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Comment by shiado | Hacker News Reader

I'm actually tempted to get one of the new Macbook Airs. There's something intriguing and fun about navigating the brokenness of a new ecosystem. Does anybody know how Steam handles the new macs?

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>>> Does anybody know how Steam handles the new macs?

Games are mostly C++, based on my experience with C++ codebases I'd say there's about zero chance that a game could be (easily) recompiled and made to work on ARM.

And games won't be ported anyway because it's too much work for too little sales, even if a developer really wanted to make it work they'd need a $2000 new mac to be able to compile/test in the first place.

$2,000 is a stretch. You can get the high-end M1 Mini for about $1,200. A high-end M1 MBP for under $1,800.

The Macbook Pro that is $1200 in the US is £1300 in the UK and 1449€ in France. Apple products are way more expensive outside of the US.

Plus another 100 or 200 in adapters. It's beyond me why they would make a laptop with zero USB and zero HDMI ports.

Total is $2000 when converted back in USD.

A business doesn't pay the VAT, so the $700 basic M1 Mini is £583, which is $772.

The 10% might still be to account for the instability of the GBP.

The new MacBooks have 2 USB ports.

One of them is used for charging, so you really only have one useable port. Still, TB3 dock should be able to provide enough ports for most people (at the expense of portability).

Not to defend Apple because your point is valid, but you can buy a $25 Anker hub and run power through that and gain a ton of ports.

Not really. You could try to get a $25 hub from Amazon and hope it works, half the reviews seems to disagree on that.

However it still won't give you any HDMI or audio or Ethernet output. If you try to get one more adapter, say HDMI to connect a projector, you won't be able to plug it because there was only one thunderbolt port in the first place.

£75 pounds for basic connectivity https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/product/MUF82ZM/A/usb-c-digita...

£120 pounds for dual display with dual USB. https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/product/HMX02ZM/A/caldigit-thu...

£230 for a dock https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/product/HMX12Z/A/caldigit-ts3-...

I dunno what you're on about, here are a couple of Anker adapters I use just fine, all day every day.

That said, it sounds like you're really not interested in this market and I recommend you look elsewhere for a solution.

https://www.amazon.com/Anker-Upgraded-Delivery-Pixelbook-A83...

https://www.amazon.com/Anker-PowerExpand-Adapter-Delivery-Et...

Prices in France are TTC (Toutes Taxes Comprises, all taxes included), the VAT in France is 20% so if you take 20% off 1400€ you end up with 1159€ which is $1370. So in the end the MBP is a bit cheaper in France than in the US.

Or a $700 mini.

Apple claims there is not a significant translation slowdown when using Rosetta 2 to run graphics heavy workloads.

Maybe you're talking about indie developers. I don't think studios worry about spending $2000/machine for porting. And a lot of studios also outsource porting

Most games that survived the 32 bit -> 64 bit change and run in Catalina should run under Rosetta2 with no changes.

Performance? Who knows.

As someone who cross compiles C++ to arm (and others) as part of my $dayjob, I sincerely don't understand this comment. I would like to, as maybe there's something I misunderstand.

Ninja edit: I guess you're suggesting that some parts are in hand rolled x86 assembly, not just pure C++ that would be output as the cross compiler target architecture?

There's usually a million assumptions that are technically undefined behaviour but work, and immediately break if you try to cross-compile by just changing the target system in CMake or w/e.

I could see that if it were being compiled against another libc as well. It's true my experience is with a codebase that has forever been cross compiled. Just altering the output architecture I guess I just haven't seen be an issue. Aarch64 hasn't ever given me an "immediately break" scenario. If it compiles, it works. Ymmv though. Computers are complex.

This is exactly the reason I picked up an iPad Pro earlier this year. I have ADHD that flares up pretty bad when I’m wading through the boring parts of a project and flipping through open windows, the Dock flashing at me, update notifications popping in randomly, and all the complexity that comes with a desktop OS just wore me down. Add in all the fun stuff 2020 has to offer and I just couldn’t take it anymore.

Not that the transition has been seamless, but I’ve only had to fall back to my Macbook once in the past three months. There’s something about shaking up the routine, plus the forced simplicity and single-tasking has majorly helped my focus. I just wish Cloud9 or Codespaces worked better on an iPad...

This sounds like you would actually _like_ the incompleteness of most linux window managers. On i3 you don't get update notifications, because by default notifications don't work!

I’ve been down that road and combining ADHD with an infinite amount of buttons to press and dials to turn is a recipe for disaster. I just can’t help but push all the buttons and turn all the dials until something breaks, and then I have to spend all day trying to fix it.

That’s why I got the Pro (also my laptop is from 2013 and I’m desperate). I love and use Docker every day, and know it’s a mess right now, but I’m still excited to jump in head first.

