I think Steve meant mostly in terms of manufacturing and design technique (i.e. Flash drive on a card rather than a a drive enclosure, slim design, battery dominance, cramming lots of hi-techness in a very small physical space) as opposed to operation/user experience. Obviously there are differences between OS X and iOS. The functional similarity between the iPad and the MBA is the "instant-on" capability.
He did say, after all (I'm paraphrasing here): "We took what we learned about how to make the iPad and applied it to the new MBAs". I see no fundamental problem with that claim.
This instant on idea is total hogwash. I have tested them and yes, they wake up faster than a MB or MBP by 1 or 2 seconds. I am sorry, that is not a feature most people care about...it is hyperbole. The batter life is rather unimpressive (for Apple). If they had built the machine so that it was not wedge-shaped then it could have a significantly larger area for the battery, allowing for another 30% or more battery life. AND the machine would have still been very thin and light. This is a prime example of Job's form over function.
What? None of this makes any sense. Even the old Powerbook G4s could sleep for 3-4 days before the battery was drained. 1 to 8 hours? That's the battery life of a laptop continuously powered on! There's no way sleep could possibly eat that much power. What heat issues? I've never seen a sleeping laptop that got hot or even vaguely warm. The whole point of sleep is to just keep the dynamic RAM powered up so its contents aren't lost. Just how much power do you think it takes to refresh RAM?
Hmm. I know my Macbook Alu 2ghz can go at most overnight in sleep mode without power connected before it shuts down. When I say 1 to 8 hours I mean depending on how much battery you've already used. It could get warm if you put it in a tight bag in ambient temperatures of 30degC / 90+degF.
What laptop do you have? What's your experience so far. Curious. I don't think the current crop of Intel laptops can go more than okay, say, 24 hours in sleep mode without shutting down to Deep Sleep.
I'm pretty sure it's a stage of sleep, maybe its a definition problem or a communication problem. Apple likes to give its own term to things, and that throws people off. Last I recall, Intel has something like five or more stages of sleep. It seems to me that "Instant On" might be a bit of a misnomer because the machine is never really off.
My question is how much battery life is left after one month? Are we going to turn in on "instantly" only to have the OS say it needs to shut the system down in 10 minutes because the battery is drained?
This instant on idea is total hogwash. I have tested them and yes, they wake up faster than a MB or MBP by 1 or 2 seconds. I am sorry, that is not a feature most people care about...it is hyperbole. The batter life is rather unimpressive (for Apple). If they had built the machine so that it was not wedge-shaped then it could have a significantly larger area for the battery, allowing for another 30% or more battery life. AND the machine would have still been very thin and light. This is a prime example of Job's form over function.
But this is what I'm talking about. When you tested it, how long was the MBA asleep for? If it was asleep less than one hour, then it's normal wake from sleep, not Instant On. Instant On applies after it has been in sleep mode for MORE than one hour and it went into Standby Mode.
My question is how much battery life is left after one month? Are we going to turn in on "instantly" only to have the OS say it needs to shut the system down in 10 minutes because the battery is drained?
I think that is basically what it means: anytime within about a month you can come back to your MBA and it will start up with an appearance of ?Instant On?, but how long it stay on without a supplemental power source depends on the remaining charge.
Quote:
Put MacBook Air to sleep*, and it enters standby mode to conserve battery life for up to 30 days.1
[?]
The standby test measures battery life by allowing a system, connected to a wireless network, to enter deep sleep mode with Safari and Mail applications launched and all system settings left at default. Battery life varies by use and configuration. See www.apple.com/batteries for more information.
My question is how much battery life is left after one month? Are we going to turn in on "instantly" only to have the OS say it needs to shut the system down in 10 minutes because the battery is drained?
Aw, come on... You know what they mean by up to 30 days standby. Sure, after 25 days maybe you only have several minutes left when you wake it up.
But the point is, say after 28 days, you could then charge it and then after that resume from exactly where it went to sleep, with all your apps and documents open. What other laptop in the world can be in instant on standby/sleep mode for weeks and still be woken up from it instantly to original running state with RAM as it was, etc.?
The point remains, if the claims are correct, we're basically talking about laptops that are never restarted and never shut down for weeks. Months if you recharge it from time to time.
Aw, come on... You know what they mean by up to 30 days standby. Sure, after 25 days maybe you only have several minutes left when you wake it up.
But the point is, say after 28 days, you could then charge it and then after that resume from exactly where it went to sleep, with all your apps and documents open. What other laptop in the world can be in instant on standby/sleep mode for weeks and still be woken up from it instantly to original running state with RAM as it was, etc.?
The point remains, if the claims are correct, we're basically talking about laptops that are never restarted and never shut down for weeks. Months if you recharge it from time to time.
Just an assumption, but after the battery gets to low I would expect that it would do a proper shutdown, the way iOS-baed iDevice do to preserve themselves.
Just an assumption, but after the battery gets to low I would expect that it would do a proper shutdown, the way iOS-baed iDevice do to preserve themselves.
But on iOS such shutdown does not preserve the state of running apps, right? It boots up fresh once power is restored... Macs do deep sleep/hibernate where contents of memory are written to disk and the unit totally powered off, then restored to running state when it is powered and turned on again.
