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Comment by PaulRobinson | Hacker News Reader

Competition is great, free markets are superb, agree.

I'm a big Apple fan and well into that ecosystem on every device from watch to desktop and everything in between, but I doubt that Apple will care, because customers like me don't care.

I don't buy a Macbook because of its performance vs a windows machine. I buy one because of its performance vs my old Macbook.

It's not just about the silicon. It's what Apple and its customers tout as "vertical integration" - I don't have to worry about drivers and chipsets and configuring things, it all just works. Apple isn't right for everyone, but they know who they're right for, and they're great at shipping product to them.

What will be interesting with the new Snapdragon chips is Linux and BSD support. I don't want or need Windows, or Copilot+, or any other MS nonsense. But if I can have a blazing fast FLOSS machine for a little less money than the MB[P]s with M3, it might turn my head, maybe.

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I'm probably the target market on both ends. I've mostly worked off a MBP over the last 15 years, though currently coding on a Surface Book for compatibility reasons and generally avoid walled ecosystems as it feels unhealthy.

My personal laptop is an i7 11" MBA that works fine but is in dire need of a refresh. I've been eyeing a 16gb MBA; but have been hesitating as I really like the 11" form factor and things like Framework look really tempting. Now; Snapdragon is looking tempting.

I'll probably buy something this summer, glad to have options. That Yogi looks interesting.

if you can stomach it the apple silicon macbook airs are really really nice. I do wish they'd bring back a 11 or 12 inch option but actually I super enjoyed the extra screen real estate of the 15 macbook air I just liked the macbook pro keyboard so much more I spent 2.5x or more on a macbook pro lol

I am seriously tempted. I've been back to my apt roots lately so I'm somewhat dreading the mess that is homebrew. I assume things are better now, it has been ~3 years.

I mean it’s not nix but it’s been fine for me. I’ve a typical setup. Python Java etc. I install things via brew and don’t look back. Pyenv for version mgmt.

Nixpkgs might be a better alternative if you’re really looking for multi version for everything.

If you're in the US and want to save a few bucks, check out the "Walmart MacBook Air M1". It should blow your i7 out of the water.

I'm excited for Linux on these type of devices but a previous story today reported them as bootlocked. So we can't just take any old one and install Linux, it would have to be specific models.

M2 and M1 laptops are making great progress towards Linux by the Asahi folks. Many big things still missing but given that they are reverse engineering everything that they’ve made this much progress is insane to me.

Exactly ... I love my almost maxed out m3 macbook pro but if I can get one of these fast arm chips in a laptop with thinkpad level linux support I'd insta-buy yet another laptop.

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