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Apple Finally Updates MacBook Air with Retina Display, Touch ID

arstechnica.com

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Re: Apple Finally Updates MacBook Air with Retina Display, Touch ID

#31

Post by SllX »

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #17

So TouchID is good enough for laptop but they “just can’t” make a phone with it anymore huh? Rabble.

As I recall, the T2 is essentially a gimped A10. FaceID relies partially on the neural engine in the A11 and later to retrain its image of you and continue to work reliably, even when your face undergoes subtle changes.

Or essentially, until they release an updated T series chip which includes the neural engine, which probably won’t be until Mac OS X can take advantage of it, it is TouchID or nothing as far as biometric auth goes for Macs.

Re: Apple Finally Updates MacBook Air with Retina Display, Touch ID

#34

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

andr wrote: post #15

Given that 15 minutes later, in the iPad part of the event, they claimed the new iPad is faster than 92% of all notebooks sold in the last year, the writing is on the wall. For me, the next Macbook to be excited about, would be one with an ARM processor. Still, really disappointing that for the new Air they do not allow you to go to 1TB SSD, but they won't allow you upgrade from a dual-core i5. Feels like a political…

If Apple could sell you a quad-core CPU as an purchase-time $1000 upsell they would. They don't because it doesn't fit the power budget.

Re: Apple Finally Updates MacBook Air with Retina Display, Touch ID

#35

Post by nakedrobot2 »

USB-C ONLY?

I mean, seriously. It was a bold gambit. But the world of usb-C is a world of pain. Give it up. Magsafe was a wonderful thing. I cannot seriously believe they gave it up for this.... thing they call usb-C

And still, iphone with lighting, macbook with usb-C? Seriously Apple?

Re: Apple Finally Updates MacBook Air with Retina Display, Touch ID

#37

Post by mtgx »

dogma1138 wrote: post #18
koolba wrote: post #2

Summarizing a bit: * Starting price of $1,199 * 13" display with trimmed bezels * 2.75 lbs * Higher resolution screen ("Over 4M pixels") * HD front facing camera * No Touch Bar (Yay!) * No USB ports (Boo!) Assuming it doesn't have any odd dust or logic board issues cropping up in the next couple months, I can see myself getting one of these.

And a Dual Core CPU for $1200, app compatibility aside the CPU in the new MBA might be arguably slower than the A12 bionic. It's literally going to be the same CPU as in the current 12" Macbooks with a slightly relaxed power envelope which now begs the question why is the Macbook Air even a separate product? at this point it brings nothing to the table other than being slightly larger and slightly cheaper version of…

It boggles my mind that Apple hasn't switched to AMD Ryzen yet. Lower cost for them, more cores/higher overall performance for their customers. What's not to like?

But no, they'd rather try and sell people $20,000 Xeon Mac Pros with half the cores of an AMD Threadripper and like 4x the price.

Re: Apple Finally Updates MacBook Air with Retina Display, Touch ID

#38

Post by saagarjha »

microtonal wrote: post #16
saagarjha wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can install Linux in them, just like you can on MacBook Pro. There is an option to disable this feature, though, in the name of verifying the boot process.

You can install Linux, if you can accept that a lot of functionality does not work. Even on most MacBook Pro 2016 models audio, suspend/hibernate, and WiFi don't work. https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux

This has nothing to do with the a T2 chip; that MacBook Pro doesn’t have one.

Re: Apple Finally Updates MacBook Air with Retina Display, Touch ID

#39

Post by mobilio »

microtonal wrote: post #12
berbec wrote: post #3

Pros: Thinner, lighter, better display, thunderbolt, 8th-generation chip, headphone jack(!) Cons: Still dual core, no USB-A, no magsafe. Would buy, and I'm a Lenovo fanboy. I just love the Airs. Does anyone know if you can install Linux onto the newer Macs with the T2 chip? Or is it locked to osX^H^H^HmacOS?

Cons: Still dual core, no USB-A, no magsafe. And still the butterfly mechanism. And apparently, specks of dust also affect the latest iteration: https://theoutline.com/post/6409/the-new-and-improved-macboo... I have been waiting for a good replacement for my MacBook Pro 2016. But this is not it. Still too few ports, still the risk of sticky keys. And given that the base model with 128GB is $1199, after the upgrade to…

Everything is OK except keyboard...
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