The 2020 MacBook Air | Hacker News Reader

The 2020 MacBook Air

daringfireball.net

192 pointsFabHK213 comments

The most important thing to me about the new MacBook Pro and MacBook Air 2020 is ( hopefully ) the confirmation of price trend.

$999 Retina Mac with 256GB Baseline Storage?

Somewhere along the line in 2016, Apple's product value proposition went off. Everything from Mac to iPhone, they either had the same price but not as much improvement or a price hike with new feature.

At first it was thought Apple is moving into higher margin luxury style business, but now it seems it was a cover up for Service Revenue with huge margin. Despite Apple doubled its Service Revenue from 2016, its Gross and Net Margin has been stable over the past 5 years at ~38% and ~19%.

iPhone 11, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, iPad in 2020 have all priced like they were in ~2015. Roughly 30% premium to their competitors, So in a way, you can think of Services ( and likely wearables ) is Subsidising ( Edit: Offsetting should be the better word ) these price reduction.

> Baseline Storage

Macs don't have baseline storage! They have soldered-down sealed-in storage. Before that, it was fine to get minimal RAM and disk and upgrade it later, like every other OEM did to soak the whales without driving away cost-conscious consumers. Then the soldering-money-gun came and used artificially constrained RAM and SSD to enforce value-based pricing and profitably planned obsolescence.

And disappointing that they've removed the SD card slot. I have a nice adapter that sits flush on the Macbook air and holds an extra 128gb.

Is that at all comparable in speed to a SATA SSD? I know that Apple uses NVMe SSDs in MacBooks, but if something over the SD card bus were anywhere near the speed of any internal SSD that would be very impressive.

Depends on what you're storing. I don't care about speed for my music and movies.

Not sure if I agree, more likely is the following:

- Apple presumably is subsidizing hardware if it leads to larger NPV for their service business and recurring revenues for the lifetime of the said hardware. For instance, if a user buys an iPhone, they're more likely to buy Apple music, News+, iCloud storage plans, etc. This is akin to, in extreme case, Sony Playstation - they're often sold at a loss hoping to create future revenue streams from games. The reason why they can get away from selling Playstation consoles at a loss is because without buying games, it is completely useless piece of hardware. In the case of iPhone, it is not quite the same as Playstation because you don't need Apple Music to use an iPhone.

Apple tends to use roughly the same physical design over many years, and every new physical design is usually accompanied by a price increase. Generally speaking, every new physical design requires a lot of work and upfront cost - so this is arguably fine.

Except the 2016-2019 models (except the new 16-inch model) didn't offer good value - largely because the "redesigned" keyboard was unreliable, the touch bar was laggy, and the thermals (super thin design) were not very great, leading to performance and heat issues.

They pushed the touch bar way too hard. I thought the virtual esc key in Terminal would be fine, but it ended up just being laggy and frustrating. The 2018 touchbar is somewhat marginally less frustrating, but people shouldn't have to deal with a laggy esc key after paying $1800.

Also - they were selling 'Pro' computers with 128GB of storage. Ridiculous.

One should definitely do some research before buying anything expensive. On the other hand I think some models are extremely reliable and despite (or because of ;)) the fancy design far most robust than most PC laptops.

128 GB is really ridiculous, on the other hand it's possible to upgrade that. I think the higher price tag is reasonable for a laptop that lasts so many years. Also for anything compute intensive I think it's anyway more practical to rent out a VPS somewhere...

I don't think the keyboard is particularly reliable. And the storage is not upgradeable.

Sure, especially for the models you pointed out. But other models...

On the other hand with PC laptops it's so common that a part at the display's hinge falls off or even a key for that matter. Recently a MacBook Pro fell from 1 meter or so, and the was just a tiny ditch, everything else was still working.

That was also the period when NAND/DRAM prices were up. They've lowered the price after their costs have come down.

What? An almost maxed out mbpro in 2014 cost around $2800 (512gb/16gb/i7). The same laptop is now priced over $4000 (2tb/64gb/i9). They are roughly equivalent just under top of the line laptops. They are absolutely going for luxury and the prices are unbelievably high.

I think that these kind of comparisons are quite hard to make. Even back in 2014, Apple offered 16GB of RAM on the base model 15", just like they do today, but they now use much faster RAM (obviously) and give you many more options. The RAM prices didn't dramatically drop either in these 5 years.

The 2014 model you're considering was actually the 2nd configuration offered by Apple itself at the time (the cheapest with a dGPU), so I would compare it with the 2nd configuration offered by Apple today. This means the 16" with an i9, 16GB, 1TB and a Radeon 5500M that costs 2799$.

You could argue that getting the same amount of RAM 5 years later is not acceptable and you would actually be right, but today you still get double the cores/threads, much faster RAM, double the storage (and, again, much faster), a much more powerful GPU and a better display. So I'd say that the only big issue of today's MacBooks compared to 2014 ones is the RAM price.

It's not like competitors started putting more RAM in their laptops though, today 8Gb is still the standard.

Pro Tip: The MacBook Air line of today has taken over for the MacBook line of old. It's not like the original air which was so much thinner and lighter than everything else. Thickness of the 13" MacBook Air is 0.63" vs 0.59" of the 13" MacBook Pro and weight of the Air is 2.8lbs vs 3.0lbs for the Pro. The MacBook Air is the lower-end MacBook now.

That has been the case for very long now. Only the very first Airs were the premium ultrathin ultralight laptop, and that was more than 10 years ago.

Hopefully they will make the MBP “pro” again and focus on features and power instead of thinness.

I have a 2018 MBP, 2.9 GHz i9, 32 GB ram, Radeon Vega 20. The thing is like a portable server, I'm not sure what more features and power a laptop user would realistically neeed. (Obviously real servers are more powerful, but I worked at a company that ran MMO game servers written in Python [i.e. not that fastest] off of similarly spec'ed hardware a few years ago, it's certainly sufficiently for all of my development needs)

CPU power is fine. I wouldn’t mind having at least one USB-A port and HDMI port so I don’t constantly have dongle anxiety when I am traveling. I would also prefer a bigger battery even if it makes the laptop thicker.

As I understand it, the new 16 inch macbook has the biggest size battery you could have while still allowed on an airplane as a carry on. Security theatre, but... that's life.

"Pro Tip: The MacBook Air line of today has taken over for the MacBook line ..."

OK, I think that is correct.

But then what is the MacBook Air now ?

I am typing on a 2015 11" MBA that is, in my opinion, the high point of laptop design and execution ever. With this laptop, Apple solved the laptop - the same way that they solved the tower form factor with the original Mac Pro.

I prefer the newer keyboard, but otherwise I agree. My 2014 11'' with 16GB RAM performs better than a 2018 MBP.

Are you sure it’s 16GB RAM? I maxed out mine and only have 8GB.

Some of the Core2Duo based books could do 16GB before the first gen Nehalem I5/I7 based books could, like the 2010 13" Macbook Pro I use at work.

