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New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

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Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#981

Post by throwaway118899 »

sroussey wrote: post #588
Klonoar wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I gave these requirements to my parents they'd go to a random computer shop and come back with probably a random 13 or 15 inch DELL. And if I did that, they'd also come back with that DELL - and then I'd be stuck doing tech support for them for however long the thing lasts. I cannot begin to count the number of times they've gone and bought some junk computer that they got upsold on. This is not an experience un…

> And if I did that, they'd also come back with that DELL - and then I'd be stuck doing tech support for them for however long the thing lasts. I stopped doing tech support for family members using Windows. THAT was the main reason they changed to Mac. And now, hardly do any support for them at all.

The key is to treat Windows users like children and lock it down with an administrator password. You’d be amazed how well Windows holds up over the years if you just prevent them from installing whatever random bullshit they find.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#982

Post by eropple »

sgarland wrote: post #746
eropple wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just checking: are you saying that the M2 and M3 make 8GB/256GB viable, or that they were for the M1 Air too? Because I had an M1 Air with 8GB of RAM for a while, and that thing was painful . I haven't had to be careful about how many tabs I had open in a browser for a long time--but I also haven't had 8GB of RAM in a long time, either.

I’ve had my base M1 since a few months after launch, and the only slowdowns I’ve experienced are when I turn on low power mode. Even then, it’s more that apps are slow to launch, not that they’re unresponsive once open. I generally have between 4-10 tabs at any given time; how many do you have?

I mean I haven't had it for a couple years because I swapped it for a M1 Max. But a lot more than that, just absentmindedly. Even when they unloaded over time.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#983

Post by eropple »

windowsrookie wrote: post #739
eropple wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure those people are the intended Macbook audience, though. How many of those people wouldn't be roughly as productive using an iPad or something? I've found myself doing almost all my non-development, non-media stuff on an iPad Air as of late and the environmental constraints have been really helpful for focus. (My iPad Air was $599 new, and I use a shockingly pleasant $30 case-and-keyboard combination for…

I have tried several different iPads over the years and I have never found them to be useful in any way. A laptop is superior in every situation for me. Also the M1 MacBook Air was on sale many times for $700. That's less than $100 more than your iPad Air + keyboard.

Macs are better for me for a lot of things, too, sure. When I'm not doing computer-toucher things, though, I find it isn't materially different. And a lot of people want the affordances without the need to do those kinds of things.

Apple's presentation has mostly been the Mac is a work truck, and most people have light-duty needs.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#984

Post by kjkjadksj »

kstrauser wrote: post #700
kjkjadksj wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its a 0.75lb and 0.17”difference though, you’d have to be a calibrated scale to notice that outside of side by side testing.

I just lugged my work-issued MBP through a couple of airports today, and wow, I wish I had my own MBA with me instead. That weight doesn't make a huge difference on your lap. It sure makes a difference in a carryon bag.

Maybe consider deadlifts to strengthen your trunk if that fatigues you

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#985

Post by r00fus »

BossingAround wrote: post #905
r00fus wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Major mac devs have totally abandoned the platform in recent years. Abandoning the (clearly lacking) Mac Store is not these same as abandoning the macOS platform.

Isn't Apple locking unsigned binaries from being run on macOS?

By default, yes, but that can be disabled by anyone with admin rights (which is also default for standard user).

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#986

Post by skybrian »

hnfong wrote: post #973
skybrian wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like a pretty speculative use. That much money would go a long way on a $20/month subscription, and the field is changing rapidly. Unless you’re an AI researcher, might as well wait a year or two and see what changes?

Using M1/2/3 Max for LLM inference isn't at all "speculative", it's a thing today and high end Apple Silicon being an option for LLM inference is becoming general knowledge among the local inference community. The original author of llama.cpp (one of the leading LLM inference projects) developed it on a Mac and it has full Metal acceleration support. The $20/month subscription is going to give you access to commercia…

Okay, but this is rather low-level. Most users aren’t going to care about “running an LLM.” They want to ask an AI chatbot questions or get code autocompletion or something like that. What applications are there that need a local LLM and who is using them? What do they do with them?

Personally, I’m reasonably happy with GPT4 and Github Copilot, and I’ve sometimes used Midjourney, though I cancelled my subscription since I’m not currently generating any images. Are there important apps that I’m missing?

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#987

Post by huxley »

skadamat wrote: post #228
znpy wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's (quite literally) the price you pay in order to stay in the apple ecosystem. More-than-one-display is pretty much the standard on regular (non-apple) computers: you can drive as much as your system can sustain.

Right but in this case the AIR is the consumer model and it supports 2 displays while the base PRO supports 1. So it seems counter!

14 Pro got a software update and now has same support

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#988

Post by jdc0589 »

moolcool wrote: post #315
jdc0589 wrote: post #300

> all in its strikingly thin and light how about we make them thicker, so there's enough room to keep the screen from eventually touching the keys when closed and permanently marring it after a few years. I guess, its only been happening since 2007, probably not enough time to come up with a solution. /rant

For what it's worth, M1 series MBPs are quite a bit thicker than the touchbar era Intel MBPs

true, but my m2 is already leaving key-prints on the screen

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#989

Post by w0m »

fennecbutt wrote: post #971
gs17 wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Newer macOS is actually really good about running with less RAM. The only problem is then your SSD will suddenly fill up. If either was upgradable, this would be no problem.

Think about what ram is used for. App binaries, sure. But most of what is stored in memory is content, video, image, file cache. These will not differ much from OS to OS, the only difference would be baseline memory usage before I start opening YouTube tabs.

This. Win 11 will run 'fine' on 8gb of ram also. It will also fall apart once you do ~anything other than browse the web just like modern OSX.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#990

Post by gs17 »

w0m wrote: post #989
fennecbutt wrote: post #971

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think about what ram is used for. App binaries, sure. But most of what is stored in memory is content, video, image, file cache. These will not differ much from OS to OS, the only difference would be baseline memory usage before I start opening YouTube tabs.

This. Win 11 will run 'fine' on 8gb of ram also. It will also fall apart once you do ~anything other than browse the web just like modern OSX.

> just like modern OSX

But my MacBook only has an issue because the SSD is pathetically small. If I had the next tier up, it would be no issue.

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