This is a beautiful machine. Once again, Apple excels at hardware. But what the living hell is going wrong with Apple's desktop software? OS X and Apple's applications suite have been getting steadily worse with every release. Look at the App store: the latest releases of OS X, iPhoto, iMovie, Pages, and Numbers are (in stark contrast to earlier versins) all rated at 2.5/5 stars, with the plurality being 1-star revie…
That machine wouldn't be viable if it wasn't for software. The force touch trackpad, which allows the MacBook to be thinner, desperately need the software to make the illusion work.
Curious - what do Finder complainers consider the gold standard of file browsers that Finder should aspire to be? I do most of my file management at the command line so I don't experience the pain of Finder very often, and I've generally been able to get Finder to do what I want without much fuss. Windows Explorer is, to me, a painful experience (but its 1980s DOS command line is so much worse) I've found the various…
Fairly new OSX user and I kind of hate finder. My first gripe is of course the feeling that no one cares about these basic conveniences @apple. Some of these are also found from other people's comment but I want to highlight that they also matter for me. 1. The fact that most file browser has editable auto-complete location field. 2. That it doesn't show the size of the selected files in status bar. 3. That when you…
Having moved to OSX at work last August, I tried to approach it as openly as possible, and to learn how to use it the way everyone else in my company uses it. Finder is terrible. Window management is terrible. Installing uBar helped a bit with Window management. I'm going to be working in OSX for a long time, but for file and window management, give me Windows 8.1 any day of the week. Or Windows 10, which is purring along nicely on my six year old Dell laptop.
A search against the comments returns no results: 2304×1440 resolution and 16:10 aspect ratio? Showing a few co-workers and a quick suggests what I thought: a bit of amazement at 16:10. Does anyone have any insight into why they didn't go with a 16:9 ratio?
16:10 is a much better ratio for working compared to 16:9.
Going from 1920x1080 (16:9) to 1920x1200 (16:10) is better because you get more vertical estate. But you seem to suggest that 1728x1080 (16:10) is also better. Aspect ratio does not automatically make a resolution better lol.
This is a beautiful machine. Once again, Apple excels at hardware. But what the living hell is going wrong with Apple's desktop software? OS X and Apple's applications suite have been getting steadily worse with every release. Look at the App store: the latest releases of OS X, iPhoto, iMovie, Pages, and Numbers are (in stark contrast to earlier versins) all rated at 2.5/5 stars, with the plurality being 1-star revie…
The one area where apple really exels though, in both hardware and software is the touchpad. I cannot stand using the touchpad on any windows laptop I used, the touchpad is 99% the reason I still use a mac/osx.
The only experience I have with OSX is toying around with a little Mac Mini. What is special about Apple's touchpad? I'm honestly curious.
USB-C as the "one connector to rule them all" is the big news. That's the end of MagSafe and the exploding era of USB-C docking stations that work for multiple devices. I think we'll start to see an era of expandable computing coming up soon: USB-C is a perfect connector to push your data and state into a larger desktop experience. Why not carry around your laptop in tablet form when you are mobile? [1] [1] https://g…
Cool article. Seems like you need to have managed source code to transplant an application from one type of processor to another.
Java, .NET, Dalvik, etc all fit this category.
I wonder if we'll start seeing fat binaries for native code that ship with LLVM IR so that even C and C++ code can be transplanted from your phone's ARM processor to your desktop's Intel.
"More powerful" is a little hard to isolate as tightly as you are doing here. The 1.1GHz model will burst a single thread at 2.9GHz. I'm disappointed there's no 16GB RAM model, and that'll keep me from buying it, but CPU perf is not on the list of my worries.
"More powerful" is a little hard to isolate Not really. Just look at the Passmark scores: Macbook Air (Early 2014): 4159 [1] Macbook : 3096 [2] The new Macbook is 25% slower than the MacBook Air. [1] http://cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-4650U+%40+... [2] https://cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+M-5Y70+%40+1...
Where are you getting those specs? AFAIK the 2014 MacBook Air doesn't come out of the box with an i7 4650U, but rather an 4260U, which has a Passmark score of 3617. Also note that the Apple presentation noted a Turbo Boost top of 2.9GHz, not the 2.6GHz of the Core M 5Y70 that you linked.
It's the difference between horsepower and 0-60. There are other factors involved. (This is largely academic, though, because I doubt anybody who owns one is going to really care.)
Fairly new OSX user and I kind of hate finder. My first gripe is of course the feeling that no one cares about these basic conveniences @apple. Some of these are also found from other people's comment but I want to highlight that they also matter for me. 1. The fact that most file browser has editable auto-complete location field. 2. That it doesn't show the size of the selected files in status bar. 3. That when you…
3 - Show Inspector: command-option-i 6 - command-c, command-option-v 7 - Don't know if that's what you mean, but you can hide everything on the view menu. 8 - If you mean spotlight index, yes
6 - You just specified copy/paste, the parent post mentioned cut/paste. I too find the lack of cut/paste annoying.
I am bit disappointed. Dell has similar sized laptop, with bigger display, smaller bezel and higher resolution. http://www.dell.com/us/p/xps-13-9343-laptop/pd
I got a new fully specced XPS 13" from work. More than being small it's one of the worst computers I ever had. Battery life suck, fans constantly spinning in idle. The only thing I like is the charger and screen. The keyboard is somewhat nice. Other than that, totally crappy PC. Ouch that sounds harsh, but thats what take from it and for 999-1200usd you can find so much better.
What would you recommend as an alternative? I have no particular interest in Apple products, but I would love a windows PC with a similar form factor and battery life as the Macbook Air.
With that battery life, I don't suspect I'll ever be charging it while using it - I'll only ever charge it while I'm asleep.
It's what, 9 hours? If you want to compile some code, you probably get 8 hours. That's fine, but that's a cycle or more every day, and that has an effect on the battery life. If you want to plug it in to a screen you ideally want to charge it, too, instead of degrading the battery. Your screen is in a socket, your MB should, too. Given it's USB-C there'll be plenty of hubs, docks etc... but it'd have been nice to get…
> 1 port is just ridiculous
Apple make plenty of higher-end products for people that want to compile code all day and have multiple ports.
This one is a "MacBook" and the other one is a "MacBook Pro". I think it's clear which one fits your needs better.
Happily, there are millions of people that don't want to code all day, and have probably never plugged anything into their laptop other that power. So this device is for them, not you.
As a guy with small children, the loss of MagSafe is actually a huge downgrade for me. The number of times MagSafe has saved my laptop and/or power cable from damage after a child blitzed through the living room and tripped over the power cable is not insignificant.
Before I got a Mac my first child knocked my old laptop over and the power cord ripped the power socket apart. I will not buy anything other than a child proof power connector. Sadly, nobody makes a serviceable laptop with one with easily replaceable/upgradeable battery, RAM and HDD anymore so I am using my old MBP until it dies. I understand there is a market for these paper thin, disposable machines but Apple has l…
Seems that an aftermarket adapter incorporating a MagSafe-like feature should work:
=====E |magsafe| =E laptop
You're moving the disconnect point outside the laptop, but (in theory) could provide the capability to _any_ device.