> But then what is the MacBook Air now ?

There isn't one. There's the MacBook Pro, which is the higher end laptop line and the MacBook Air, which is the lower end. That said, both the current Pro and Air are thinner than the original MacBook Air and the same weight or slightly lighter.

"That said, both the current Pro and Air are thinner than the original MacBook Air and the same weight or slightly lighter."

That may be, but there is no 11" model so it's a bigger thing to put in my briefcase/bag ...

I knew I should have purchased three identical 2015 11" MBAs ... I bought two and I am on #2 now ... when it breaks there is nothing to replace it with.

Ah right, the screen size and case size. I forgot about they were smaller in that respect, sorry.

Still using a 2012 11" MBA and have only had to replace the battery once. Occasionally open it up and replace thermal paste but that's it.

>But then what is the MacBook Air now ?

The Ipad Pro?

>> Pro Tip: The MacBook Air line of today has taken over for the MacBook line of old.

If that's the case, I'd like it to become as light as — or even lighter than — the old MacBook, which weighed merely 2.03 pounds.

At this point, I'd love to have a Macbook Air with a battery that lasts "only" 6 hours, but weighs around 1.5 pounds. Hell, I'd pay extra for the option.

I think this is a decently unpopular opinion---6 hours of battery life is atrocious for the use case the Air is competing in.

maybe for the market of the air, but would definitely appreciate a lighter design option personally, so maybe there is probably a market for it, but maybe just not big enough for apple i guess <sad-face/>

Fair enough. What are you using yours for that requires it be so light? Apple is probably trying to market the iPad Air in that space.

i ride bike/take train to work, and have my personal phone, work phone, work laptop, some other things such as power adapter, and a drink to take along the way (all in the same bag)

the other thing is, even though i mostly program, at work we are always up and about, going for meetings, or offsite etc etc

so for me, being as light as possible helps a great deal... the last gen macbook w/dual core i7 (4 thread w/hyperthreading), 16GB ram and 512GB storage, retina display, and all being less than 1kg is a huge boon

JohnTHaller is talking about this MacBook line, which weighed 5 pounds.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacBook_(2006%E2%80%932012)

Not this MacBook line, which is the one you're talking about, and took over the MacBook Air line of old:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacBook_(2015%E2%80%932019)

That explains why I'm so confused to learn that the Air is the most popular Macbook. I distinctly remember the Air being about portability over everything. It was a niche product.

So it's more true to say Macbook Air is their most popular brand because the product is not the same at all.

I wish Apple would bring back a true anti-glare matte display option. I can't stand the reflectivity on any of their laptops despite their claim that it's "anti-glare." I love the macOS ecosystem, but I REALLY love the 100% Adobe matte 4k screen on my Dell Precision.

Yeah. I like the newer displays indoors, but I think I would take the old display for reduced glare and battery use if it was an option.

You can buy a matte screen protector

Not the same. I added one of those to a 13" MBP I used to have. The protector alters the way you see the color on the screen, and adds a kind of weird pixelated look. As someone who does professional photo and video editing, that's a deal breaker. Not to mention how difficult they are to get on without bubbles or dust trapped underneath, and the fact that they just eventually start to peel off at the edges. There was a company in the bay area that used to swap out the glossy screens with a true matte display and a dark bezel, cant remember their name but once the retinas came out they stopped doing the swaps.

"Jony Ive was the hero long enough to become the villain" may be an overdone take at this point, but this just continues to prove it true. Ive led Apple's design org through a renaissance that lasted two decades, but it ultimately collapsed in a string of vanity projects that put a serious dent in Apple's design credibility.

Maybe it was not having Jobs as a counterbalancing force that wasn't afraid to say "no;" maybe it was something else. But it's clear Apple is both immeasurably better for having had Ive from the 90s to the early 2010s, and is now better for his having given up the reins.

What vanity projects?

Removing useful ports to shave off a tenth of a millimeter.

Removing ports from MBPs for one.

That's been a trend across all laptops for awhile now. You're lucky to get a mini display port or mini hdmi these days.

I have a non-touchbar MBP with just two USB-C ports and nothing else. Two, on the same side, and one is always used for charging. So one free port on a pro laptop. I still can’t understand how they ever thought it was acceptable. Why bother moving to USB-C if you’re going to cripple their usefulness?

> I still can’t understand how they ever thought it was acceptable.

> I have a non-touchbar MBP.

You or your employer bought it. This leads them to believe it was acceptable.

[edit: this comment was pedantic and unhelpful. I do understand what the parent meant. See another comment down thread.]

I don't think this is a nuanced enough way to think about it. Most of the reason I still use my macbook and basically the only reason I'd consider buying a new one when the time comes is "soft lock in". I'm not literally stuck, but I'd have to carefully consider how to do literally everything differently, and learn whole different workflows and software packages and keyboard shortcuts. I'd have to consider how various other hardware would or would not work with it. Etc. Orrrr... I could get a macbook that has a lot of annoying shit about it and just deal with it.

And sure, you could say that is the definition of "acceptable"--after all, on the balance, I "prefer" to just deal with it. But I'm saying that there's a qualitative difference (that you'll see in the long term prospects of the company if they don't get their shit together) between deciding something is the best option vs feeling stuck with something.

Yeah, I hear you. Some products get the value proposition really great (MBP 15" and MBA 13" both circa 2015), and some you can just settle for. I totally understand how different those buying experiences feel.

The new MBA seems to be well received by reviewers.

Yes, technically, but I was replacing a (superior) older MBP that got water damage and that was what they had available. I was abroad, needed a replacement for some contract work and didn't have time to dick around setting up a new Linux environment.

These days it's purely a question of whether the convenience of the Apple walled garden is sufficient to offset their hardware choices.

You got the low end "pro" version. The 4-port version was on offer.

What do you need the extra ports for? Monitors have USB hubs.

The $10,000 Gold first generation Apple Watch, the trash can Mac Pro, the 12” MacBook, and the dumpster fire last generation keyboards.

I liked the 12 inch MB models. Not a lot of good choices in the ultraportables category and 12 is where it's at for me.

I disagree on the 12" MacBook. My wife has one and I think it's a fantastic product. With only 0.2 lbs separating the Air and Pro right now, I don't think both lines really need to exist. If they had kept iterating on the ultra-light MacBook it would be such a great product to recommend to parents, etc.

I think it's a big shame they're not making the 12" anymore. It's a perfect computer for lounging around on the sofa or on the go. The new Air actually feels a lot more heavy and cumbersome compared to it.

