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The 2020 MacBook Air

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91–100 of 223 posts

Re: The 2020 MacBook Air

#92

Absolutely 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.

And how much thicker is that thing? The edge around that machine is the worst as well.

Re: The 2020 MacBook Air

#93
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rene Ritchie is worse. I've seen Gruber call Apple to task a few times this past year, but Ritchie just continues to make excuses.

Ritchie 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.

FWIW, 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.

Re: The 2020 MacBook Air

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Touchbar - Keyboard - Shaving off more and more millimetres off notebooks when no one was asking for at the expense of functionality - The disaster that is Apple's current approach to software design - Mice that have to be charged from the bottom - Apple pencil that can only be charged by sticking it into iPad's lightning port - Moving audio jack the the right on the laptops when 99% of world's headphones have cabl…

Is the audio jack an apple thing? I'm on a four year old Dell and it's on the right.

In MacBooks it used to always be on the left. And then they switched to the right when they introduced USB-C models.

Re: The 2020 MacBook Air

#95
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What vanity projects?

I think there are three: the golden watch, the coffee table book and the Apple Park. Although the park seems to have worked out really well in the end.

Wasn't Apple Park a passion project of Steve Jobs as much as Ive?

Re: The 2020 MacBook Air

#96

I'm not sure why Apple gets all this credit for making a reliable keyboard, something the rest of the industry figured out decades ago.

They make a reliable + great keyboard

Lots of keyboards are reliable, few of them are 'good'. Lenovo is probably the only other one.

Re: The 2020 MacBook Air

#97

I 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.

>And you can't deny the brand appeal of the Apple logo. I would be embarrassed if I carried one around. But my friends are tech guys, not Starbucks hipsters.

I feel like stereotyping Mac users isn't adding much to the discussion. Lots of tech companies and developers use Apple products.

Re: The 2020 MacBook Air

#99
post #2

So eight years after the first retina MBP there's finally a good retina MBA.

Seriously. 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.

Hard to beat that model imo, I would go to the trouble of replacing the battery. Or as apple would do the entire upper assembly.

Re: The 2020 MacBook Air

#100
post #34
post #15

It'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.

Gruber 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 releas…

My 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.

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