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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

#371

Post by _Codemonkeyism »

mediocrejoker wrote: post #312
_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #95

The Air of my wife was the worst computer we've owned, yellow display with dark areas, Wifi basically doesn't work anywhere and trackpad broken in a short amount of time.

Do you and your wife live underground, in an active coal mine? If not you must admit that your experience is atypical for that computer.

I've owned several dozen Apple products, iPods, iPhones, iPads, from XSans/XServers, Cubes, Minis, maxed out Macbook Pros and a dozen iMacs, and no the experience is not atypical for Apple. Many people I know have problems with bad iPhone and MacBookPro Wifi reception. This development iMac Pro I'm writing this on feels slow, often has a beach ball and crashes randomly. The 27 iMac before this had fan problems from the start.

Also see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUaJ8pDlxi8&t=526s

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

#372

Post by Lio »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #34
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.

What's interesting to me is that the current Dell XPS 13 (9370) is physically just a little bit bigger than an 11" MacBook Air and quad-core i7.

Its CPU and GPU aren't as fast as the new 13" MBP but as a rival to the MacBook Air it's very competitive.

I have a Developer Edition for evaluation and keep it in an old MacBook Air 11" case.

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

#373

Post by torstenvl »

stakecounter wrote: post #23
whywhywhywhy wrote: post #11

> the new model comes with the latest-generation edition of Apple's "butterfly" keyboard Maybe it was naive of me but I had high hopes Apple would use the Air refresh as an upgrade path for those of us who have decided they need a keyboard with more travel and reliability beyond a few months. (I use a 2017 butterfly keyboard today, never again)

Any info on whether the 2018 keyboard update fares much better [1]? I’m seriously considering buying this MBA, but I’m happy with the travel and durability on my 2011 MBA keyboard and primarily spooked by the butterfly keyboard complaints. [1] https://www.macrumors.com/roundup/macbook-pro/#keyboard

I have a 2018 butterfly keyboard and it's acceptable. Not as good as the pre-butterfly keyboards, but no sticking keys yet.

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

#374

Post by ksec »

Dunedan wrote: post #366
kristianp wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only two cores for the air is bad. I would guess that only Apple will be selling a machine with a 2 core 8th gen i5. I can't see one on ark, they're all 4 core: https://ark.intel.com/products/series/122597/8th-Generation-...

Anandtech is suspecting that Apple is using an unannounced 5W TDP Amber-Lake CPU in the new MacBook Air [1]. That'd be an interesting choice as it'd bring the CPU performance closer to the 12" MacBook, than to the 13" MacBook Pro. That sounds especially plausible as Apple claims that the MacBook Air has a ~20% longer battery life than the 13" MacBook Pro, albeit having a ~8% smaller battery. [1]: https://www.anandtec…

And now confirmed.

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

#375

Post by FiveSquared »

MR4D wrote: post #199
atlasunshrugged wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gah, just what I need, another adapter. I guess in this day and age pretty much everything is in the cloud but still, I like having at least one USB port. A little surprised they kept the mic jack

I'm probably going to get crucified for this, but I wish they would have dropped the mic jack in return to a third TB3 port (so they would be accessible form either side of the computer).

Let's go to Reddit, 'tis a silly place.

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

#376

Post by FiveSquared »

Karunamon wrote: post #127
lostgame wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Upvoting this because it was ridiculously down-voted, and I'm not sure why. No, USB-C ports are not 'USB' ports. Not as 'USB' ports have been for at least a decade and a half. Almost two. USB 1.0 and USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 managed to all use the same connector, and not charge us out the ass for adapters to use the same hardware. If you're not pissed about USB-C, or you somehow think that having a port you can no longer…

It was probably ridiculously downvoted for being worthless snark that adds nothing to the conversation. As to "costly", a USB -> USBC hub can be had for around the same price as a regular hub on Amazon, starting around $4.99 and going up from there.

A good one costs 60-80 ish. https://www.amazon.com/Satechi-Aluminum-Multi-Port-Ethernet-...

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

#377

Post by SyneRyder »

pinewurst wrote: post #302
SyneRyder wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure it's an i7-8510Y - note that the MacBook Air specs [1] say it's an i5 chip. (And you can't upgrade it to an i7 either.) I'm not sure we know what chip it actually is yet. [1] https://www.apple.com/au/shop/buy-mac/macbook-air/silver-1.6...

The i7-8510Y is the only one with the specified 617 graphics, but thanks for pointing out that difference. Maybe they have a slightly lower-spec custom i5 SKU from Intel? I'd be surprised though if it wasn't a Y-device nevertheless.

Looks like it's landed in Intel ARK now - i5-8210Y:

https://ark.intel.com/products/189912/Intel-Core-i5-8210Y-Pr...

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

#378

Post by jtbayly »

merb wrote: post #335
jtbayly wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sympathetic to the complaint about price, but if your contention is that the devices are basically unchanged, then why buy a 2018 model? Why not buy a 2014 model? And if you don't want to make that sacrifice, then there's probably something different about the device that Apple is assuming is worth ponying up for the upgrade for you. (For starters, despite the similar clock speed and processor names, the processo…

> (For starters, despite the similar clock speed and processor names, the processors are not the same speed.) of course not, it's at least 4 years older. I mean that would not be fair to compare them. I have a Late 2013 Mbp 15" it was priced at ~2.200€ it was the "entry" model of the mbp 15" however if you look now the price is going to the roof. 2.799,00 € is the new price, of course the processor is now faster, the…

Exactly! This is why I'm quite sympathetic. I just think it needs to be laid out like this to make it an effective point.

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

#379

Post by tinus_hn »

pentae wrote: post #209
ksec wrote: post #152

I wonder if a lot of people are leaving the Mac ecosystem. Apple has been selling roughly ~19M Mac per year since 2012, and its new user to Mac has also been steady at ~50%. Apple has had 60M Mac user in 2012 announced in WWDC, and they has been nearing 100M since early 2017. I assume that actual number is larger than 90M at the time, so after nearly 20 Months, ~20M New Mac Users on board, it manage to add a total ~1…

Apple executives are probably telling themselves these people are just trading in their old laptops for iPads hence why they have been doubling down on iOS for the last 5 years. Milking the entire ecosystem for 30% compared to 0% on a laptop sure hasn't hurt, either.

Yeah, these fools building the biggest company in the history of humanity. Taught them right!

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

#380

Post by tinus_hn »

51lver wrote: post #133
lathiat wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean I've got 2 AT keyboards and 3 PS/2 mice in my drawer. Why can't I plug these into the latest MacBook pro? It's a travesty.

I gotchu fam! AT > PS/2 > usb A > usb C If I were you, I'd stick all that crap inside the massive schoolbus sized AT keyboard where you can't see it. There is probably plenty of room. Hell, go ahead an integrate a USB hub too, then you can use the keyboard itself to adapt other legacy devices to usb C.

You can’t use a ps/2 keyboard using an adapter on the Mac, it doesn’t work. I’ve tried.
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