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MacBook Air M4

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911–920 of 972 posts

Re: MacBook Air M4

#911
post #41

They don't always hit the mark but I sort of miss the times when Apple would innovate more boldly with their devices. Apple Intelligence isn't it - it's just playing catch-up with a market that tries to slap AI onto everything it can think of. The hardware upgrades are always nice but there's nothing 'out there' like a touch bar or even a 'dynamic island'. Just more safe iterations.

Apple’s innovation strategy is not to take risky moves. They are more of a fast, competent follower company. Even iPods were a slightly conservative implementation of MP3 players, which were already becoming a thing at the time (you could even get mp3 players with solid state, albeit flash, drives while Apple’s iPods were still spinning rust). Of course iPods became very popular because they put it all in a package t…

An odd take. How can you downplay the iPod and then jump over the iPhone? They also got the iPad, Air Pods, Apple Watch, and Face ID just right. Not always as era-defining as the phone, but certainly pushing their own category.

Of course, the VR thing is a remarkably well engineered thing nobody needs.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#912
post #779

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understand why people are so fixated on battery runtime. If you actually use the device indoors, don't you have a possibility to charge anytime. For me, I alternate between my home office room and the living room. Sometimes I work when on the train. And even less often in national flights and on airports. Except when flying or on very outdated trains, there never is an issue charging.

I like to use my devices without needing to be tethered to an outlet. I don't like having to deal with wires creating trip/pull hazards because my laptop needs charging. Sitting on the porch without needing to run extension cords is also nice.

I always connect to multiple external screens. I cannot imagine having only my laptop screen/keyboard.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#913
post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this time (and historically), I mostly use it as a laptop, but I have also used it as a desktop for long periods with an external monitor. As a laptop, I love that it's so tiny. It’s working very well so far... but I’m afraid that at some point, I’ll have to switch to Linux or OpenCore Legacy Patcher. I’m still on macOS 11 (Big Sur). MS Office has already stopped updating, along with some other software (though no…

MacOS up to version 13 runs well using OpenCore even on my 2010 iMac (I did upgrade it with a metal compatible GPU). Looks like the only issue with your MacBook Air is there may be some metal issues. https://github.com/dortania/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/issues/1... If those don't look like a problem for you, I'd definitely suggest giving it a try. MacOS 13 should give you at least 3 more years of use out of it. Going b…

that's a very useful comment, thank you for sharing you experience with older hardware!

Re: MacBook Air M4

#914

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No vertical integration is what did intel in because they both do fab and design. TSMC won because they aren't vertically integrated into anything. Apple is better because of actual superior technology. The chips are custom made and no one can match the technology yet.

They have superior technology because they control the full stack and have taken more and more ownership of it over the years (most recently building their own modem in the iPhone 16e). They could design chips for an exact set of constraints (originally iPhones) and then expand that to the mac. Intel with x86 had to support legacy and tons of different devices (and bad leadership caused them to ignore efficiency and…

> (originally iPhones) and then expand that to the mac

Yes and: (as you know) Aggregate volume also benefits Apple's whole product suite.

It's hard for a laptop mfg to justify pushing to next node process for just ~25m units. So competitors have to wait for Qualcomm, Samsung, whomever to transition.

It's easier for Apple with ~250m phones, ~50m tablets, ~25m laptops, etc. per year. (Apple's war chest also enables monosopoly of upcoming node processes.)

Imagine trying to pull off AirPods or Vision without that deep vertical integration. The ridiculously ambitious Vision is just barely feasible, riding on mobile's coattails. A Vision using 3rd party CPUs would be delayed.

--

This all is in addition to the Apple specific optimizations, which you mention.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#915

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you manage 147 open tabs and why have them all open at once?

I have several hundred open on my M2 MBA and have no problem. Maybe it's because I use Brave? I don't know but have never had to think too much about it. I also don't have much RAM (either the base amount or up a little). I do restart my browser once a month or so, if things ever feel less snappy than normal.

I think the question is why rather than physically how. Surely that amount of tabs is useless because you'll have duplicates, irrelevant things, etc.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#917

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it really require that much R&D? Slap one of the excellent AMD mobile processors with built-in GPU in there, standard cooling (they don't use much more power than they did 5 years ago. They surely have the blueprints for the last XPS machines), and a bigger NVME. It's all more or less commodity hardware in a name-your-preference shell.

It’s easy until you can’t really fine tune the software because you use windows and it’ll eat the battery alive for reasons you can’t control as a manufacturer (but customers will still think it’s your fault)

sure, you'll have some unhappy customers but that's not new. They used to sell just fine. I wonder if it's the neverending hunger for bigger margins that's really doing them in. It's not enough to make SOME profits when you need to show shareholders you're making MORE profits.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#918
post #249
post #247

My 4-year old Dell XPS 15 is up for replacement, but somehow no manufacturer aside from Apple is making laptop with decent specs nowadays? I want 2TB storage, a 4k (or close) HiDPI display, good build quality, and not a bulky gaming laptop. The XPS 15 was perfect, it had those specs, except it only had 1TB storage which is now full. I was expecting that to not be an issue 4 years later ... But now Dell discontinued X…

I'm not sure why you want 4k resolution with a 14 inch screen to use commandline tools and a browser. My hunch is that relaxing this seemingly arbitrary requirement will result in many suitable notebooks

I wouldn't say 4k is a hard requirement for me but before I bought an M1 I remember "not 720p" was a lot to ask for in the x86 world.

Re: MacBook Air M4

#919
post #30

is there an active linux support for the hardware?

Active Linux support has grinded to a halt. Hector Martin (the developer of asahi Linux) has ceased development. Umid temper your expectations. M3+ will likely never be supported https://asahilinux.org/2025/02/passing-the-torch/

M3+ will likely never be supported - that is a ridiculous claim

Re: MacBook Air M4

#920
post #247

My 4-year old Dell XPS 15 is up for replacement, but somehow no manufacturer aside from Apple is making laptop with decent specs nowadays? I want 2TB storage, a 4k (or close) HiDPI display, good build quality, and not a bulky gaming laptop. The XPS 15 was perfect, it had those specs, except it only had 1TB storage which is now full. I was expecting that to not be an issue 4 years later ... But now Dell discontinued X…

I wanted an XPS15 for a while, but they kept getting relatively worse than my 2017 one. I ended up just replacing the battery on it and kept the 1080p screen that wasn't great anymore, but I was not going to buy a laptop with a worse battery for a higher price than what I got the old laptop for.

Later I bought a new Malibal laptop, but mostly for the screen, usb-c ports and lower weight,but had to compromise on getting an unnecessary nVidia GPU that I just blacklist right away because the right laptop just didn't exist. I like the laptop, but I can't recommend Malibal laptops though, they are a weird company and getting things to work alright took way more effort than on my old XPS.

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