I just made the switch recently; the larger volume of the new 13" and the increased mass really creates a discernible different in the moment of inertia. Subtle difference that makes me miss the 12".

yep, the first iterations of the macbook 12 were pretty awful but the last generation is actually quite a competent computer

4k display @ 60hz works fine through usb-c

up to 16GB ram

up to dual core i7

no fan

keyboard is improved over the first generation

i can run clion, xcode, docker, quiet a few safari tabs, terminals and other apps at the same time... the only thing is large compiled of course take a long time, but for lighter workloads, for people that are on the go a lot (like me ^^) it’s quite good imo

- Touchbar

- Keyboard

- Shaving off more and more millimetres off notebooks when no one was asking for at the expense of functionality

- The disaster that is Apple's current approach to software design

- Mice that have to be charged from the bottom

- Apple pencil that can only be charged by sticking it into iPad's lightning port

- Moving audio jack the the right on the laptops when 99% of world's headphones have cables coming out of the left ear

Just off the top of my head, things I've been annoyed in the past year.

Is the audio jack an apple thing? I'm on a four year old Dell and it's on the right.

In MacBooks it used to always be on the left. And then they switched to the right when they introduced USB-C models.

> 99% of world's headphones have cables coming out of the left ear

Is this number intended as a factual statement or hyperbole? I’ve only ever used headphones with cables going to both ears, to neither ear, or ones where you can plug it in on either side.

I've had 4 or 5 headphones, and only the really cheap computer lab ones had the wire split in front. The rest all have the wire going to the left ear, then a wire overtop to right ear.

I've never seen one which you can plug it in on either side. I'm in Canada if that helps.

I think there are three: the golden watch, the coffee table book and the Apple Park. Although the park seems to have worked out really well in the end.

Soldering SSD to MacBook Pro motherboard. Eliminating the ability to remove it when logic board dies and retrieve data with a Simple USB adapter.

Is that Ive or Cook though

Probably was due to their obsession with making things as thin as possible (Ive). Internal connectors take up more space than direct soldering. But, it’s also probably easier to manufacture (Cook), because you don’t have to have a person manually plug in a cable/ribbon. But on the balance, I’d guess that the decision to remove internal ports was all about thinness.

Well, even if you could, I think Full Disk Encryption is on the T2 chip now. No way of reading the drive even if you remove it.

That's a different issue than the lack of expandability.

I don't think that's vanity, I think they made a conscious tradeoff in service of thinner computers. It's a good tradeoff in my opinion: the thinness of the computer has more of an impact on my average day to day usage than being able to remove a faulty logic board.

Until your logic board fails (mine has failed and been replaced 3 times on a 2016 MBP). How much space did it save to remove the most simple data recovery option that ever existed?

Not removed.

https://9to5mac.com/2016/11/24/apple-special-cdm-tool-macboo...

I had a 2016 MBP that had everything replaced at least once except the bottom case (with the serial number on it, lol). That thing then failed entirely again about 2 months after Apple Care ended. Good news: Apple elected to replace the machine for free, as I had so much trouble with it. Bad news: he machine will ship directly from the factory in China, when it’s been built, to the Apple store, where I can pick it up when they’re open again... So, thanks to Apple and SARS-CoV-2 I have had no laptop for more than 5 weeks. :-/

Wow sorry to hear that. I've had the same experience with my 15" MBP. Apple replaced everything apart from bottom case. The bottom case has no components. Despite that, the laptop died again (and several times since).

I live in Bali (Indonesia), there is no Apple store in Indonesia. The only domestic option is an authorized service center. A hardware replacement such as logic board or screen is a 5-6 week wait time. My laptop is my primary work tool. 5-6 weeks without income? So instead I've opted to fly to a city with an Apple Store and Genius Bar. So far I have flown internationally 12 times to get this laptop repaired. I'm compiling a list of all the hardware faults, days out of service and hours on calls to Apple and hardware faults and will take this to the consumer court in Australia which is quite effective usually. And, now the laptop has died again, it can't find the SSD. Trying to install OSX to an external USB also fails, implying another logic board fault.

I write this from a 2010 Mac Mini connected to a 2007 30" Apple Cinema Display, both work perfectly, not a single failure ever.

Yes, now that people have stopped smashing their faces into the glass walls. There were multiple 911 calls for head trauma in the first few weeks of moving into the office.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Apple-was-warne...

Wasn't Apple Park a passion project of Steve Jobs as much as Ive?

The part where Ive stopped working on Apple products for years so the Park could have cooler door handles rubbed some people the wrong way.

I think these are references to Apple's change in software design once Jony Ive became in charge of human interface design in late 2012 as well as the 2013 Mac Pro and the 2016 MacBook Pro. From a software standpoint, I've noticed a change in the quality and feel of Apple products since OS X Yosemite, and it hasn't been for the better. I found (and still find) Photos.app to be a downgrade from iPhoto, and I'm also finding less fit-and-finish in Apple's software overall, though it still remains more polished to me than Windows 10 or Linux desktops. It's a far cry from the days where Apple was obsessed with UI design, both in terms of form and faction, from the days of the early Macintosh all the way through the Snow Leopard era.

The keyboard fiasco regarding the 2016 MacBook Pro is well-known. Regarding the 2013 Mac Pro, I'm actually typing this on a 2013 Mac Pro; it's not a bad computer at all by any means, but Apple severely miscalculated this machine's capability of getting regular refreshes due to thermal issues that they admitted to in 2017. Had it been a one-off model similar to the 20th Anniversary Macintosh, then its reputation would have been better. But this miscalculation, as well as Apple's unwillingness to correct course until their announcement in 2017, meant that the Mac Pro went for six years without upgrades, an eternity in the computer industry.

All of these issues, combined with other problems that may or may not have anything to do with Jony Ive (e.g., the lack of upgrades in the Mac Mini, the lack of user-serviceability in many Mac models, the price gouging for RAM and storage upgrades at purchase time) have eroded the reputation of the Mac brand and has caused some Mac users to switch to either Hackintoshes, Windows, or Linux.

With that being said, I've been more impressed with Apple's Mac upgrades lately. While I'm still bummed that Apple didn't make a $2,999 or $3,499 entry-level 2019 Mac Pro, the $5,999 Mac Pro appears to be a solid Mac desktop, and I'm glad that Apple listened to its customers in the creative professional market who need machines like that to do their work. I'm also glad that Apple has corrected course regarding its laptop keyboards, and the 2020 MacBook Air looks like a compelling buy. I might end up buying one later this year to replace my aging 2013 MacBook Air.

The replies may be a long list of hardware snafus, however Apples largest hurdle to complete dominance is their lack of cloud services, their subpar cloud services (compared to Google and Microsoft), their refusal to allow users to set competing services as default (change is in the air?), their confusing and cumbersome iterations of the same concept (Photos especially), and the duality of iOS/MacOS vs Windows 10. They are making the same mistake Microsoft made for too long, where Microsoft wanted all Microsoft software to drive sales of Windows licenses.

- Apple has few top tier "services." Music is one, the app store is another they do offer. Maps has somewhat caught up to be good enough, but if I were a google maps user I wouldnt choose to switch. Photos and Device Backup are a mess.

- Apple should take being a software services company more seriously. If buying Adobe is out of the question, they need some kind of paid revenue stream such as Adobe Creative Cloud or Office 365, something that non-Apple users will buy and use. One of the smartest thing Apple ever did was release the iPad and make it work with Windows. Apple needs that gateway drug that draws non apple users back in without forcing a hardware purchase.

