New MacBook Air released, pricing now starts at $999, features Magic Keyboard | Hacker News Reader

New MacBook Air released, pricing now starts at $999, features Magic Keyboard

apple.com

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> the new inverted-“T” arrangement for the arrow keys makes them easier to find without looking down

Heh, leave it to Apple to congratulate themselves for going back to a design that they already had earlier and that everyone else uses.

reminds me of my favorite post in response to the latest macbook pro keyboard (can't remember if I saw it here or on reddit).

> When we changed the key travel from 1.0mm to 0.5mm, it was so much better that it became the best keyboard in the world. And now, with the change from 0.5mm to 1.0mm, we’ve made it even better than ever: Welcome to the world’s best typing experience.

You saw it at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21523873 , no doubt. (-:

ty for tracking down the source. truly a great comment.

Bullshit has no bounds in this worid.

This is almost literally straight of out 1984. I actually can't believe they wrote that.

Apple didn’t, if that is what you mean.

They didn't - it's a parody.

Let's just be happy they eventually fix their mistakes. :)

Obviously the marketing copy is going to put positive spin however they can. That's what marketing is, and what mostly any other company would write as well.

I'm just grateful!

I'd love a glimpse inside the room when they write that sort of copy. Are they all super serious about it? Or laughing their asses off?

The novelty must have worn off, a long time ago. Almost all announcements of updates to existing products, look like a copypasta, they probably have templates and a well-oiled PR machinery to follow through.

Extrapolating from the cult-like following of Apple products: there's no way they don't fully believe this themselves.

They're admitting they were wrong about the last keyboard design, but do you expect a product announcement to come out and say "Our last four years of computers have had pretty shit keyboards, but we finally unfucked it!"

I wish they would — that would be refreshing

Just "A Keyboard that works" would do the job.

I read that post from my 2012 MacBook and did a double take a that part. I glanced down at my 8 year old Apple keyboard and, sure enough, it has the exact same layout.

Mid 2012 MBP with swapped out internals...8 years later and still the best computer I've ever owned

Most other laptop keyboards crams a pgup/pgdown key around the up key though. I often rest one of the fingers in that space making the laptop arrowkeys a bit annoying to use.

Dell leaves that space free (like this new MacBook Air) and instead has pgup/down, Pos1/End as secondary functions on the Fn-(Up/Down/Left/Right) key combos. I really like how that puts all navigation keys in one place.

I have used Acer, Dell, HP, and Lenovo. Lenovo swaps the FN and CTRL compared to everyone else, cannot stand that keyboard as it messing with muscle memory. After moving from a Dell XPS-13 to a HP Envy 13, HP has the best keyboard experience on a laptop. Having the PU, PD, END, HOME as a separate column on the right makes life grand, no FN + action needed to use some of the most useful keys when reading or viewing content.

It's like moving the headphone jack (when they had one) from the bottom to the top and back.

The Macbook Air doesn't have a headphone jack? Wow.

It does. He was talking about iPhone headphone jack port placement journey.

Oh, I see. I thought that was news I missed or something.

Yes it does. Op was talking about the phone.

It does.

Wow what? I don’t get it. You really want wires? Why? Just because? Nostalgia?

What’s the deal? It’s not sound quality, that’s for sure.

No, as a customer, I want CHOICE. People act as if having a headphone jack vs using bluetooth headphones are completely mutually exclusive things. I sometimes find downright aggression towards people who still want to keep a headphone jack. A laptop is a general computing device - maybe I'll want to plug in my fully working wired headphones, maybe I'll want to use bluetooth ones. Who knows. But I hate it when companies take this choice away from me, because "progress" or some other nonsense. And then you go online and people say that you must be weird for wanting to keep the jack around - why? What's bothering you so much about having an extra port that you can but don't have to use?

From a strictly cost/business perspective it's brilliant. Remove hardware you have to pay for embedded in your device and sell people an adapter at an increased price.

Ok, misguided idealism. Sure, same old, same old.

Because none of the professional grade studio monitors, DJ headphones, or in-ear monitors that I own are wireless?

