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New 2019 MacBook Air features a slower SSD than 2018 model

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Re: New 2019 MacBook Air features a slower SSD than 2018 model

#131

Post by mosselman »

ruffrey wrote: post #99
skyyler wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you dislike about it? I haven't really noticed mine.

I use the function keys and escape key - a lot. The lack of even haptic feedback on the touchbar makes it a big downgrade. Having a touchbar just isn't an option.

I use vim and my work-macbook has a touch bar. I haven't really noticed a difference in user experience between the touch-bar version and the physical esc-key on my personal macbook pro without a touch bar.

Before I actually used the touch bar version I also thought that it wouldn't be easy to use, but as I said, I haven't noticed a difference.

Re: New 2019 MacBook Air features a slower SSD than 2018 model

#132

Post by filmgirlcw »

I think this is fine. As other have said, if the price hadn’t changed and this happened, that would be annoying (even though the typical MBA customer won’t notice), but since the price has decreased, this is a fair trade-off.

Incidentally, I got my mom the 2018 Air (to replace her 2010 13” MacBook Pro) and she loves it and she LOVES Touch ID. She uses her iPad for most things but occasionally needs a full computer and it’s been great for her.

If I had any reason for a third fourth fifth laptop (I do not), I’d consider one just as something to play on.

Re: New 2019 MacBook Air features a slower SSD than 2018 model

#133

Post by stephenr »

untog wrote: post #93
threeseed wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google could support H.264 or H.265. The only reason they don't is because they want to push their format.

I wouldn't say it's the only reason. H264/5 are not royalty-free codecs. YouTube is a powerful tool Google can use to push a royalty-free codec, much like Apple used the iPhone to push people off Flash. It's one of few areas I agree with Google being heavy handed.

What, over and above the H.264 licensing that covers them for 1080p content?

It’s google doing what google always does: pushing a google controlled thing to become a “standard”.

Re: New 2019 MacBook Air features a slower SSD than 2018 model

#134

Post by lemoncucumber »

djsumdog wrote: post #62
tjoff wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually lowered the price... it's not like hardware ever becomes cheaper with time? I guess apple have improved recent years but previously this was quite apparent. "Wow, new much faster model costs the same as the old one!" Yeah, that's because the old one is insanely overpriced - unless you bought it on launch day. Conveniently that's the only day of the lifetime it is ever compared to the competition.

There was a time around 2016 when DDR prices went through the roof and didn't go down for quite some time. There were a lot of market factors: Samsung's massive Note recall meant they needed a lot of memory for their own devices, plus they had contractual burdens to meat for people who had already paid for RAM, so everyone else got screwed on chips (Samsung, Micron and SK make the majority of memory, and their pipeli…

Cryptocurrency-driven demand for GPUs comes to mind as well...

Re: New 2019 MacBook Air features a slower SSD than 2018 model

#135

Post by outworlder »

skyyler wrote: post #77
Marsymars wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's a fair characterization - I won't be getting a MBP regardless of the amount of I/O I do, because I very much dislike the Touch Bar.

What do you dislike about it? I haven't really noticed mine.

Usually the beef is less than the fact that it exists and more to do with the loss of the Esc key.

Re: New 2019 MacBook Air features a slower SSD than 2018 model

#136

Post by Fnoord »

mosselman wrote: post #131
ruffrey wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use the function keys and escape key - a lot. The lack of even haptic feedback on the touchbar makes it a big downgrade. Having a touchbar just isn't an option.

I use vim and my work-macbook has a touch bar. I haven't really noticed a difference in user experience between the touch-bar version and the physical esc-key on my personal macbook pro without a touch bar. Before I actually used the touch bar version I also thought that it wouldn't be easy to use, but as I said, I haven't noticed a difference.

> I use vim and my work-macbook has a touch bar. I haven't really noticed a difference in user experience between the touch-bar version and the physical esc-key on my personal macbook pro without a touch bar.

Of course you don't. You use ctrl+[ or rebind caps lock to esc, and you don't use F-keys with vim. But outside of vim you might use the F-keys or Mac keys. I know I do. Cause I'm too shit with multitouch.