- I can use Google Photos on Windows, OneDrive on Android. Apple forcing an all or nothing into their ecosystem incentivizes me to choose nothing. AppleTV on Samsung tvs was a smart play, make more of them.

$1k display stand

$400 casters without locks

camera-bump sticking out of iPhone that makes it rock on a flat surface

It's the George Lucas Effect

I have a late 2013 Macbook Air and I love it. I do most of my work on a Xubuntu desktop, but the Air is great for travel, working outside, or carrying around the house. I use it every day. I bought it to replace a heavy plastic dual-boot Dell laptop that was falling apart. It felt weightless and the battery lasted 10+ hours.

Every time I see a new Apple laptop now I dread that I'll have to go back to a non-Apple Linux system instead. In theory a Linux laptop would be great for me, but when I read about my options there's none I feel great about. But my Air with its 8GB of RAM is feeling under-powered whenever I have to run docker/k8s/vagrant, and now the screen is starting to flicker.

I can't tell yet whether this model is enough to keep me in the Apple fold. It sounds like they improved a lot, but they're really parsimonious with those ports. My old Air is anxiety-free: it gives me power, 2 USBs, and DisplayPort. I routinely use them all. So the 2020 model is still going to feel like a downgrade. At least it still comes with a standard headphone jack, I suppose. :-/

Let's hear it for 2013 Macs!

My 2013 MBP is going strong. I do 100% of my work on this computer, and half of that is through AWS EC2 instances (x86 and ARM linux, and Windows for testing); if I need a local OS I run VMWare images of Ubuntu and Windows. I've had 0 issues with this computer. It really blows my mind how good it is.

By comparison: my first laptop was a Toshiba Portege (sic) in 1992 that was monochrome for about $4000... and then my various jobs usually gave me IBM Thinkpad / Lenovo thinkpads, buit would waterfall them routinely.

But my MBP2013? this is the longest I've owned any computer in my life (work or personal), and I have absolutely no reason to replace it.

Fellow lover of the 2013 air. I maxed it out on everything but storage when I bought it (core i7, 8 GB ram) and I'm glad I did, since a computer I planned to own for a couple years and then swap upwards has put in 7 years of hard labour. The battery capacity is down to 70% (plus in the last couple months shuts down below 50% when it's cold) and I'm on my third charger due to cable fray, but this remains the best computer I have ever owned. When the retina macbook pro arrived in 2015 I assumed it wouldn't be too long before high res screens trickled down to the whole lineup. I'm not sure I've ever been more wrong about product direction. I have been waiting for years for Apple to release something that hit the size, performance, versatility, and value I have gotten from my air.

I was tempted by the 2016 macbook pro non-touch bar, but it was so expensive for what you got I just couldn't justify replacing my air.

I was incredibly disappointed by the 2019 retina air. Finally a retina display the air had been needing for years, but the performance wasn't great. That would be forgivable, but the price was just too high (plus the keyboard they saddled it with really didn't seem pleasant to type on).

This time they seem to have gotten the 2013 air recipe right. I wouldn't turn down a couple USB-A ports to avoid dongle hell, but otherwise this seems as close to the 2013 successor we're going to get. I have an order in for the 2020 air with the core i5 upgrade and in case it winds up needing to serve another 7 years I got 16 gb of ram. We'll see if I miss my air enough to return it and switch back or not.

I'm really hoping apple announces arm macs in the next year or 2 as I'd love to have the ipad pro guts inside a roughly air sized form factor. I use the console and other general purpose computing things far, far too much to make the leap entirely to iOS, but mac os running on the ipad pro would be a great spiritual successor to the macbook air line.

Here's my perception of the markets for the MBA and MBP based of anecdotal observations:

The MBA is for students, the sales force, and road warriors. These people value ultra portability and long batter life and typically don't have highly demanding use cases necessitating a lot of processing power and storage.

The MBP is geared toward the so-called power user who needs portability. That portability is typically moving between meetings or between facilities where they work. They're generally always close to a power source.

This has been my observation since the MBA was first introduced. I'd love to see Apples' product personas to see how close my experience is to their expectations.

The only interesting part of this was the performance comparison chart showing that Apple's ARM chips from 2018 and 2019 are significantly faster than the 2020 Intel chip.

MacBook Air 2020 (4-core Core i5) 1,127 2,854

11″ iPad Pro 2018 (8-core A12X) 1,118 4,477

iPhone 11 Pro (6-core A13) 1,321 3,387

Can the iPad and iPhone sustain the performance? I think that’s the kicker. Your regular laptop even an air will have a fan. The A series chips look amazing on paper but iPad and iPhones don’t have the cooling for sustained performance.

The 2016 MBP (the only one I've used) has very poor thermals too. The much lower TDP/benchmark point of the A series means that they're surprisingly competitive with the poorly-cooled MacBooks. If MacBooks of that era had better thermals, the Intel chip would blow it out of the water on sustained use.

I don't think you're making the argument that you think you are. For the right mental comparison, imagine the iPad CPU in the laptop housing with all of the laptop's cooling.

You can’t buy one of these mythical setups. I think people bring up the bench marks as though there’s going to be another architecture change. Maybe. But for now the Air is still faster than your phone in general.

Don’t get me wrong. The A series chips are amazing. But the benchmarks have looked very impressive for years. Nothing has come from it except fantasising.

Absolutely glowing review. Personally, I'm not as enthusiastic about its design. My 2016 Dell XPS 13 (Ubuntu) with a 4k screen is lighter at 2.6lbs and smaller without a bezel around the screen.

Of course and most Mac users are just dying to use Linux....

imo macos is the best unix distro

And how much thicker is that thing? The edge around that machine is the worst as well.

The Dell is 37% thinner than the Mac at the tallest point:

* Macbook Air 2020: 0.16–0.63 inch (0.41–1.61 cm) [1]

* Dell XPS 13 2019: 0.3"- 0.46" (7.8mm – 11.6mm) [2]

[1] https://www.apple.com/macbook-air/specs/

[2] https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-laptops-and-notebo...

How is the fan noise?

Imagine a world where you could really haul on the fan past the max speed. Get them singing at 20,000 RPM and that macbook air could be pinned at 3.8ghz, provided you had earplugs of course.

What's the battery life with Ubuntu and 4k?

Uh no. 8GB memory is not okay. 16GB is marginal but $200 more. Can you upgrade the memory?

8GB is absolutely fine for most people, but it is an expensive upgrade.

In my experience with family members who have 8G laptops, they are not fine. Even my mother who just uses a web browser, mail.app and occasinally Photos is not fine with 8G. Her MacBook Pro regularly ground to a halt. I replaced it with a used model that was almost exactly the same except that it has 16G and now she is fine.

I don't in any way believe you, sorry.

There's absolutely no way anyone with that workload is hitting RAM limits.

Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnuNs_Nu46Q

I get by with 8GB in my 2015 MPB, but only because I use aggressive ad blocking to keep browser memory usage somewhat in check. I still have 3.5GB of swap in use and 1.25GB of RAM compressed. I suppose for a light user who doesn't keep as many browser tabs open, 8GB may be sufficient even without an ad blocker, but it's close.

16GB is definitely more than "marginal". There's nothing wrong with a mid-range laptop shipping with 16GB of DRAM.

With browsers eating half a gig just to launch these days, I agree 8 GB is borderline. I often hit the limit even just doing web browsing, e-mailing and a mix of other apps here and there, nothing fancy.

"Hitting the limit" doesn't mean performance is impacted.

Operating systems and programs allocate RAM somewhat intelligently. They won't necessarily clear out information from RAM if there's no reason to do so.

In Chrome, you have to have around 25 tabs open to hit swap, but performance only becomes a problem at many more than that. The obvious answer is to close some tabs - there's no way you can even read the titles of 25 tabs anyway.

If people like my parents need a new computer, I absolutely wouldn't bother recommending the 16GB memory system to them. Absolute total overkill. Storage and CPU are better upgrades to make first.

Plenty of websites will happily leak gigs of memory if left open. Browsers now try to aggressively lower resources given to background tabs but stupid still happens.

If his mother frequents just one or two misbehaving sites, a few GB of memory can easily vanish. Not to mention CPU and even GPU utilization can shoot up...

I have a laptop with 8gb of RAM and have never had any problems browsing the internet or even playing intensive games.

Games aren't going to strain your RAM

Beg to differ - I slam my MacBook Air (2015 i5 w/8GB ram) pretty hard, and I don't run into a lot of problems. I usually have a nice mix of office, iphoto, itunes, acorn, chrome with a dozen or so tabs, jupyter + pandas running doing some data -engineering. It's a pretty good workhorse - I don't run into many issues with the exception that occasionally I'll hit a web page that spins up the CPU hard enough that the fans start making noise (at which point I just close the offending web page) - but that's a CPU (or maybe web page) problem, not Memory issue.

It was mostly an issue with memory use in Safari. Might be due to the kind of web sites she visits, with tons of video and animated adverts. Restarting Safari always fixed the issue. Anyway, I got tired of her complaining and got her the 16G machine and she's been fine since.

By the way, I had been fine with an 8G machine and I do dev work so I was surprised that it was an issue for her.

My 2011 Air has 4gb and it's too little. 8 would be fine in it. But I wouldn't buy an 8gb machine today.

Swapping's also not as big a deal on SSD machines, as it used to be.

We see a difference that made us change our minimum specification to 16GB for any machine we buy. We do the same for Win 10 these days. The biggest problem are the browsers and the fun educational companies software that does evil, required things.

We learned our lesson from the MacBook Airs that we bought with 4GB.

Yeah, I was semi-interested till I saw 8gb ram and then remembered if I want value I should stick with used apple laptops or new PCs. Such a bummer because I’ve always loved apple aesthetics and still have my old Air and MBP but use my 3 year old (still more powerful than the new Air) Asus laptop daily with zero complaints beyond relatively weak Nvidia GPU.

8GB of memory is absolutely enough for probably 80% of people buying this computer. I bet you that around 80% are buying that base model.

Those folks are literally just writing Office documents and watching YouTube, doing school papers, etc. As long as you don't open dozens of Chrome tabs, there is no difference.

This was tested. It's on Windows, but Chrome is Chrome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnuNs_Nu46Q

You need 25 tabs to hit swap at all, and around 40 to bog yourself down. You can play AAA games on 8GB of RAM (until the PS5/Xbox Series X come out).

The truth is that RAM requirements for general purpose computing haven't changed in at least 5 years.

It's important to remember that we often over-inflate how much memory we think is necessary because of the consumption requirements of "modern" web browsers.

But the default Safari is incredibly resource light, both in terms of RAM usage and power consumption.

Safari users will find that they don't have any problems.

I don't see the reason to buy a such a compromised machine over a X1 Carbon or a XPS 13. No ports, crappy soldered everything, worst company for consumer rights, etc. They have nice screens I guess? And you can't deny the brand appeal of the Apple logo.

For the kinds of people who wouldn’t be running Linux on the other laptops, maybe they just like macOS better than Windows? It’s not like Hackintoshing is trivial. It’s not necessarily a developer machine.

This is pretty much it. OSX is what locks me in to Apple. Ironic that it (OSX) is free.

Nitpicking, but I wouldn't necessarily consider it "free". There is a cost to get it, which is the price of your Mac.

Fair point, although OSX can be installed on non-mac hardware (if one has the patience) or in a virtual host.

I haven’t checked recently, is Windows still available off-license?

Windows now has native Linux: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10, https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/6/18534687/microsoft-windows...

Personally I just recently switched back to a Lenovo Yoga from a MBP and am much happier.

There are certainly reasons to prefer whatever an "X1 Carbon" or "XPS 13" may be over a MacBook. But I wouldn't exactly call the latter "compromised".

In fact, would the addition of whatever ports people want and the ability to switch the GPU (or whatever soldering prevents you from doing) not be the exact definition of a "compromise", i. e. turning a product that works excellently for some and not at all for others into one that is "meh, I guess" for everyone?

The X1 Carbon is the flagship ThinkPad model from Lenovo. The XPS 13 is a similar offering from Dell.

Apple laptops are the de facto tool of silicon valley engineers and as a result they're the gold standard for developer toolchains

The X1 Carbon and XPS 13 both have soldered RAM.

The XPS 13 has no USB-A ports, the only port advantage is a microSD slot. I might remind you that SD cards have a huge speed disadvantage compared to USB 3.0/3.1 storage. It's somewhat low key, but I think SD cards are on the cusp of being obsolete and are already for many workflows.

"Worst company for customer rights" kind of conveniently forgets Lenovo's own missteps (Superfish).

Every time I compare Dell the comparison falls apart due to the lack of configurability. Want 16GB of RAM? Want the high DPI display? Congratulations, you must now buy the highest model, which has no price advantage over the Mac.

Sure, Apple is ripping you off by forcing you to buy their soldered storage (arguably, 99% of XPS buyers will never replace the storage themselves, either, or they'd have to pay a technician to do it), but at least they aren't gatekeeping the nice screen and RAM choice to the top model.

My partner has had a few airs over the years. Never once has she ever wanted to plug anything into any port, other than power. I think a lot of users are the same.

It's a very pretty facebook machine that she has never needed tech help for. I'll stick with my XPS 13 though.

A very expensive and overly complicated Facebook machine.

In short, macOS and hardware/software synergy.

For me OSX works better than Windows or desktop Linux.

It's hard to take seriously the opinion of anyone who reduces the appeal of a computing environment to the logo on the lid.

Macbook Air vs XPS 13

So right off the bat in trying to compare these computers Dell's site is leading me to 2 XPS 13s: the XPS 13 and the "New XPS 13". I'm going to assume new > old so I'll start with the "New XPS 13" which seems to be an XPS 13 9300.