So I guess the Macbook Air would have several states as such:
Running
Sleep - Normal sleep
Standby - Instant On
SleepingBeauty - Contents of memory written to disk, unit fully powered off
But on iOS such shutdown does not preserve the state of running apps, right? It boots up fresh once power is restored... Macs do deep sleep/hibernate where contents of memory are written to disk and the unit totally powered off, then restored to running state when it is powered and turned on again.
So I guess the Macbook Air would have several states as such:
Running
Sleep - Normal sleep
Standby - Instant On
SleepingBeauty - Contents of memory written to disk, unit fully powered off
You?re right. My mistake, it wouldn?t have to do a proper shutdown because it?s already saved the RAM contents to NAND.
At least they are trying. It?s not as if the mods get paid for their service.
In some circles (I get the term from Bruce Schneier), it is called Security Theater. It gives the appearance of robust action, despite the near-total lack of tangible results.
Hmm. I know my Macbook Alu 2ghz can go at most overnight in sleep mode without power connected before it shuts down. When I say 1 to 8 hours I mean depending on how much battery you've already used. It could get warm if you put it in a tight bag in ambient temperatures of 30degC / 90+degF.
What laptop do you have? What's your experience so far. Curious. I don't think the current crop of Intel laptops can go more than okay, say, 24 hours in sleep mode without shutting down to Deep Sleep.
I'm surprised that nobody has posted about the lack of TRIM in OS X. The performance of the Air may very well degrade over time. Without TRIM it could degrade even rather quickly.
Anyone familiar with SSD on the earlier Airs? Has your performance decreased over time?
Maybe 10.7 will include it. Lack of TRIM may be one reason that Apple upgrades iPhone with a complete overwrite instead of incremental patches. When you start using SSD as a full featured OS, there are thousands of rewrite blocks that ultimately need to be erased and that can only happen a finite number of times with flash.
Almost worth it. Now if Apple would only add a multitouch display that can flip and fold back over the keyboard like the convertible PC tablets...
In the official Apple video introduction to the new MacBook Air, Phil Schiller Explained exactly why that would lead to an awkward and uncomfortable user experience, and I couldn't agree more. Touch input devices should be kept separate from traditional input methods, as Mac OS X is designed for more precise selection that in many cases a finger would be to large for efficient use.
As for the convertible PC tablets... Well, I wouldn't be looking to get an Apple if I wanted a typical, fragile, and blunt PC tablet type device. The zen-like experience of using a Mac notebook is lost when adding functionality that might appeal to a narrower group of people.
In the official Apple video introduction to the new MacBook Air, Phil Schiller Explained exactly why that would lead to an awkward and uncomfortable user experience, and I couldn't agree more. Touch input devices should be kept separate from traditional input methods, as Mac OS X is designed for more precise selection that in many cases a finger would be to large for efficient use.
I still think that large trackpad could be very useful if it had a visual output option. Besides making the calculator app much easier to use, now that Apple is pushing toward iOS-like fullscreen computing, having the trackpad area also being a display could let it list the clock, menu bar items and other useful stats. Even have little pop ups for IMs and Mail.
The potential usefulness is endless and it?s something other vendors can?t compete with easily if the history of Synaptics multi-touch adoption and usability in other OSes are any indication.
I still think that large trackpad could be very useful if it had a visual output option. Besides making the calculator app much easier to use, now that Apple is pushing toward iOS-like fullscreen computing, having the trackpad area also being a display could let it list the clock, menu bar items and other useful stats. Even have little pop ups for IMs and Mail.
The potential usefulness is endless and it’s something other vendors can’t compete with easily if the history of Synaptics multi-touch adoption and usability in other OSes are any indication.
It would also replicate the experience of using as small touch pad as a remote for Apple TV apps. Glance down at your control surface, glance back up at your main screen. Synergy, baby!
I have two batteries for my MacBook Alu 2ghz. One gives me about 3-5 hours normal usage, the original one about 3 hours... This original one is about 100 cycles and yeah, that's not too many cycles and should not be that bad as lasting only 3 hours, however it is not "bad enough" to be considered defective and replaced by Apple. Particularly after the 1st year of AppleCare protection even though you have the full 3 year warranty.
Nonetheless, with the weaker battery, I tried last night, and it only went down from about 98% to 91% in about 6 hours or so! That's at worse 2% drain per hour which would give about 2 days of sleep!
I have no idea why I never noticed this before. Maybe my previous MacBook Core Duo had some issues or I never tried to sleep it that long. I'm quite pleasantly stunned.
See, this is the kind of sh*t I'm talking about with being in such a Windows cheapo laptop world. Even after almost a decade of using the Mac I can't believe how good some features are.
The latest MacBook Pros must have some killer battery life. 5-8 hours usage and at least 3 days of sleep from a full charge.
I still think that large trackpad could be very useful if it had a visual output option. Besides making the calculator app much easier to use, now that Apple is pushing toward iOS-like fullscreen computing, having the trackpad area also being a display could let it list the clock, menu bar items and other useful stats. Even have little pop ups for IMs and Mail.
