9 ms·

This is amazing, yet silly to state "Up to 23x faster performance [4]" [4] against, 1.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i7-based MacBook Air

isoprophlex 2y ago
Ten million times faster! (Compared to the Apollo 11 guidance computer)
- tr3ntg 2y ago
  This gave me a chuckle
- HPsquared 2y ago
  Depends what you mean by 'faster' ... I wouldn't be surprised if the AGC was more responsive (faster response on the screen to user input) than a modern computer. Early computers were often quite snappy. https://danluu.com/input-lag/ https://danluu.com/input-lag/
- attractivechaos 2y ago
  The hardware may be ten million times faster, but the software...
- johnklos 2y ago
  Considering that a modern Ryzen is 1375 times faster than a VAXstation 4000/60, and a VAXstation 4000/60 is around 1280 times faster, at least in clock, than an AGC, that would mean the M4 would need to be about 5.6 times faster than that modern Ryzen. Hmmm... The M4 might be ten million times faster than the AGC, depending on the instructions per clock of the AGC and the VAXstation 4000/60 with which we're comparing it. https://zia.io/notice/ApcPNCgTyrYXpUQU2S https://zia.io/notice/ApcPNCgTyrYXpUQU2S
kotaKat 2y ago
As someone that migrated to the M1 Macbook Air from a Mid-2014 Macbook Pro... the Intel customers are still the ones they're trying to target, amusingly. If they'd just give me onboard mobile connectivity, I'd upgrade to the next Air sooner, otherwise this thing will run until it dies... and maybe some day they'll start comparing performance against their original M1.
- WonderAlmighty 2y ago
  The page up to 2x faster than M1, but it's not worth upgrading from for the average person, your laptop should last longer than 4 years hence why they market to Intel Mac users.
- wil421 2y ago
  Why would you need onboard mobile? It’s 2 clicks to trigger a mobile hotspot from your iPhone and there are very cheap LTE dongles on eBay. Not sure how much service would cost, most of us have reasonable download caps on our mobile plans. The dongles have better data plans than phones.
  - kotaKat 2y ago
    Convenience, security, and power-savings. I currently also use a Thinkpad X13s with onboard 5G and it's nice to not have to screw with it when you want connectivity. On my Verizon plan (Unlimited Ultimate), I qualify for two 'connected devices' to be discounted. My Thinkpad is $10/mo extra on my account for unlimited LTE. I'm not a heavy data user by any means and this works out well for me.
  - addicted 2y ago
    Why wouldn’t I want onboard cellular connection instead of having to be dependent on the more finicky and less reliable Hotspot connection, hurting my ability to use my phone freely, and burning both my laptop and my phone’s batteries at the same time. Besides, having a cellular modem also allows you to tap into both WiFi and Cellular seamlessly like your phone does to make your overall connection much more reliable.
- chasd00 2y ago
  > the Intel customers are still the ones they're trying to target, amusingly yeah i just checked mine, it says MacBook Pro 16" 2019 and the cpu is an intel i7. i don't know what to say, it still meets all my requirements, i don't feel any need to upgrade.
  - sleepybrett 2y ago
dijit 2y ago
To be clear: 1) Apple releases incremental upgrades! Why won't they make huge strides every year so I can upgrade! 2) People who upgrade every year are sheeps! 3) Apple support devices for longer than Android, that's nice! (yes, not Windows though). 4) God, why do their benchmarks compare devices that are 3-5y old?! Apple is marketing to people who have devices that are old, because they are old. "Hey, you noticed things are slow? Well, this thing is a lot faster" is pretty good marketing if it's true, nobody except the very wealthy are dropping thousands of euros/dollars on a new device for 10% performance gains, however if it's twenty-three times the performance of the Mac I currently own? Maybe it's enough to convince me or someone like my Mum to splurge on a new device. Maybe my current Mac is not "good enough" anymore when 23x is the number on the box if I buy new. It's fair to compare with devices that you expect actual people to actually upgrade from, there's a lot of Intel macbook airs in the field. Heck, even some professionals are still on Intel macs: https://www.production-expert.com/production-expert-1/25-of-audio-professionals-still-use-intel-macs-why https://www.production-expert.com/production-expert-1/25-of-...
- throw0101d 2y ago
  > 2) People who upgrade every year are sheeps! > 3) Apple support devices for longer than Android, that's nice! > 4) God, why do their benchmarks compare devices that are 3-5y old?! 2 and 4 kind of contradict each other. I wouldn't be surprised that the average upgrade cycle for a lot of folks is in that 3-5 year range, for both personal and corporate buyers.
  - stringsandchars 2y ago
    > I wouldn't be surprised that the average upgrade cycle for a lot of folks is in that 3-5 year range, for both personal and corporate buyers. My personal laptop is a 2014 MacBook Pro. I'll be buying one of these new M4 Airs, and comparing to an 11-year-old computer.
    - ownagefool 2y ago
      yeah, managed to eeek about 10 years from minimum spec 2013 mbp
bee_rider 2y ago
Haha. Well, I guess it kind of makes sense in some way, Apple doesn’t want to say anything negative about any generation of “M” processor, maybe? Up to 23x faster. Of course, the fastest Intel MacBook Air is pretty old. But 23X is pretty crazy, right? I wonder what they are comparing against. Int-8 matrix multiplications or something else that’s gotten acceleration lately, maybe?