You’re not using that on a Mac air.

Because I forgot to charge my wireless and I have a meeting in 2 minutes.

Music production. Bluetooth has unfixable crap latency.

You’re not doing that from a Mac air.

Why not? You can do it on an iPad too. I used to produce music on my Pentium 3 PC with ReBirth.

Did Apple marketing do that for the Escape key, too?

This looks like a decent MBA, however it feels a little bit too late.

I got rid of my MBA 2013 in 2018, in hopes to get a proper replacement, but the unreliable keyboard and weak spec stopped me from getting one. Eventually, I got tired of waiting. Tried linux, first at work (with System76/Pop!_OS), then at my home laptop (Manjaro and Pop!_OS), and I don't think I'm coming back to Apple.

Yes, linux requires some adjustments to your workflows and playflows, but I was surprised how little. And as with everything, the more you are at it, the easier and more natural it becomes.

The only thing I'm really missing is iOS development. However, that might be a good thing, and if I really need to do it I've got a MBP 2012 waiting for me in the basement (although, it will be obsolete really soon).

My problem is the Apple track pad and physical form is just so hard to beat. I could take my Macbook with me wherever I went because of how light and slim/small it is.

If anyone has some decent alternatives which I could load up Ubuntu on I'm all ears.

On a Desktop I would pick some flavor of Debian in an instance.

100%

The average dev seems to be looking for a behemoth if a laptop but I’m at the other end. My daily until recently was a 12” MacBook and it’s been my favourite laptop so far

Would love something Linux-friendly in that form factor (incl build quality and weight)

I've had good success with Thinkpads. Many people mistake the carbon fiber for cheap plastic which it definitely is not. They handle Linux very well and have great durability. I've currently got an X1 yoga 4th gen since they're all metal and I like the premium feel, but I've owned many other Thinkpad devices over the years. The X1 series is what you'd be looking at if you want an ultrabook. As an added bonus, companies buy and sell tons of Thinkpads so there's a good used market.

I tried quite a few replacements, including ThinkPad X1 and LG gram. Something felt off in all cases, until I realized that 16:10 aspect ratio for 13in laptop was key. That frankly eliminated quite a few options. Additionally, X1’s trackpad and Gram’s keyboard felt quite bad.

At the end, in a whim, I tried a cheap Motile 142 from walmart ($329 at the time). 14in monitor seems to offset the aspect ratio quite well, the trackpad and keyboard are decent. Additionally, it is Amd 3500U, which seems well supported by the newer kernels. Upgrading with 16gb ram and NVMe ssd, also pushed the performance and usability of the machine.

At the end, I don’t think there is an universal answer to this. But with some experimentation, I’m pretty sure you can find a nice machine that works well for you.

PS: Motile laptop is also 2.55 lbs, which is a great weight for that size.

I've been wondering about getting a razer blade stealth 13" for some time, I'm just worried a bit about its built quality.

I do prefer Mac OS as a daily driver, but I would like to be able to do some light proof of concept ML training on a laptop with an nvidia card, and also sometimes some CAD (I've had terrible experience dual booting windows on this current mbp)

I'm currently trying google colab to see how much I can do with doing everything in the cloud

The new XPS 13 is 16:10 and has a good trackpad, supposedly.

XPS trackpads have been pretty awesome for years. Source: Owned an XPS 13 a couple years ago.

If you are looking for a MacBook Air replacement, check out the Dell XPS 13 or ThinkPad x2xx series. The Dell in particular has very impressive build quality.

If you want a MBP, the ThinkPad x1 Carbon or T4xxs series (note the s, for the slimmer version) are still the best replacements IMHO.

Yep, thinkpad carbon X1 are probably the best non-mac I've owned.

from my experience linux mint + think pad + synaptic drivers for gesture support = mac experience. with 1/10th the cost.

Yes, I'm also one of those people who stubbornly refused to switch.to Linux and was a Window's user for almost all my life.

Thankfully I hated Windows 10 so much (cortana, privacy, etc) that I finally pushed myself to try it again (my new laptop was incompatible with Win 7).

