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The M1 MacBook Air is the best computer I've ever owned

bou.ke

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Re: The M1 MacBook Air is the best computer I've ever owned

#321

Post by masswerk »

DennisAleynikov wrote: post #291
masswerk wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, none of these issues seem to be related to the M1 hardware, but to some issues and choices made with Big Sur.

its very frustrating trying to battle the people who a) have never used an arm laptop b) think legacy apps run well c) think benchmarks are cool its beyond impossible to dissuade someone from making the mistake of buying apples first gen chromebook without properly researching what they did to neuter macos to accomplish this. basically every other reply here is too busy not realising A and singing praises to C

Actually, I do own a MBA/M1 and it is certainly not similar to a Chromebook. (It just happened that the energy management of my old MBA became bricked by an OS update, so I had to jump the train for a first generation device, against all considerations.) Hardware-wise, I'm positively surprised.

Regarding the real issue, Big Sur, it's in its infancy and you can't fall back to OSX, which might be the real show stopper for some. Personally, I've been using Apple systems for 30 years now, and I've always been disappointed by every major revision since Snow Leopard. However, Big Sur, against all odds, isn't actually as bad as I expected (being the zoo of micro modes that it is). Some stability and maintenance issues are to be expected from a brand new OS, and Big Sur isn't the Black Swan invalidating the general advice to never aspire to early adopting an entirely new platform, if your primary goal is stability. I would certainly advice against an upgrade at this early stage for a production machine, if you can do with a previous revision. That said, my personal verdict on Big Sur is still pending. Let's see…

And, I can't see where any of the changes, which are related to the issues listed above, are related to the M1 architecture. Rather, you may point at the T2, which isn't exactly new, but has been gaining some in importance, and the general perspective on OS security, as exhibited by Big Sur.

PS: Some real criticism of the hardware (however, not related to the M1 architecture): Lack of ports (my old MBA had USB on either side and a card reader in about the same form factor!), no MagSafe, somewhat hollow audio (probably related to repurposing the old shell, now using space formerly occupied by fans as overly bass heavy resonance chambers.) An overall more flimsy feel of the shell and keyboard (again, as compared to an older predecessor.)

PPS: This is my 3rd ARM device and it certainly is a game changer.

Re: The M1 MacBook Air is the best computer I've ever owned

#322

Post by frazbin »

bouk wrote: post #209
RomeoDelta wrote: post #189

I am no Apple fanatic. I'm a die-hard Linux user and open source proponent. I wouldn't touch the M1 with a thirty-nine and a half foot pole. But with all that said... I kind of like articles like these. I enjoy seeing people happy with good tech because I like good tech. It pleases me that there are people getting this much enjoyment out of innovative and (I'll admit it) quite impressive hardware. So rock on, Apple f…

I hope you get to experience that! My worst computer recently has been a Thinkpad running Linux, basic things like suspending the laptop when it closes just never work properly. But I'm sure the year of Linux on the desktop will come one day.

The linux desktop has mostly arrived-- it's just we all switched from desktops to laptops a while ago.

Re: The M1 MacBook Air is the best computer I've ever owned

#323

Post by webmobdev »

duskwuff wrote: post #131
politelemon wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read the thread carefully. The vpn part was shown to be normal, not the firewall. The original problem was with the firewall, there were only passing mentions of the vpn which op tested. Also problematic, the op released no data. Whether that works for you depends on your pov.

The "firewall" was Little Snitch -- which was implemented using a framework intended for per-application VPNs.

Not just "Little Snitch", all Firewalls that had their own kernel extensions. With macOS Big Sur, Apple started insisting that thry have built specific API's for firewall softwares, and every firewall app had to use only that, and their custom kernel extensions won't be allowed. But Apple's API are ofcourse designed to allow it bypass their whitelisted softwares.

More here: https://medium.com/tripmode/apple-started-hiding-the-traffic...

Re: The M1 MacBook Air is the best computer I've ever owned

#324

Post by webmobdev »

heyoni wrote: post #89
messe wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> macOS Big Sur deliberately cripples VPN and firewall on it so that select Apple softwares can bypass them That was debunked: https://www.reddit.com/r/mac/comments/k0c00f/macos_big_sur_d...

It bypasses firewalls, or network blockers using the new APIs...not sure how the vpn thing got started because that was never part of the original claims.

> not sure how the vpn thing got started

Some VPN apps use their own kernel extension and macOS Big Sur discourages that. https://tunnelblick.net/cTunTapConnections.html

Some VPN apps that weren't using VPN but used proxying also are affected. Also read https://protonvpn.com/blog/big-sur-exclusion-list/ for more info.