factorialboy 2y ago
I love how even fair and justifiable critique of Apple needs to be hedged with the "Apple is great" prefix, such is the terror of the Apple downvote mafia on HN. /typed from my Macbook Pro M4 — Love Apple — This is great!
zurfer 2y ago
M4 2x faster than M1. M3 1.6x faster than M1 (1 year ago). = M4 1.2x faster than M3. not bad, but Moore's law is dead for CPUs.
p_ing 2y ago
Everyone who has been around since at least the Snail ads should be used to Apple's fluff and promptly ignoring it until benchmarks are released.
- LtWorf 2y ago
  As I said in another comment, probably the benchmark is done just using some hardware instruction that didn't exist on those models and gets compiled to several instructions (possibly by a very very old compiler, while we're at it) vs something handwritten in assembly for the purpose of one specific benchmark. Does this mean it's 23x faster for normal workloads? Nah. Apple when they were pumping clang were also claiming that binaries produced with clang were much faster than those made with gcc. This was because they used a 15 years old version of gcc that didn't have any vector instructions (because they didn't exist at the time) and benchmarking using some code that was solely doing vector stuff. In short, they don't lie, but it's a lie :D
totaldude87 2y ago
Also to note, a typical macbooks' life span is more than ~5years - so are the target audience
latexr 2y ago
You’re making it seem like they’re hiding that information under a footnote. The real text on the page, which is quite visible, is: > Up to 23x faster than fastest Intel‑based MacBook Air And right next to it: > Up to 2x faster than MacBook Air (M1) The footnotes are there to expand on the conditions of the measurements. So not exactly misleading. On the contrary, it seems to me they’re quite clearly saying “if you have an Intel or M1 MacBook Air you have reason to upgrade. Otherwise, don’t”. https://i.imgur.com/pEWPXzK.png https://i.imgur.com/pEWPXzK.png
- bitwize 2y ago
  "Up to" is still doing a lot of work there. What kinds of workloads are we talking that get the big numbers, and what can we realistically expect on real workloads? I'm reminded of 90s advertisements in which the new G3 processor was supposed to be so many times faster than the Pentium or even Pentium II. Their chosen benchmark: how long it takes to run a Photoshop plugin. On Mac OS pre-X, a Photoshop plugin got 100% of the CPU because there was no preemptive multitasking. Windows 9x versions of Photoshop had to share the CPU with whatever else was running.
  - WrongAssumption 2y ago
    Yeah, it is doing a lot of work, as it should be. It's a summary in marketing material, not a research report.
  - saagarjha 2y ago
    > Testing conducted by Apple in January 2025 using preproduction 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air systems with Apple M4, 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU, and 32GB of RAM, as well as production 1.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i7-based MacBook Air systems with Intel Iris Plus Graphics and 16GB of RAM, all configured with 2TB SSD. Tested using Super Resolution with Pixelmator Pro 3.6.14 and a 4.4MB image. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of MacBook Air.
Moto7451 2y ago
That’s roughly the Air I have still. I hate using it (prior to recently adding the cooler shim mod, it would thermal throttle constantly) but between a Hackintosh and my work Mac I haven’t felt the need to upgrade. I think sometime in this M4/M5 gen is when I’ll pull the trigger and retire the Hackintosh to gaming rig only status.
LtWorf 2y ago
And the benchmark is probably jut using one hw instruction that didn't exist on that model and now exists, and is not representative of anything at all.
crazygringo 2y ago
It makes sense because that's who's upgrading. I've got an M1 Air and there's still no really compelling reason to upgrade. MagSafe and a nicer camera don't really justify it, especially when Continuity Camera is better than on the M1 or M4.
- turtlebits 2y ago
  I'm in the same boat. My base model M1 air is the longest I've owned a laptop without upgrading. And it's perfectly fine. (and yes it only has 8gb)
- walthamstow 2y ago
  In the days before USB-C, MagSafe was great. Tripping on the cable and it snapping off safely was really cool. These days, it's an anti-feature. I have USB-C for everything, why would I give that up?
  - gloxkiqcza 2y ago
    You don’t give it up. USB C charging still works just fine.
    - walthamstow 2y ago
      Maybe I was unclear - the MagSafe cable is still in the box. It's pointless to me, I have USB-C cables all over my house, I'm not using anything else.
thiht 2y ago
People don't upgrade every year. I still have an Intel MacBook Pro (2020 I think?) that I don't plan on upgrading anytime soon because it still works great.
vultour 2y ago
The first thing I noticed in all of these announcements is that every main comparison is against M1. Why are they comparing with hardware 2-3 generations ago? I don't care whether my Intel i9 has 50x the performance of a Pentium processor from the 90s, it seems like a disingenuous attempt to make the numbers as high as possible.
jmull 2y ago
I don't think it's silly to state. That message is probably for intel macbook air users who may be considering an upgrade. (Anyway, I just ordered one for my wife, a soon-to-be-ex-intel-mac user. She'll probably be pretty happy about this, especially since she doesn't have an intel air as powerful as that one.)

