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New MacBook Air with M2

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Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#191

Post by kalleboo »

pavlov wrote: post #148
bluedino wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the worst the Mac has ever been Which one was that?

The 2016 MacBook Pro was a turd. The butterfly keyboard would inevitably break. I went through several of these laptops. To add insult to the injury, this model's unique innovations were "Touch Bar" and "no ports"... I've been buying Macs since 2000, and the 2016 MBP is definitely the worst Mac I ever had. It was enough to drive me to purchase a Surface Book as an alternative.

In addition they made the battery smaller despite the CPU not really getting any more efficient so it got less battery life unless literally all you were doing was watching iTunes movies.

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#192

Post by GeekyBear »

capableweb wrote: post #74

Probably too early to tell, but anyone know how running Asahi Linux on this would be? Is M1 similar to M2 enough that stuff would just work? I'd love to use Apple hardware again, but I cannot stand the Apple software and UX, so need my laptops and desktops to run Linux.

> Is M1 similar to M2 enough that stuff would just work?

Apparently so.

> At this point, it's pretty likely that M2 will be at feature parity with M1 with https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1542957901651685376

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#193

Post by SenHeng »

pavlov wrote: post #148
bluedino wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the worst the Mac has ever been Which one was that?

The 2016 MacBook Pro was a turd. The butterfly keyboard would inevitably break. I went through several of these laptops. To add insult to the injury, this model's unique innovations were "Touch Bar" and "no ports"... I've been buying Macs since 2000, and the 2016 MBP is definitely the worst Mac I ever had. It was enough to drive me to purchase a Surface Book as an alternative.

I'm grateful for the 'no ports' move. It really helped jump start moving everything on to USB-C. Yes, the implementation details are still being worked out. particularly how the mass manufacturers can cut cost while still the most wanted subset of supported features.

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#194

Post by wombat-man »

Darmody wrote: post #143
swozey wrote: 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…

yeah finder is pretty annoying. I don't know how to just get the path of where I'm at a lot of the time.

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#195

Post by thrwawy283 »

tomaskafka wrote: post #128
thrwawy283 wrote: post #108

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…

> The worst experience I've had was telling my dad MacOS Catalina couldn't be installed on his $3.5k iMac. Just in case you'd be ok with unofficial way - there are patchers to enable macOS install on older machines: https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/install-macos-catalina-unsu...

This is something I'd be comfortable with maintaining, but I couldn't leave with my dad. (I work on the road for months, and it's unpredictable when I come back. Longest I was out was 2 years..)

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#196

Post by botdan »

dan1234 wrote: post #131
ricardobayes wrote: post #110

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.

The UK pricing is £1,249, up from £999, so 24% extra for the better CPU, webcam & display[0]. A bit disappointed to see them sticking with 256GB SSD as the base, feel like 512GB should really be the standard nowadays. [0] https://www.apple.com/uk/mac/compare/?modelList=MacBook-Air-...

Beyond just the storage constraints, there are performance concerns with the 256GB model [1]. At least with the 13" M2 MBP Apple has switched to using 256GB SSD NAND chips which means that anything less than 512GB has only a single channel of flash to read and write from. It's unclear if the new Air will have this same constraint but it's something to consider.

[1] https://www.macrumors.com/2022/07/01/m2-macbook-pro-slower-t...

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#197

Post by _ea1k »

NoraCodes wrote: post #28

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.

I remember thinking that about the way Jobs introduced the ipad 2: https://www.google.com/search?q=ipad+2+jobs+speech&oq=ipad+2...

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#198

Post by dangus »

simula67 wrote: post #37

Does anyone have reviews of any comparable ARM-based (good battery backup and speed) Windows laptops? Seems like there should be a transition of the entire laptop market to ARM, given that Apple has demonstrated that ARM processors are viable on the laptop.

When it comes to Windows on ARM, so many reasons to pick a Windows laptop over a Mac are thrown out the door by self-sabotaging compatibility in that way. It's just not a good experience in my mind, unless you plan to use your system like a Chromebook and just stick to browsing the web or using other basic apps.

I would also say that 12th generation Intel is more competitive with Apple's current silicon than it gets credit for. It beats Apple on single and multi-threaded performance. No, you won't get 20 hour battery life, but you can find a respectable balance, and to that point I don't think it's worth making the ARM tradeoff on the Windows side of the house.

For Apple, ARM is great because they're betting the farm on it. For Microsoft, ARM still looks like a bit like a side project to me.

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#199

Post by johnfernow »

senttoschool wrote: post #94
thrwawy283 wrote: post #75

I want it, but I'm not getting it until all the hardware works under Linux. MacOS is great, but someday they will stop updating MacOS for this. I see it as a device with incredible longevity because of the fanless thermals and how it sips energy. I could see myself using it 10 years later. I want to run MacOS or Fedora Silverblue, with Silverblue being my true love. Immutable OS images HAH, downvoted in seconds. Woul…

I don't think you're downvoted because of fanboys. I think you're downvoted because: 1. Linux is coming to Apple Silicon sooner or later. You can buy now, enjoy macOS, and then install Linux later. 2. It's not reasonable to expect to use it for 10 years. Even if Apple stops supporting it, you can still use it. In addition, Macs have insane resale value. So you can sell it in 5 years, and then buy a new one. This is a…

> 2. It's not reasonable to expect to use it for 10 years. Even if Apple stops supporting it, you can still use it. In addition, Macs have insane resale value. So you can sell it in 5 years, and then buy a new one. This is a more reasonable approach than yours.

Why is that? I still use my 2015 15" MacBook Pro which released 7 years ago, and I have no intention of replacing it anytime soon. This isn't the 70s, 80s, 90s or early 2000s: the improvements in performance from one year to the next are far more modest and the utility of further improvements are far less impactful than they once were. My 2015 MBP is still as capable of browsing the web, writing code, and video editing as it was back in 2016 when I got it. It's not in any way slow doing any of those tasks.

The performance of an M2 MacBook would undoubtedly be much better, but am I actually going to be able to browse the web faster or write code any faster? Probably not.

A new 16-inch MacBook Pro with 1TB storage emits approximately 620kg of CO2e in its manufacturing process (The Carbon Footprint of Everything by Mike Berners-Lee, 2020 second edition, page 140). Why should someone emit more than half a ton of CO2e for a new laptop unless they really need it?

If you have a Mac that no longer gets OS updates by Apple, as long as it was released within the past decade you should be able to use OpenCore Legacy Patcher to update it to macOS Monterey (and later Ventura when it releases) without much issue. If it's older than that, you might run into some issues, but generally speaking everything from late 2008 and beyond is supported, with everything from late 2012 and beyond being fully supported.

https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/START.htm...

Re: New MacBook Air with M2

#200

Post by noelsusman »

ricardobayes wrote: post #114
sylens wrote: post #92

Would be the perfect laptop if it could hook up to 2 external monitors instead of just one. For that reason, I have to go for the M2 Pro.

Not meant as a sarcastic question but why not get a mac mini/studio instead?

Presumably because that's not a laptop.
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