Finally installed Linux mint few months back and I'm a super happy user. I didn't have to make that many changes to my workflow either just maybe small things like looking for replacement software. I'm amazed how long it has come in regards to usability and design.

How'd you like Pop!_OS? It recently came up on my radar and seems really polished; a great alternative to the polish of a commercial desktop os

I use it on my Gazelle and have been surprised how well it works. All the user friendly helpers, even including their "app store" (which is essentially an APT GUI) are actually useful.

The only issues I had with it were the lack of setup wizard support with LUKS and Dualboot to Windows w/ Bitlocker (for Games) over GRUB, so I had to configure everything manually.

Other than that, it works like a charm - unless it hits the proprietary Nvidia blob driver (no real hotplug for HDMI and mini-DP, sometimes screen tearing on big displays). But that is not a popOS! issue and most of the time it works fine.

I like it a lot and keep coming back to it. I’m using the LTS/18.04 variant of it. Some of the things I like include:

- great installation experience that just works. Most of the distros I’ve tried have had problems with this

- comes with a newer kernel and the correct set of drivers, so most of the time I’m not battling with it

- its an Ubuntu derivative, so every tutorial on the internet works for it. I’m not seasoned linux user just yet, so this has been quite helpful

- its relatively lightweight and for the most part gets out of your way

- superficially, I like its theme more then Ubuntu proper

I hope they keep doing the right things with the next lts.

I recently used Pop!_OS and it was great. It's a better Ubuntu, with less junk preloaded. It's probably the nicest linux distro I've used. Nothing earth-shattering, but just a very good user experience.

Wait until your wifi, suspend, or graphics breaks in a software upgrade few years down the road, and either spend up to a week figuring it out or just give up on it. Used mainstream linux on a thinkpad (the most supported thing out there) from 2013-2018, but with so many regressions got a mac and never looked back.

That's funny, because I stopped using a Mac a few years ago out of frustration that its OS updates consistently broke things.

Now I use Linux (on a Chromebook no less - GalliumOS), and I'm thrilled with how well-supported everything has been over the past few years even in a non-mainstream distribution.

Different experiences, I guess.

IDK - I have been using fedora on thinkpad carbon for 2-2.5 years now and have had none of these problems.

For folks wondering, Magic Keyboard refers to Apple going back to scissor switches as opposed to the super-high failure rate butterfly keyboards that they had to extend warranties for.

Pro tip/Side note: Don't but a 2016-2019 MacBook as they have faulty keyboards. Even with the extended warranty Apple had to offer for all of them, when they break, Apple replaces them with another of the faulty design ones.

"Magic Keyboard" Apple speak for a keyboard that actually works and doesn't break.

As much as I'm glad they are back, it's hard to not be cynical about it.

Thanks -- I scanned the announcement hard for any hints. My first thought was comparing to the Magic Mouse and imagined the keys were all touch-sensitive or something insane like that...

do you mean 2016?

