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.
The 2020 MacBook Air
121–130 of 223 posts
Re: The 2020 MacBook Air
#122The 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…
- Apple presumably is subsidizing hardware if it leads to larger NPV for their service business and recurring revenues for the lifetime of the said hardware. For instance, if a user buys an iPhone, they're more likely to buy Apple music, News+, iCloud storage plans, etc. This is akin to, in extreme case, Sony Playstation - they're often sold at a loss hoping to create future revenue streams from games. The reason why they can get away from selling Playstation consoles at a loss is because without buying games, it is completely useless piece of hardware. In the case of iPhone, it is not quite the same as Playstation because you don't need Apple Music to use an iPhone.
Re: The 2020 MacBook Air
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
What vanity projects?
The $10,000 Gold first generation Apple Watch, the trash can Mac Pro, the 12” MacBook, and the dumpster fire last generation keyboards.
Re: The 2020 MacBook Air
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
I 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
With 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.
Operating systems and programs allocate RAM somewhat intelligently. They won't necessarily clear out information from RAM if there's no reason to do so.
In Chrome, you have to have around 25 tabs open to hit swap, but performance only becomes a problem at many more than that. The obvious answer is to close some tabs - there's no way you can even read the titles of 25 tabs anyway.
If people like my parents need a new computer, I absolutely wouldn't bother recommending the 16GB memory system to them. Absolute total overkill. Storage and CPU are better upgrades to make first.
Re: The 2020 MacBook Air
#125The 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…
> 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.
Re: The 2020 MacBook Air
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Soldering SSD to MacBook Pro motherboard. Eliminating the ability to remove it when logic board dies and retrieve data with a Simple USB adapter.
Re: The 2020 MacBook Air
#127The 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 adaptab…
Lots of Chromebooks are ARM, and many can run standalone Linux. Trouble is Linux-on-ARM is always more of a hassle than on Intel. Hence it's a chicken/egg problem: For Linux to support ARM better, there needs to be a great ARM laptop. And vice-versa.
See, e.g.,:
https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/28/21100071/microsoft-surfac...
https://andregarzia.com/2019/12/a-week-with-the-surface-pro-...
Re: The 2020 MacBook Air
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
I 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
You mean like in 2007 when he called the “sweet solution” of web apps for iOS a “shit sandwich”?
Re: The 2020 MacBook Air
#129Every 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. :-/
Re: The 2020 MacBook Air
#130Earlier 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…
> 99% of world's headphones have cables coming out of the left ear Is this number intended as a factual statement or hyperbole? I’ve only ever used headphones with cables going to both ears, to neither ear, or ones where you can plug it in on either side.
I've never seen one which you can plug it in on either side. I'm in Canada if that helps.