Edit: This is my personal laptop fwiw. My work one is still Intel.

What is the difference between the M1 Air and the M1 Pro 13"? From what I can tell, they are basically the same spec except for small differences like slightly bigger battery life, active cooling and touchbar in the Pro.

Is that worth $300, for a larger form factor?

400 nits versus 500 nits brightness is another minor difference.

Form factor is similar. Brightness is better as stated. I believe you get better speakers in the Pro, the charger is higher wattage and the GPU in the high end air and Pro is 8 cores while the GPU on the base Air is 7 cores.

The Air is passively cooled, so the theory is it won't sustain higher workloads for as long as the Pro should be able to.

From what we know right now - same processor, different thermal envelope.

Higher sustained speeds, larger battery, brighter screen, better mic/speakers, Touch Bar.

> intriguing and fun about navigating the brokenness of a new ecosystem

Funny how far we've gotten from "It just works"

If you can burn the cash then go for it, but unless these laptops can support something other than MacOS I'm (with a sad expression) staying away from them.

Obviously if you just make websites it doesn't matter but if I'm buying an ARM device I want to play with the bare metal (you can't even access performance counters in MacOS IIRC)

> Obviously if you just make websites it doesn't matter

Websites in 2020 is not that simple. At my workplace, we use Docker extensively in our build pipelines

It's probably apples #1 tooling priority right now, though

May I ask what do you enjoy with a Macbook not running MacOS?

I don't like Apple devices myself but I understand that some people like the ecosystem as a whole.

However I don't understand the point of a Mac without MacOS. The hardware is pretty much garbage compared to any laptop of the same price range, let alone high-end laptops like Thinkpads.

(this is a honest question and I am not trying to troll or make fun of anyone, in case anyone doubt of the tone of my post)

Install Linux on them when MacOS is no longer supported on your machine, perhaps? If your laptop still works, you should still be able to use it even if it is no longer supported.

Also, many people like to work with dual boot devices. And no, virtualization is not the same.

The hardware is also not garbage. It may not be competitive, but it is well made.

Apple hardware is pretty nice. Spec out a top-of-the-line Thinkpad X1 Carbon Gen8 against a top-of-the-line MBP13, and you definitely pay more for the MBP13, but it gives you more and superior RAM, more and superior SSD...the configurable ceiling and hardware quality are higher. The X1C-8 gives you more screen resolution, 4G LTE (not that you would need it if you have mobile hotspot with 5G), more ports, WiFi 6....but the central nervous system of the MBP is arguably better.

To answer your question, I don't see much reason to buy a MBP and run it without MacOS, because -- although the build quality is sensational and the MBP travels well -- I'd rather just buy a Lenovo with Windows 10 Pro from the factory, get their top-tier service and repair plan, and still come out cheaper than a new MBP. However, I could see myself converting an old MBP for use as a Windows machine.

You are comparing the specs sheets while I am looking at practical situations.

For the same use cases Linux feels (and is) way more performant and responsive even on a less powerful hardware, and I'm not even talking about Docker.

The MBP keyboard is probably the worse on the market and any lower-end laptop keyboard is more comfortable to use. And nowadays it is not even a complete keyboard since it lack many standard physical keys.

The number of ports is extremely limited and you cannot connect anything without an adapter.

The computer gets hot very easily, and when it does, the keyboard gets extremely hot as well. It is also very noisy compared to any other laptop.

The glossy screen may look cool in a shop but it is very unpractical and uncomfortable.

I do not have any of those problems with my X1, I even have the best keyboard I could hope for a laptop, along with actual features like the Trackpoint, physical camera shutter or the PrivacyGuard.

1. I'm not that much of a linux-guy but almost everything I derive pleasure from in programming is fairly close to the metal, e.g. microarchitectural benchmarking and tracing are probably the two things I've been doing the most recently and you can't even get close to them on MacOS. If I spend that much on a new ARM machine that's what I want to be doing

1.5) I like the GPL, apple doesn't

2. I like apple's hardware in a vacuum. As much as the company leaves a bad taste in my mouth (there is a deeply pretentious streak to Apple's approach to their users), they make nice cases and such.

Are the old x86 Macbook Airs already discontinued or are they still available via some less obvious page on Apple's site? I picked one up last month since I liked the form factor and needed x86. Seems like I may have got it just in time?

They're available refurbished.

https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished/mac/macbook-air

I've bought a lot of Apple refurbs, they are like new in every respect.

I don't know about Steam specifically, but in the Apple keynote they said that existing games can run under Rosetta 2 and that some of them even have higher frame rates due to M1 speed despite emulation

> intriguing and fun

ఠ_ఠ

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