isoprophlex 2y ago

Ten million times faster! (Compared to the Apollo 11 guidance computer)

tr3ntg 2y ago
This gave me a chuckle
HPsquared 2y ago
Depends what you mean by 'faster' ... I wouldn't be surprised if the AGC was more responsive (faster response on the screen to user input) than a modern computer. Early computers were often quite snappy. https://danluu.com/input-lag/ https://danluu.com/input-lag/
attractivechaos 2y ago
The hardware may be ten million times faster, but the software...
johnklos 2y ago
Considering that a modern Ryzen is 1375 times faster than a VAXstation 4000/60, and a VAXstation 4000/60 is around 1280 times faster, at least in clock, than an AGC, that would mean the M4 would need to be about 5.6 times faster than that modern Ryzen. Hmmm... The M4 might be ten million times faster than the AGC, depending on the instructions per clock of the AGC and the VAXstation 4000/60 with which we're comparing it. https://zia.io/notice/ApcPNCgTyrYXpUQU2S https://zia.io/notice/ApcPNCgTyrYXpUQU2S

kotaKat 2y ago

As someone that migrated to the M1 Macbook Air from a Mid-2014 Macbook Pro... the Intel customers are still the ones they're trying to target, amusingly. If they'd just give me onboard mobile connectivity, I'd upgrade to the next Air sooner, otherwise this thing will run until it dies... and maybe some day they'll start comparing performance against their original M1.