Starting price winner: Macbook Air! $999 vs $1299.

So really the difference here is that Apple is selling a baseline i3 model with 256GB of SSD, while the base Dell is an i5 that's probably more similar to Apple's $1299 off-the-shelf option. Difference being by getting the better model Apple you also get double the SSD (512GB) while Dell is leaving you with 256GB. Which leads me to...

Storage: hard to call a winner. Dell's is similar to smaller for-the-price, but seems to be replaceable. Apple's disadvantage being a lack of upgradability, but higher amounts of it per dollar. Personal preference?

Memory: perfect tie, they both include 8GB of LPDDR4X at 3733MHz, and they're both soldered on-board.

Display: resolution win goes to Apple for including a 2560x1600 display while Dell's is only 1920x1200. Looks like Dell _does_ include some upgrade options for $100-300 if you want to go with a touch screen and/or get 3840x1200 worth of pixels.

Connectors: In count they're seemingly tied, 2 Thunderbolt 3 ports and a headphone jack. Dell pulls ahead with the microSD card slot though. Bonus points for having a port on both sides of the laptop potentially simplifying would-be cable-messes that could come of single-sided ports.

Everything else seems pretty similar. Props to Apple for the touchId sensor -- similar props to Dell for including the IR camera for Windows Hello support.

I dunno, I'm looking pretty closely here and I don't think either of these machines are "compromised" in any meaningful way. Apple includes the MacOS license of course, while the Dell comes with a Windows license. User preference and all.

What you're missing is that the CPU in Dell is the U series, which has a base TDP of 15 watts and goes up to 25 watts if the cooling is good. The CPU in MB Air is a 10 watt Y series, which is really weak (MacBook 12" leve weak). So you get miles more performance in Dell. Judging by the lack of comments on the CPU difference, Apple is really successful in fooling the public into thinking that a MB Air i5 is the same as any other ultrabook i5, which it is not at all.

Dell's CPU: https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/196603/...

MB Air's CPU: https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/196589/...

Apple used to put the U-series CPUs into Air up until 2015, leaving the much more performant H-series for the Pro. But ever since the 2016 they now put the U-series into the 13" Pro while the Air gets a really weak CPU. They effectively shifted the performance one step up in pricing. While all the PC manufacturers stuck to using the U series in the air-like chassis,relegating the Y series to laptops that need to be very thin and light, and small tablets.

You're right that they _are_ using different classes of CPU -- I'd not initially been able to find solid info on what CPUs the new Air was using which was why I left it off.

I'm not sure I agree with the idea that the Air CPU is "a really weak CPU" compared to the Dell one though... just to clear this up I mean that the i5-1030ng7 is slightly less capable than the i5-1035g1, but the difference isn't huge.

Here's a couple of geekbench results across those particular models that I found: looks like multi core performance _is_ notably better on the 1035g1, but the single core performance is only about 10% lower.

https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/compare/1551286?baselin...

So with the new evidence of the comparative performance of the CPU available I feel like we're still basically at the same spot -- user preference. With a slight nod towards Dell for including a more performant CPU.

Huh, the benchmarks are similar, you're right! Very interesting, and the Dell's CPU has a suspiciously low base clock, too.

It'd be interesting to see some numbers on the sustained performance from both of those and I couldn't find any benchmark that measures this kind of performance.

I'm concerned because I know from experience that the 12-inch Macbook 2016 is horrible for anything serious while the contemporary Dell XPS 13 9350 is very versatile. For me the Macbook stayed at 800 MHz most of the time, which made it unusable, while the Dell maintained at least a 2 GHz clock. Those laptops, too, show very similar performance numbers in Geekbench -

https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/compare/1555969?baselin...

Which means Geekbench samples those bursty clocks on the Y-series that get up for tens of seconds at most.

And while it may seem like bursty loads are okay for the average user, I'd say the reality is more complex - I routinely see my wife leaving lots of tabs open in her browser, which leads to some CPU usage, and sometimes some sites just decide they need to run heavy Javascript, Facebook for example is quite heavy. As soon as this happens, the Y series laptop would throttle down and impact other work. I saw it myself on the 12-inch Macbook, and given how Apple skimped on the cooling solution for the 2018 Air, I think the 2020 model may be prone to this as well.

I definitely wish there was someone out there publishing like SPEC[1] test differences across various laptops -- would make for much more meaningful comparison than Geekbench scores, but that's the real advantage of Geekbench right now is that it's pretty easy to find samples across nearly every line of computer.

For what it's worth, the CPUs in those 12-inch Macbooks were pretty terrible. The base models were equipped with the M-series 4.5W chips. They had options for a couple of 7.5W chips, but even they didn't hold up in performance due to the lack of forced cooling on the 12-inch. I think 2017 is the last year they made them, and even its Geekbench score shows how underpowered it was: https://browser.geekbench.com/macs/423

I'm still definitely looking forward to seeing how the cooling solution holds up on the 2020 Air.

[1] - https://www.spec.org/cpu2017/

You seem to be trying very hard to avoid the obvious reason, and the reason most people buy Macs - to run macOS.

"Worst company for consumer rights" is a really big leap, too.

So far they make the only laptops I can chuck down the stares over the course of 8 years and not skip a beat. Can't beat a solid slab of metal. The hardware is fine, price is certainly steep compared to the competition but it's scratch if I plan on owning this thing for a couple years.

My only reasons for sticking with MacBook's - The OS - I don't really feel it which is great because I want to focus on my work. - The quality - like the touch bar, I can work a lot with it and I forget about it, it's big and very useful. Excellent screen, lightweight, 2 usbc are good enough for me for everything. - It's light. - In any way I stick with MacBook Pro 2017 16 GB RAM 512SSD costs today around $1500 and it's a great machine for a software developer. More RAM/Disk would be better but for now it's perfect.

I'm really surprised that the Macbook Air is the most popular. I had this idea that it was a niche product for people who wanted portability above everything. I guess it's a really good thing because presumably it has lower power consumption than higher performance machines. There was a time when the standard PC that your grandma would buy from Dell came with a top of the line Pentium 4. It's good that this is no longer the case.

The ARM comparison in terms of power efficiency doesn't really make sense, does it? I guess he's right about the efficiency but there isn't a real competitive ARM-based laptop available right now, at least I haven't heard of one and even if there is one: Apple couldn't just go for ARM they'd have to adapt their OS for that and I assume by now there is a lot of code in there making use of x86 quirks not easily adaptable to ARM

> Apple couldn't just go for ARM they'd have to adapt their OS for that and I assume by now there is a lot of code in there making use of x86 quirks not easily adaptable to ARM

If you think Apple doesn’t have macOS running on ARM today, then you’re probably missing something.

I guess it could make lots of sense for them to support ARM and build ARM-based devices, that said I'm not an Apple dev in any capacity so I don't know what's going on internally. But right now there is now ARM-based Apple device running MacOS, is there?