Re: New 2019 MacBook Air features a slower SSD than 2018 model

#137

Post by cheeze »

cpuguy83 wrote: post #58
lukifer wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on a 2018 MacBook Air, the only model has F-keys and Touch ID, and I love it. Once you get used to sudo using your fingerprint, it's hard to go back. :)

I had sudo setup to use fingerprint, but at some point it quit working... config files are still correct. Not sure what happened :(

ITerm2 support broke, you need to turn off "Allow sessions to survive"...

https://gitlab.com/gnachman/iterm2/issues/7618

Re: New 2019 MacBook Air features a slower SSD than 2018 model

#138

Post by cheeze »

ruffrey wrote: post #99
skyyler wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you dislike about it? I haven't really noticed mine.

I use the function keys and escape key - a lot. The lack of even haptic feedback on the touchbar makes it a big downgrade. Having a touchbar just isn't an option.

IMO if you're hitting the escape key you're doing it wrong. Remap to caps lock!

I'm a fan of remapping F keys to the numrow as well. But my desktop keyboard is a 60% without F keys anyways. Less for the fingers to move when you use an fn row :)

Re: New 2019 MacBook Air features a slower SSD than 2018 model

#139

Post by darkteflon »

Domenic_S wrote: post #123
natrik wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a 2014 MBP 13 as well, any other differences (positive and negative) you noticed in switching to the new MBA?

The keyboard... I miss the chiclets. But it's lighter & smaller, TouchID is amazing, despite being a "downgrade" in model it's substantially faster for the things I do (raw photo editing, photoshop, web coding). Truetone is great, I don't feel a need for flux anymore. Also fewer bugs with iCloud - I could never get my airpods to show up in the sound menu on my mbp 13 but they work perfectly on the mba.

Truetone doesn’t work with external displays, unfortunately.

Re: New 2019 MacBook Air features a slower SSD than 2018 model

#140

Post by tlobes »

fjp wrote: post #27
cgriswald wrote: post #6

> Before you go and start casting aspersions at Apple, the move makes a lot of sense. It'd be one thing if it did this and raised the price, but it actually lowered the price by $100, and the education discount brings it down to $999, making it the most affordable modern MacBook laptop ever (the outdated MacBook Air does not count). Which is fine for the entry-level model. Is it true for the more expensive model? The…

I actually think the current MacBook Air configuration with Touch ID & Retina - $1100 - is basically exactly what I (and many people) want in a personal laptop. It's light, easy to use, plenty fast for anything I do on a regular basis, and the Retina display is excellent. Unless I have reason not to trust it, Touch ID is the perfect way to log in when you: 1. want to have your computer lock after a short period of in…

I'd agree with the exception of the utterly awful keyboard & trackpad design that appeared in 2016 that seemed to skip any meaningful QA process inside Apple.

The popular dust complaints aside, a brand new machine has immediate problems for someone whose palms tend to touch the newly enlarged Force Touch trackpad during typing, a hand position I got used to with my Macbook Air 2013. Typing on the new design will cause repeated keystrokes, delayed or missing keystrokes, and instant cursor shifts during typing that make it so I need to approach the keyboard in the same way one would properly play a piano in order to get any meaningful work done. Great if you're a trained pianist, terrible if you want to get actual work done from a coffee shop where you don't have a stand or external keyboard on hand.

Apple knows they messed up with the butterfly mechanism and seem to be fixing that in the next design. In the meantime, there are a few things they could do now through software to alleviate these issues:

1. The ability to remap the Force Touch trackpad tracking area in Settings. Being able to remove 10mm from each side would fix my cursor shift issue. People currently use tape to solve this... on a $4000+ machine.

2. Ability to set a numeric value for Force Touch sensitivity as opposed to 3 constant values with a much higher threshold than is currently being used as "high".

I know Apple is all about limiting options for a customer's own good, however, these software changes would go a long way in helping people debrick an expensive laptop who don't happen to fit whatever hand size their QA team of classically trained pianists have.

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