Re: The M1 MacBook Air is the best computer I've ever owned

#325

Post by ksec »

loh wrote: post #235

The most interesting thing about this to me was the bit at the end about Windows and Games. I've heard of Windows emulation on Mac before but this is the first time I've heard of Parallels. > Now you can download Steam and basically install anything and it will probably work. Microsoft really did some amazing magic in getting both 32-bit and 64-bit x86 programs running on arm64. The author makes it sound like you can…

You used to get anywhere between 10-30% performance drop on the Mac running Windows Emulation with roughly the same Hardware.

With M1 since the chip is quite a bit faster you get report saying it actually runs Windows Apps on a M1 Mac better than on x86 Windows.

Of course YMMV, and those Apps were not Gaming, which are mostly bottlenecked by the GPU and Drivers.

Re: The M1 MacBook Air is the best computer I've ever owned

#326

Post by pjmlp »

mhh__ wrote: post #296
pjmlp wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple will never bother again with GPL software, while Google would rather migrate everyone to Fuchsia if they could, IBM is focused on making Linux a good citizen for cloud and mainframe computing, Oracle just wants to make it run their database stack, so that leaves out Microsoft, in what concerns billion dollar companies that would care to do that.

That has nothing to do with what I said.

Sure it has, Apple has no reason to adopt Linux on their consumer devices, in fact they are slowly moving away from POSIX, e.g. new networking stack.

And then I gave the list of the companies with very deep pockets that have any reason to ever bother having a Desktop Linux of some form.

Re: The M1 MacBook Air is the best computer I've ever owned

#327

Post by youeseh »

ProZsolt wrote: post #186
youeseh wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My maxed out 2015 13" Macbook Pro runs as strong as ever. I paid more up front and have had no regrets since, and no need to upgrade any of the internals.

How is your battery life, I only get around two hours. Changing it would cost me 200 GBP.

Around 4 right now. "Needs Service"

I mostly keep it plugged in and have a charger for each room in the apartment.

I've replaced the battery in a 2013 Macbook pro. It is very similar to the 2015. If I don't buy a newer laptop when the time comes, I'll gladly pay the Apple store to replace the battery for me.

Re: The M1 MacBook Air is the best computer I've ever owned

#328

Post by ksec »

Klonoar wrote: post #273
dayvid wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I LOVE my 13" 2015 MBP and only stopped using it because of keyboard errors. With that said, I believe the new Macbook Air and Macbook Pro have the Magic Keyboard which I think is essentially the same as the 2015 Macbook Pro keyboard and more up-to-date (though maybe not upgradeable). I recently bought a Zephyrus G14 which I think is one of the closer equivalents to a 13" MBP for Windows with a powerful GPU.

I bought an M1 as my 2015’s keyboard had died over the past year, and I got tired of being chained to my desk with my Bluetooth keyboard. The M1 is close but the keys aren’t as deep. It’s good, but the 2015 still felt better to type on.

Scissors Keys has 1.3mm Travel Distance. The new Magic Keyboard is 1mm, the difference with 0.3mm is gigantic.

I still dont understand why they try to shave off 0.3mm. As Battery improves the 16 MBP has plenty of space of a maximum 100Whr size battery.

Re: The M1 MacBook Air is the best computer I've ever owned

#329

Post by Qub3d »

RomeoDelta wrote: post #189

I am no Apple fanatic. I'm a die-hard Linux user and open source proponent. I wouldn't touch the M1 with a thirty-nine and a half foot pole. But with all that said... I kind of like articles like these. I enjoy seeing people happy with good tech because I like good tech. It pleases me that there are people getting this much enjoyment out of innovative and (I'll admit it) quite impressive hardware. So rock on, Apple f…

I'm definitely watching the space. Similar to how auto manufacturers are now all pivoting hard to electric following the insane tear of Tesla, I hope that this lights a fire under other computer hardware manufacturers.

And the signs are there. Windows already has an arm64 build out, and Linux of course has dozens of projects working great on ARM.

The software is largely ready, and the industry tends to copy Apple, for better or for worse. In this case, I'd say for the better.

Re: The M1 MacBook Air is the best computer I've ever owned

#330

Post by Qub3d »

threedots wrote: post #32
breck wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious, why not an external monitor? I have the M1 13 for on the go. An external monitor for day to day.

The 16" MBP is terrible with an external monitor (or at least mine is with my external monitor). Fans spin up like crazy and the case gets hot enough to fry an egg on. It's the one terrible weakness of an otherwise great machine.

Yeah, its a known limit of the Intel CPU. I'm no expert, but my understanding is that any external monitor essentially requires pushing through the dGPU and therefore your system will be consuming ~100W minimum, no matter the load.
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