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New MacBook Air with M2

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Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#181

However the cat (inflation) got the laptop, in Europe it's now 1500€ instead of the 1050€ previous gen with same specs. I think it's unjustifiable for a normal consumer.

Tim Apple isn't going to take a haircut on a weak Euro

Had to check, but one of the top questions on a google search:

“Is Tim Apple a billionaire?”

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#182
post #17

It's very tempting, but my MacBook Air M1 has been great and performance wise any improvement is probably barely noticeable in the day to day that I'd end up feeling like I just bought a new chassis. Which could still be nice.. although most of the time it's in clamshell attached to my monitor. I'll have to sleep on this!

I'm in the same boat and opting to wait. Sure it'll be a nicer machine, but I don't think we'll really feel the upgrade.

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's deliberate. I guarantee that it's about building a "brand mindset." They've been playing with text copy for decades. If you say "iPhone," instead of " The iPhone," you've turned "iPhone" into a pronoun. That has a different "connection" to people that hear it. Branding seems to be something that a lot of tecchies (including Yours Truly) have difficulty with. There's a lot of subtle psychological games that aren'…

Do you mean common noun instead of pronoun?

I think of it as a “pronoun.” It makes it into a “person,” or some kind of major deal, like we call localities (usually) by their single pronouns. Sometimes, “The” becomes part of the pronoun, like “The Netherlands,” or “The Bronx.”

Usually, though, we assign pronouns (I’m not an English major, though, so the proper term may be different).

Like, you can’t have “a brooklyn,” or “an amsterdam.”

They want to make it so we can’t have “an iPhone.”

Good luck with that…

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) We are now 2 generations in without full Linux support for the hardware. 2) I used my Powerbook G4 for 12 years; this is mostly because I was a kid with no money. When I got something else, my sister used it for another 3 years. With thermals as they are in this device, instead of selling it after 4-5 years I'd rather keep it for one-off projects as a server like a Mac Mini. I know laptops aren't designed for serv…

You have pretty good support except for the GPU at this point (admittedly I'm waiting for this until I install it on my machine). They've had to write all the drivers from scratch, so it was bound to take a while. But on the plus side the hardware interfaces seem to be stable across generations. M2 parity with M1 was implemented in 48 hours! So I'm pretty confident it will mostly be case of linux support continuously…

The GPU is important.. afaik the keyboard and trackpad aren't working yet in Asahi Linux.

I don't expect Apple to support the Linux community. It feels like this is trending in one direction. It felt like things stopped being "favorable" to us when they stopped supporting OpenGL and made no effort with Vulkan. The touchbar and some wifi chipsets were poorly supported for years before M1 debuted.

What has been implemented in Asahi is impressive, but it's not ready to be a daily driver. I hope this becomes my mobile device of choice someday. I'd use MacOS for work-work, and I would choose Linux every time for fun-work. So tired of everything having telemetry and vendor lock-in and basic pieces of software moving to subscription models.

Apple laptops became the dev machines of choice because they embraced the OSS community in pretty big ways. Right now the water feels tepid.

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#186

However the cat (inflation) got the laptop, in Europe it's now 1500€ instead of the 1050€ previous gen with same specs. I think it's unjustifiable for a normal consumer.

It's not just inflation, the Euro has been getting crushed as decades of negligence by the ECB show up. That's not stopping any time soon and the ECB looks like it will be in the position to either destroy the Euro or destroy the bond market.

> It's not just inflation, the Euro has been getting crushed as decades of negligence by the ECB show up.

the stream of anti ECB drones is frankly ridiculous

the price has gone up in pounds as well.

Does the ECB controls them too?

Prices in Europe are taxes included, in US are before taxes.

In Europe you have to add VAT, not only sales taxes, which are much lower in US anyway.

Last but not least, custom duties are a thing.

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#187
post #70

Am I the only one around here that doesn't like MacBooks? The hardware is fine, yes, except the glossy screen but the software is horrible. Everything is a pain in the a*.

Pick an operating system—you can be confident that plenty of people on HN hate it. It’s true now, it was true on Slashdot twenty years ago, it was true on Usenet thirty years ago.

The difference: everyone on Usenet was right.

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#188

Looks like a neat laptop. I don't really understand why apple feels the need to forgoe articles for their devices, however. For instance, they write "MacBook Air features..." rather than "The MacBook Air features..." as would be grammatically correct in English.

It’s interesting where our language goes.

I do not say “The Windows” etc. when talking about software, but I definitely say “The iPad” etc. when talking about hardware.

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#189

This thing is going to sell like hotcakes. The combination of single core CPU and graphics performance, device thinness, battery life in this laptop is unmatched. It’s funny how Apple came back from the worst the Mac has ever been to the best in a span of few years. Johnny I’ve doesn’t dictate things around Apple anymore but the silicone chips team now does.

M2 is not a single core CPU, albeit it does have stellar single threaded performance. As for having the worst Mac, it's quite probable they were nerfing their last x86 models on purpose to make the jump to Apple Silicon even more impressive. Remember the models that had inadequate thermals? Now magsafe is making a comeback?

I find it very hard to believe that Apple deliberately sabotaged a multi-billion dollar product line for ~5 years in order to (possibly?) boost sales when their incredibly risky and expensive investment into their own silicon came to market.

People have been shitting on MacBooks since they removed MagSafe and brought in the butterfly keyboard in 2016. The i9 Pros with massive thermal issues came out in 2018. That's a lot of money to lose due to everyone and their mother complaining about the decline in quality and poor value for money of your product.

I wouldn't ascribe to malice what can be more easily be ascribed to incompetence - Apple made questionable regarding the design of the MacBooks, and took the complaints to heart in time for release with their much improved chips.

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#190
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're coming from Windows or another OS it definitely takes time to get used to the "Apple way" of doing things. Also you need to expect that a lot of the applications you're used to being free in other OS cost $10-35+ each on Apple. Apps like SetApp are great for this and trying new applications out but that's a $10 monthly fee. It'd still take me awhile (a year+) to buy the apps I use at $10/mo so I just pay th…

I come from linux and I feel like I've been given a machine for computer illiterate people who are going to do some office work at Starbucks. Stereotypical, yes, but that's how I feel. I need this basic software feature. Yeah? Too bad, the OS won't allow you to do that. Maybe you'll find a paid app that does it. I do pay for software but when you have to pay for basic stuff that should come out of the box, it's a no…

> When I'm told to learn to use it "the Apple way" what I understand is, "shut up and get used to it, you have no saying in how your machine or you should work".

Well yeah that is kind of the philosophy - a single simple way to do things. Cutting down on customisation makes the system more stable and I think allows them to innovate more quickly. Don't confuse it with lack of power - it's a fully certified UNIX unlike most Linux distributions.

They do have incredible support for accessibility, so they do accommodate people who genuinely need things to work differently, not just a preference.

What they're not keen on is adding knobs and bells and whistles for the sake of it, as it's clutter.

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