Ummm... iPhones? iOS and macOS share almost completely the same kernel (https://github.com/apple/darwin-xnu).

iOS, tvOS, and watchOS share a great deal with macOS (past the surface, they’re almost identical). They’ve probably had an ARM build of macOS running internally for years now, much as they had an x86 version of macOS years before the PowerPC -> Intel transition.

The transition will be harder for third party devs, but there having been popular ARM Apple platforms for over a decade will speed things up considerably. Many Mac apps will have ARM versions available overnight.

Lots of Chromebooks are ARM, and many can run standalone Linux. Trouble is Linux-on-ARM is always more of a hassle than on Intel. Hence it's a chicken/egg problem: For Linux to support ARM better, there needs to be a great ARM laptop. And vice-versa.

There is a solid Windows ARM64 laptop, sort of: Microsoft's Surface Pro X. The main problem, as far as I can tell, is that there are few native ARM apps for Windows (though the MS Edge browser is native ARM64), and the machine is limited to running x86-32 (no 64 bit) apps through a translation layer, which makes the apps seem slow and makes the machine power hungry. But I would definitely consider getting one if I planned on living in the WSL, which is a native ARM-based Linux:

See, e.g.,:

https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/28/21100071/microsoft-surfac...

https://andregarzia.com/2019/12/a-week-with-the-surface-pro-...

Apple couldn't just go for ARM they'd have to adapt their OS for that and I assume by now there is a lot of code in there making use of x86 quirks not easily adaptable to ARM

I don't think the OS is the problem. First, macOS went through PowerPC -> x86 -> x86_64. Secondly, iOS and macOS share a lot of components, including the kernel.

More difficult would be moving the app ecosystem. Apple could do PowerPC emulation with Rosetta, because Intel CPUs had leapfrogged PowerPC by quite a wide margin at that point. It's probably a more difficult feat to put off with x86_64 -> ARM. Though, I think Windows ARM (at least) does x86 emulation.

That said, Apple has a lot of leverage with/over the ecosystem. Most macOS/iOS developers are already used to having to fix their applications for the next macOS/iOS iteration, so Apple probably won't have much trouble convincing developers to add ARM as a target.

However, if this happens, we'll probably have fat binaries for some years again. For backwards compatibility, but it's also likely that they are not at the point where they could replace the Mac Pro yet.

It would be smart for them to do the transition though. They would not be dependent on Intel's cycles and product decisions anymore.

I doubt they'd have much trouble. Apple's ported from 68K to PowerPC then to x86. The original NextStep OS ran on 68K, x86, Sparc, and HP PA-RISC. And I'd argue that the "hard parts" of the ARM port were already done with iOS.

If you're not actively following Mac stuff you probably wouldn't know, but there's been aggressive rumors for the last few years that Apple's going to switch to ARM for its laptops/desktops.

Here's a recent rumor summary: https://daringfireball.net/linked/2020/02/24/mck-arm-mac-202...

With the key motivator being:

> The reason for Apple to move Macs to its own in-house ARM chips is much simpler than that. (1) Apple’s laptop chips are better than Intel’s — they’re faster and more power efficient. (2) Using their own chips puts Apple in control of its own timeline for product updates. Why did it take so long for Apple to get the retina MacBook Air out the door? The one-word answer I was told by a high-perched little birdie: Intel.

Unrelated, but something about the font/color combo makes this quite difficult to read on ios.

Revisiting: probably how thin the font is.

I started disagreeing in the first paragraph and it kept coming, but my tastes are different than your typical Apple buyer. To me the workhorse mac is the mbp.

I tolerate my work 2015 mbp, and while I could upgrade it, I'm still waiting for Apple to release a decent keyboard before I do. I tested the keyboard on the 2020 16" mbp, and it still felt worse than my lenovo yoga (non-thinkpad), which is not a high bar at all.

Related from a few days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22615719

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22615803

Do MBAs 2020 have heatsinks detached from fans too? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiCBYAP_Sgg

Any opinions on mba 2020 vs xps 13 2020? Bezels = xps Color = mba? Ports = xps? Webcam = both bad? Keyboard = maybe mba?

MacOS

This cannot be stated enough. Why is it so difficult to understand for most people that MacOS is a much larger part of the equation than simply comparing mac vs. pc hardware?

I'm an Android user and don't see myself moving to entire apple ecosystem. So if I had a MacOS I don't directly see many benefits. (correct me if I'm wrong)

So eight years after the first retina MBP there's finally a good retina MBA.

Seriously.

Wondering if I should get one of these to replace my 2015 13" rMBP, which, as of late, has pretty poor battery life and degraded performance. Wouldn't mind something a bit more portable. Or, if the obvious move is a new iPad Pro.

the 2020 mbp 14 inch should be just around the corner. I just replaced the battery in my 2013 mbp

How much did the battery replacement cost? Mine's still ok, but it probably won't be long before I'd consider a replacement. But that does rather depend on the price...

I have replaced the battery in both my rMBP (2015). It costs about $100 and can be done yourself.

I did a DIY on my 2011 Air for $70ish and while it seemed to solve my problems at first, after a short while it seemed like every time i went to use the machine it was dead. (I only use it once every week or three). I'm not sure if it's not sleeping, or waking from sleep, or what. I use it too little to even troubleshoot. But that was enough to get me to pull the trigger on a new i9 Air yesterday.

You can get a battery from Apple for $120.

Yeah, I'm thinking that this is the obvious replacement for my 2015 13" rMBP. Mine is still a solid machine, and I don't anticipate needing to upgrade for at least another year, but I'd definitely consider this over the current pro. Fast CPU, no touchbar, and sensible pricing (hopefully this is a sign of Apple changing direction pricing wise).

Hard to beat that model imo, I would go to the trouble of replacing the battery. Or as apple would do the entire upper assembly.

The MacBook Air has had a retina screen since the 2018 3rd gen update.

That generation had a broken keyboard.

Does anyone know how the mba speakers and mike compare to the 13” pro?

I'm not sure why Apple gets all this credit for making a reliable keyboard, something the rest of the industry figured out decades ago.

Because they’re usually making it a fraction of the size / depth of most of the rest of the industry.

At 0.13cm thicker than the dell XPS13, I don't think they're really doing anything crazy slim.

The rest of the industry…? At work we have lots of Lenovo and HP laptops and those keyboards are, IMO, clearly inferior to my MBA 2012.

Compare the same price MacBook for the same price Lenovo, and you will see how the rest of the industry has clearly figured it out. Not shilling for Lenovo, but yeah, there's nothing special about it.

You can pry the x220 classic keyboard I've got on my x220 daily driver from my cold dead fingers.

And even if they did manage to pry it away, you can order a replacement keyboard and install it yourself without any special tools.

You may not like the feel, but the keys don't stop working like the 2015-2019 MacBooks.

