop that was falling apart. It felt weightless and the battery lasted 10+ hours. Every time I see a new Apple laptop now I dread that I'll have to go back to a non-Apple Linux system instead. In theory a Linux laptop would be great for me, but when I read about my options there's none I feel great about. But my Air with its 8GB of RAM is feeling under-powered whenever I have to run docker/k8s/vagrant, and now the screen is starting to flicker. I can't tell yet whether this model is enough to keep me in the Apple fold. It sounds like they improved a lot, but they're really parsimonious with those ports. My old Air is anxiety-free: it gives me power, 2 USBs, and DisplayPort. I routinely use them all. So the 2020 model is still going to feel like a downgrade. At least it still comes with a standard headphone jack, I suppose. :-/
- 0xff00ffee 7y agoLet's hear it for 2013 Macs! My 2013 MBP is going strong. I do 100% of my work on this computer, and half of that is through AWS EC2 instances (x86 and ARM linux, and Windows for testing); if I need a local OS I run VMWare images of Ubuntu and Windows. I've had 0 issues with this computer. It really blows my mind how good it is. By comparison: my first laptop was a Toshiba Portege (sic) in 1992 that was monochrome for about $4000... and then my various jobs usually gave me IBM Thinkpad / Lenovo thinkpads, buit would waterfall them routinely. But my MBP2013? this is the longest I've owned any computer in my life (work or personal), and I have absolutely no reason to replace it.
- theluketaylor 7y agoFellow lover of the 2013 air. I maxed it out on everything but storage when I bought it (core i7, 8 GB ram) and I'm glad I did, since a computer I planned to own for a couple years and then swap upwards has put in 7 years of hard labour. The battery capacity is down to 70% (plus in the last couple months shuts down below 50% when it's cold) and I'm on my third charger due to cable fray, but this remains the best computer I have ever owned. When the retina macbook pro arrived in 2015 I assumed it wouldn't be too long before high res screens trickled down to the whole lineup. I'm not sure I've ever been more wrong about product direction. I have been waiting for years for Apple to release something that hit the size, performance, versatility, and value I have gotten from my air. I was tempted by the 2016 macbook pro non-touch bar, but it was so expensive for what you got I just couldn't justify replacing my air. I was incredibly disappointed by the 2019 retina air. Finally a retina display the air had been needing for years, but the performance wasn't great. That would be forgivable, but the price was just too high (plus the keyboard they saddled it with really didn't seem pleasant to type on). This time they seem to have gotten the 2013 air recipe right. I wouldn't turn down a couple USB-A ports to avoid dongle hell, but otherwise this seems as close to the 2013 successor we're going to get. I have an order in for the 2020 air with the core i5 upgrade and in case it winds up needing to serve another 7 years I got 16 gb of ram. We'll see if I miss my air enough to return it and switch back or not. I'm really hoping apple announces arm macs in the next year or 2 as I'd love to have the ipad pro guts inside a roughly air sized form factor. I use the console and other general purpose computing things far, far too much to make the leap entirely to iOS, but mac os running on the ipad pro would be a great spiritual successor to the macbook air line.
- AndriyKunitsyn 7y agoDo MBAs 2020 have heatsinks detached from fans too? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiCBYAP_Sgg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiCBYAP_Sgg
- taylodl 7y agoHere's my perception of the markets for the MBA and MBP based of anecdotal observations: The MBA is for students, the sales force, and road warriors. These people value ultra portability and long batter life and typically don't have highly demanding use cases necessitating a lot of processing power and storage. The MBP is geared toward the so-called power user who needs portability. That portability is typically moving between meetings or between facilities where they work. They're generally always close to a power source. This has been my observation since the MBA was first introduced. I'd love to see Apples' product personas to see how close my experience is to their expectations.
- globular-toast 7y agoI'm really surprised that the Macbook Air is the most popular. I had this idea that it was a niche product for people who wanted portability above everything. I guess it's a really good thing because presumably it has lower power consumption than higher performance machines. There was a time when the standard PC that your grandma would buy from Dell came with a top of the line Pentium 4. It's good that this is no longer the case.
- tomerbd 7y agoMy only reasons for sticking with MacBook's - The OS - I don't really feel it which is great because I want to focus on my work. - The quality - like the touch bar, I can work a lot with it and I forget about it, it's big and very useful. Excellent screen, lightweight, 2 usbc are good enough for me for everything. - It's light. - In any way I stick with MacBook Pro 2017 16 GB RAM 512SSD costs today around $1500 and it's a great machine for a software developer. More RAM/Disk would be better but for now it's perfect.