WonderAlmighty 2y ago
The page up to 2x faster than M1, but it's not worth upgrading from for the average person, your laptop should last longer than 4 years hence why they market to Intel Mac users.
wil421 2y ago
Why would you need onboard mobile? It’s 2 clicks to trigger a mobile hotspot from your iPhone and there are very cheap LTE dongles on eBay. Not sure how much service would cost, most of us have reasonable download caps on our mobile plans. The dongles have better data plans than phones.
- kotaKat 2y ago
  Convenience, security, and power-savings. I currently also use a Thinkpad X13s with onboard 5G and it's nice to not have to screw with it when you want connectivity. On my Verizon plan (Unlimited Ultimate), I qualify for two 'connected devices' to be discounted. My Thinkpad is $10/mo extra on my account for unlimited LTE. I'm not a heavy data user by any means and this works out well for me.
- addicted 2y ago
  Why wouldn’t I want onboard cellular connection instead of having to be dependent on the more finicky and less reliable Hotspot connection, hurting my ability to use my phone freely, and burning both my laptop and my phone’s batteries at the same time. Besides, having a cellular modem also allows you to tap into both WiFi and Cellular seamlessly like your phone does to make your overall connection much more reliable.
chasd00 2y ago
> the Intel customers are still the ones they're trying to target, amusingly yeah i just checked mine, it says MacBook Pro 16" 2019 and the cpu is an intel i7. i don't know what to say, it still meets all my requirements, i don't feel any need to upgrade.
- sleepybrett 2y ago

dijit 2y ago

To be clear: 1) Apple releases incremental upgrades! Why won't they make huge strides every year so I can upgrade! 2) People who upgrade every year are sheeps! 3) Apple support devices for longer than Android, that's nice! (yes, not Windows though). 4) God, why do their benchmarks compare devices that are 3-5y old?! Apple is marketing to people who have devices that are old, because they are old. "Hey, you noticed things are slow? Well, this thing is a lot faster" is pretty good marketing if it's true, nobody except the very wealthy are dropping thousands of euros/dollars on a new device for 10% performance gains, however if it's twenty-three times the performance of the Mac I currently own? Maybe it's enough to convince me or someone like my Mum to splurge on a new device. Maybe my current Mac is not "good enough" anymore when 23x is the number on the box if I buy new. It's fair to compare with devices that you expect actual people to actually upgrade from, there's a lot of Intel macbook airs in the field. Heck, even some professionals are still on Intel macs: https://www.production-expert.com/production-expert-1/25-of-audio-professionals-still-use-intel-macs-why https://www.production-expert.com/production-expert-1/25-of-...

throw0101d 2y ago
> 2) People who upgrade every year are sheeps! > 3) Apple support devices for longer than Android, that's nice! > 4) God, why do their benchmarks compare devices that are 3-5y old?! 2 and 4 kind of contradict each other. I wouldn't be surprised that the average upgrade cycle for a lot of folks is in that 3-5 year range, for both personal and corporate buyers.
- stringsandchars 2y ago
  > I wouldn't be surprised that the average upgrade cycle for a lot of folks is in that 3-5 year range, for both personal and corporate buyers. My personal laptop is a 2014 MacBook Pro. I'll be buying one of these new M4 Airs, and comparing to an 11-year-old computer.
  - ownagefool 2y ago
    yeah, managed to eeek about 10 years from minimum spec 2013 mbp

bee_rider 2y ago

Haha. Well, I guess it kind of makes sense in some way, Apple doesn’t want to say anything negative about any generation of “M” processor, maybe? Up to 23x faster. Of course, the fastest Intel MacBook Air is pretty old. But 23X is pretty crazy, right? I wonder what they are comparing against. Int-8 matrix multiplications or something else that’s gotten acceleration lately, maybe?

factorialboy 2y ago

I love how even fair and justifiable critique of Apple needs to be hedged with the "Apple is great" prefix, such is the terror of the Apple downvote mafia on HN. /typed from my Macbook Pro M4 — Love Apple — This is great!

zurfer 2y ago

M4 2x faster than M1. M3 1.6x faster than M1 (1 year ago). = M4 1.2x faster than M3. not bad, but Moore's law is dead for CPUs.

p_ing 2y ago

Everyone who has been around since at least the Snail ads should be used to Apple's fluff and promptly ignoring it until benchmarks are released.