Ack, yes. Fixed! Thanks

The MacMini has also been updated, from the MacBook Air newsroom article, at the bottom of the page:

``` Mac mini Also Updated Today

Whether they are using it as a desktop computer, a music and movie storage hub for the family, or as a code compile server for Xcode, customers love Mac mini. The standard configurations of Mac mini now come with double the storage capacity. The $799 configuration now comes standard with 256GB, while the $1,099 configuration features 512GB of storage, and every Mac mini is made from 100 percent recycled aluminum. ```

$300 for a 256GB storage upgrade. Apple being Apple

There are other differences besides the storage.

what are they? looks like they're still using the latest intel cpus from two years ago.

Between the models, not compared to previous.

i3 vs i5 (base model). You can upgrade either to the i7 for $300.

Both start with 8 GB memory, you can upgrade to 16 GB for $200, 32 GB for $600, or 64 GB for $1000.

If you get the i3, you can upgrade to 512 GB of storage for $200 (essentially, that and the i3 -> i5 upgrade for $100 is a processor + storage upgrade disguised as a different model). You could also upgrade to 1 TB for $400 or 2 TB for $800.

A 10GB Ethernet NIC is the last option, available for $100; I guess they realize these are likely to be used in farms where network transfer will be important.

> looks like they're still using the latest intel cpus from two years ago.

So this is how they're making their profit targets...

At least now USB SSDs are cheap, small and fast

And I assume storage is not user upgradable?

what a joke. a desktop "code compile server" that still uses a low tdp laptop processor. I guess for the low price of $6000 I could get a real workstation part.

What are you talking about? The Mini has 65W desktop processors since the last generation.

the B suffix parts are still mobile parts. looks like they clock almost the same as their desktop counterparts, so I'll admit I stand partially corrected.

Why in this case would I buy the Macbook Pro?

                      *AIR*            *PRO*

$: 1300 1300

SSD(GB): 512 128

RAM(GB): 8 (3.7GHz) 8(2.1 GHz)

CPU * : i5 i5

Graphics: Intel Iris + Intel Iris +

Display: Retina w/ True Tone Retina w/ TrueTone

Touch ID: Yes Yes

Thunderbolt3 Ports: 2 2

* the Air's CPU is 30% slower but can be boosted to match the Pro's

Guys what am I missing here? Isn't the Air just a better option?

Not unusual for Apple, but I still think it takes a lot of gall to go back to the way the keyboard used to work, instead of their shitty butterfly mechanism keyboard, and call it "Magic".

Apple has long had a “Magic” keyboard.

Magic Keyboard = scissor mechanism (what the latest MBP 16" uses).

For clarity, this is the keyboard that people seem to find reasonable (vs the years of "mbp kbds are the worst"), right?

I love how a keyboard that works is not considered a "feature" on a Mac. My apple IIc keyboard still working great.

Correct.

Hope to see a 11" one as well. I <3 my 2015 Air. It's small but simply does everything I need. At home I plug it to a bigger screen and my Model M keyboard and it's the perfect desktop. When I travel it easily fits in any bag and I hardly notice it.

Still think the 12" MacBook they had was their best design ever. Hope it makes a spiritual comeback soon.

Yeah, I've been burned by Apple's poor software many times, but I would come back for an 11-12" laptop with more than one USB port. They were so close...

Is that too much to ask? From any OEM?

Still massive bezels though. They could draw some inspiration from screen implementation of huawei matebook series with nearly no bezels. Can't vouch for their durability however.

It's a big improvement with regards to bezels but they still have a lot of room for further improvement.

Can't wait to see the benchmarks of the base model i3 vs the quad-core i5. $999 base config having 256GB SSD is nice, $1299 for 512GB of storage isn't too bad, either.

TBH I thought I would be hanging on for the forthcoming 14" MBP to replace my trusty 2012 MBA... but this ticks all the boxes

I'll still be sad to lose the SD card slot though

CPU options:

- i3 1.1Ghz dual core 4MB L3

- i5 1.1GHz quad core 6MB L3

- i7 1.2GHz quad core 8MB L3

any more details?

Leave it to Wikipedia to always be on the cutting edge with this stuff:

1.1 GHz 1000G1 dual-core Intel Core i3, Turbo Boost 3.2 GHz, with 4 MB L3-cache

optional 1.1 GHz 1030G4 quad-core Intel Core i5, Turbo Boost 3.5 GHz, with 6 MB L3-cache

1.2 GHz 1060G7 quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost 3.8 GHz, with 8 MB L3-cache at time of purchase

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacBook_Air#Technical_specific...

if apple sold a licence for macos we can cut this BS and besides , i can only see audio professionals and graphic designers getting their monies worth. I get the argument about the "eco-system" but at what cost would you buy it though. you get outdated hardware with STFU prices. will we ever come to a consensus Linux distro and get rid of these idiots ( mac , windows ) .<end of rant>

Maximum RAM is 16 GB, that is not, what I would consider future proof for 5-6 years.

Still no 13'' MacBook on offer with more than 16GB memory :(

How are they planning to produce these exactly?

Isn't general production ramping up in China?

$300 extra for 512GB drive?

16 GB max?

Pass

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