Pedantic: the bad ("butterfly") keyboards started with the 2016 models: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201300#:~:text=2016

That link only refers to the MacBook Pro. The 2015 MacBook had a butterfly keyboard.

You're right! I always forget about the MacBook.

But the 2015 MacBook Pro still had a keyboard deserving of the "best laptop ever made": https://marco.org/2017/11/14/best-laptop-ever

ThinkPads are well known for having great keyboards. Apple’s do not compare.

I think it's fair to compare. Excluding Apple's recent scissor switch keyboard, they've both been reliable and serviceable. They've both had a following over many years. Aesthetically, I've preferred Apple's keyboards and I'm sure many people feel conversely.

Even regular cheap Lenovos have great keyboards compared to most laptops. Newer HPs are supricingly good, keys are too flat though and makes typing painful. Dells are atrocious, which sucks because 8-yrs ago they had among the best keyboards (together with Lenovo Thinkpads). Thinkpads are still ahead of the pack but they've been cutting travel lately in the thinner models.

The problem is, PC laptops used to have great keyboards until they all decided they had to be just like Apple.

People seem to like apple keyboards, and I believe that they sincerely do, but it never made any sense to me. Apple has always had average/poor ergonomics in my book, from their weirdly shaped mice to slippery phones that people keep dropping.

I bought a ThinkPad X1 Carbon 7th Gen a few months back. I can't say the keyboard is amazing. Compared any other laptop, sure it's better, but still subpar. I think old Macbooks had better keyboard.

A bit salty, but definitely a kernel of truth there :P

Their earlier power adapters were notoriously susceptible to fraying (aka fire hazards), and the bricks had no grounding IIRC. I'm completely out of their ecosystem so I don't know if that's been fixed. (Again one of those things other manufacturers figured out years ago)

They make a reliable + great keyboard

Lots of keyboards are reliable, few of them are 'good'. Lenovo is probably the only other one.

A 15" MBA would be nice.

It's hard to take Gruber seriously anymore. I haven't seen anyone with such an obvious bias for Apple and disdain for anything non-Apple so 99% of what he writes about Apple is going to be sunshine and butterflies.

If you aren't going to say anything controversial, why bother even listening to you? I'll just watch Apple's PR videos and be happy.

For someone with obvious bias, he seems to think the old MacBook Air was bad. I would think someone with an obvious bias wouldn’t be very critical of Apple products at all. Can you point to the bias in this article?

Funny how Gruber can always come up with a list of meaningful shortcomings of an Apple product... when he's reviewing the successor and painting it as a giant step forward.

He criticized the feel of the previous generation keyboards when he first had a review unit. This was before the reports came back of actually issues.

He never owned a laptop of the previous generation to have any personal long term issues. He famously still uses an old Apple ADB keyboard.

He clearly prefer's the Apple ecosystem and general approach. There's nothing wrong with that.

He does call out Apple when he disagrees with something they've done.

As someone that also prefers the Apple approach but has frustrations with a lot of their decisions, I appreciate his analysis.

You should switch to the Linux approach, where you are guaranteed to only ever be frustrated by your own decisions. ;)

dunno, maybe you haven't been reading?

"This whole thing is an embarrassment for the richest company in the world." https://daringfireball.net/linked/2020/02/17/apple-store-emp...

"I consider these keyboards the worst products in Apple history." https://daringfireball.net/linked/2019/03/27/strn-kyboard

"iOS 13 Autocorrect Is Drunk" https://daringfireball.net/2019/09/ios_13_autocorrect_is_dru...

"The iPad at 10 is, to me, a grave disappointment." https://daringfireball.net/2020/01/the_ipad_awkwardly_turns_...

"Then I think about software. And that means thinking about MacOS 10.15 Catalina… Off the top of my head I’m hard pressed to think of anything in Catalina that’s an improvement over 10.14 Mojave, and I can think of a lot of things that are worse." https://daringfireball.net/2020/02/my_2019_apple_report_card

I actually think he's escaped the Reality Distortion Field. If you read through his posts, there's actually a lot that are critical of Apple's recent missteps

You mean like in 2007 when he called the “sweet solution” of web apps for iOS a “shit sandwich”?

Yeah. He used to have relatively few takes like that (although I think historically he's been more willing to be critical of Apple's software than hardware).

Besides the Mac keyboards, what was there to criticize about Apple hardware?

He was never in the market for the trash can Mac Pro as a buyer or a reviewer.

He never liked the Apple Watch before the 5th gen watch. He’s a big fan of analog watches.

He buys the newest phones every year, but he doesn’t buy Macs or iPads that often.

If you want to see Apple fans who often criticize Mac hardware and software, check out the Accidental Tech Podcast. Marco and John criticize Apple hardware and software all the time.

Marco is famous for dropping money on Apple hardware

Or in recent years, as recently as the current year, where you can find Gruber frequently criticizing Apple products, software, services, and design.

Gruber isn't really an essayist. He's a diarist. His oeuvre is pretty useless if you just read one piece out of context. But it begins to be useful when you read a bunch of his stuff (preferably in order, as one would if they were following him over the years), and start compare-and-contrasting his takes on e.g. generation N of a product vs. generation N-1 of the same product; or between two different products released to solve the same problem in different ways at different times. There's a lot of detail to be found there, that you won't find in most takes.

My brother once told me he liked a certain music blog because even when he disagreed with the review conclusion and score, the writing was informative and insightful enough to let him make up his own mind.

That's how I feel about Gruber. I probably agree with him 2/3 of the time, and 1/3 of the time I wonder if he's living on a different planet.

But even in those 1/3 of cases, he does a good job of laying out the facts and the process by which he arrived at his conclusion. So for me, he's well worth reading even in those times.

He is a big Apple fanboy, but he does call out bad products and privacy mis-steps. Sometimes with pretty drastic words.

Furthermore, despite your claim, he sometimes praises non-Apple hardware, even Microsoft's.

Honestly, you seem even more biased against Apple to me than Gruber is biased pro Apple.

I don't read his reviews to learn things I can learn from Anandtech or The Verge or any other "spec" review. I read his reviews because he captures nuances in feel that others don't, or if he doesn't, at least he links to others who have something interesting and non-obvious to say. Not here though, but generally.

Rene Ritchie is worse. I've seen Gruber call Apple to task a few times this past year, but Ritchie just continues to make excuses.

Ritchie often just reiterates what's on the press release, and then praises said products with little to no contextual input on how or why a product is great.

FWIW, I think mostly your impression of Ritchie is a result of the format he writes in (high-traffic tech site). When he's on Gruber's podcast, he has pretty nuanced and thoughtful opinions on things. So much so that I'd say that he's easily one of the best regular guests.

Interesting. I've listened to Gruber's podcast before, but don't think I've heard Ritchie on as a guest. I'll find an episode and dig in.

I've watched Ritchie's Youtube channel on and off over the last few years, and he still gives me the same feeling as his written work.

I like "I don't know, maybe the option to add the touchbar?"

Just before they abandon all the Intel crap and switch to ARM.

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