LtWorf 2y ago
As I said in another comment, probably the benchmark is done just using some hardware instruction that didn't exist on those models and gets compiled to several instructions (possibly by a very very old compiler, while we're at it) vs something handwritten in assembly for the purpose of one specific benchmark. Does this mean it's 23x faster for normal workloads? Nah. Apple when they were pumping clang were also claiming that binaries produced with clang were much faster than those made with gcc. This was because they used a 15 years old version of gcc that didn't have any vector instructions (because they didn't exist at the time) and benchmarking using some code that was solely doing vector stuff. In short, they don't lie, but it's a lie :D

totaldude87 2y ago

Also to note, a typical macbooks' life span is more than ~5years - so are the target audience

latexr 2y ago

You’re making it seem like they’re hiding that information under a footnote. The real text on the page, which is quite visible, is: > Up to 23x faster than fastest Intel‑based MacBook Air And right next to it: > Up to 2x faster than MacBook Air (M1) The footnotes are there to expand on the conditions of the measurements. So not exactly misleading. On the contrary, it seems to me they’re quite clearly saying “if you have an Intel or M1 MacBook Air you have reason to upgrade. Otherwise, don’t”. https://i.imgur.com/pEWPXzK.png https://i.imgur.com/pEWPXzK.png

bitwize 2y ago
"Up to" is still doing a lot of work there. What kinds of workloads are we talking that get the big numbers, and what can we realistically expect on real workloads? I'm reminded of 90s advertisements in which the new G3 processor was supposed to be so many times faster than the Pentium or even Pentium II. Their chosen benchmark: how long it takes to run a Photoshop plugin. On Mac OS pre-X, a Photoshop plugin got 100% of the CPU because there was no preemptive multitasking. Windows 9x versions of Photoshop had to share the CPU with whatever else was running.
- WrongAssumption 2y ago
  Yeah, it is doing a lot of work, as it should be. It's a summary in marketing material, not a research report.
- saagarjha 2y ago
  > Testing conducted by Apple in January 2025 using preproduction 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air systems with Apple M4, 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU, and 32GB of RAM, as well as production 1.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i7-based MacBook Air systems with Intel Iris Plus Graphics and 16GB of RAM, all configured with 2TB SSD. Tested using Super Resolution with Pixelmator Pro 3.6.14 and a 4.4MB image. Performance tests are conducted using specific computer systems and reflect the approximate performance of MacBook Air.

Moto7451 2y ago

That’s roughly the Air I have still. I hate using it (prior to recently adding the cooler shim mod, it would thermal throttle constantly) but between a Hackintosh and my work Mac I haven’t felt the need to upgrade. I think sometime in this M4/M5 gen is when I’ll pull the trigger and retire the Hackintosh to gaming rig only status.

LtWorf 2y ago

And the benchmark is probably jut using one hw instruction that didn't exist on that model and now exists, and is not representative of anything at all.

crazygringo 2y ago

It makes sense because that's who's upgrading. I've got an M1 Air and there's still no really compelling reason to upgrade. MagSafe and a nicer camera don't really justify it, especially when Continuity Camera is better than on the M1 or M4.

turtlebits 2y ago
I'm in the same boat. My base model M1 air is the longest I've owned a laptop without upgrading. And it's perfectly fine. (and yes it only has 8gb)
walthamstow 2y ago
In the days before USB-C, MagSafe was great. Tripping on the cable and it snapping off safely was really cool. These days, it's an anti-feature. I have USB-C for everything, why would I give that up?
- gloxkiqcza 2y ago
  You don’t give it up. USB C charging still works just fine.
  - walthamstow 2y ago
    Maybe I was unclear - the MagSafe cable is still in the box. It's pointless to me, I have USB-C cables all over my house, I'm not using anything else.

thiht 2y ago

People don't upgrade every year. I still have an Intel MacBook Pro (2020 I think?) that I don't plan on upgrading anytime soon because it still works great.

vultour 2y ago

The first thing I noticed in all of these announcements is that every main comparison is against M1. Why are they comparing with hardware 2-3 generations ago? I don't care whether my Intel i9 has 50x the performance of a Pentium processor from the 90s, it seems like a disingenuous attempt to make the numbers as high as possible.

jmull 2y ago

I don't think it's silly to state. That message is probably for intel macbook air users who may be considering an upgrade. (Anyway, I just ordered one for my wife, a soon-to-be-ex-intel-mac user. She'll probably be pretty happy about this, especially since she doesn't have an intel air as powerful as that one.)