The potential usefulness is endless and it’s something other vendors can’t compete with easily if the history of Synaptics multi-touch adoption and usability in other OSes are any indication.
You know, in the long run, I think that the entire keyboard/palm rest/trackpad should be a piece of multitouch glass display. It'll be hybrid in terms of the bottom part like a tablet and the upper screen just for displaying information. There will also be tactile feedback somehow on the soft keyboard for touch typing.
Imagine the paradigm. For the first time a "laptop" (and eventually desktop "keyboards") will have a totally customisable human-input-interface. Maybe some apps don't need a keyboard and trackpad. Maybe some apps have a better interface than this, and so the bottom surface can be that interface controlling the screen in a unique but appropriate way.
The Nintendo DS could provide some basic clues how this might work with dual screens.
Also, this multitouch display laptop as I describe would be a true iPad-like Mac laptop.
I still think that large trackpad could be very useful if it had a visual output option. Besides making the calculator app much easier to use, now that Apple is pushing toward iOS-like fullscreen computing, having the trackpad area also being a display could let it list the clock, menu bar items and other useful stats. Even have little pop ups for IMs and Mail.
The goal of an Apple product is to offer an elemental, refined, simple user interface. One must take into account the overall aesthetic, apart from the fact that if a display multitouch trackpad were added to a Mac notebook, the price would likely soar only for the purpose of adding limited functionality. Battery life may plummet. While I can see how you might find this an interesting idea "on paper," it may be more of a show off device suited for an expo of some sort.
Comments
I think Steve meant mostly in terms of manufacturing and design technique (i.e. Flash drive on a card rather than a a drive enclosure, slim design, battery dominance, cramming lots of hi-techness in a very small physical space) as opposed to operation/user experience. Obviously there are differences between OS X and iOS. The functional similarity between the iPad and the MBA is the "instant-on" capability.
He did say, after all (I'm paraphrasing here): "We took what we learned about how to make the iPad and applied it to the new MBAs". I see no fundamental problem with that claim.
This instant on idea is total hogwash. I have tested them and yes, they wake up faster than a MB or MBP by 1 or 2 seconds. I am sorry, that is not a feature most people care about...it is hyperbole. The batter life is rather unimpressive (for Apple). If they had built the machine so that it was not wedge-shaped then it could have a significantly larger area for the battery, allowing for another 30% or more battery life. AND the machine would have still been very thin and light. This is a prime example of Job's form over function.
What? None of this makes any sense. Even the old Powerbook G4s could sleep for 3-4 days before the battery was drained. 1 to 8 hours? That's the battery life of a laptop continuously powered on! There's no way sleep could possibly eat that much power. What heat issues? I've never seen a sleeping laptop that got hot or even vaguely warm. The whole point of sleep is to just keep the dynamic RAM powered up so its contents aren't lost. Just how much power do you think it takes to refresh RAM?
Hmm. I know my Macbook Alu 2ghz can go at most overnight in sleep mode without power connected before it shuts down. When I say 1 to 8 hours I mean depending on how much battery you've already used. It could get warm if you put it in a tight bag in ambient temperatures of 30degC / 90+degF.
What laptop do you have? What's your experience so far. Curious. I don't think the current crop of Intel laptops can go more than okay, say, 24 hours in sleep mode without shutting down to Deep Sleep.
Anyone?
I'm pretty sure it's a stage of sleep, maybe its a definition problem or a communication problem. Apple likes to give its own term to things, and that throws people off. Last I recall, Intel has something like five or more stages of sleep. It seems to me that "Instant On" might be a bit of a misnomer because the machine is never really off.
My question is how much battery life is left after one month? Are we going to turn in on "instantly" only to have the OS say it needs to shut the system down in 10 minutes because the battery is drained?
This instant on idea is total hogwash. I have tested them and yes, they wake up faster than a MB or MBP by 1 or 2 seconds. I am sorry, that is not a feature most people care about...it is hyperbole. The batter life is rather unimpressive (for Apple). If they had built the machine so that it was not wedge-shaped then it could have a significantly larger area for the battery, allowing for another 30% or more battery life. AND the machine would have still been very thin and light. This is a prime example of Job's form over function.
But this is what I'm talking about. When you tested it, how long was the MBA asleep for? If it was asleep less than one hour, then it's normal wake from sleep, not Instant On. Instant On applies after it has been in sleep mode for MORE than one hour and it went into Standby Mode.
My question is how much battery life is left after one month? Are we going to turn in on "instantly" only to have the OS say it needs to shut the system down in 10 minutes because the battery is drained?
I think that is basically what it means: anytime within about a month you can come back to your MBA and it will start up with an appearance of ?Instant On?, but how long it stay on without a supplemental power source depends on the remaining charge.
Put MacBook Air to sleep*, and it enters standby mode to conserve battery life for up to 30 days.1
[?]
The standby test measures battery life by allowing a system, connected to a wireless network, to enter deep sleep mode with Safari and Mail applications launched and all system settings left at default. Battery life varies by use and configuration. See www.apple.com/batteries for more information.
My question is how much battery life is left after one month? Are we going to turn in on "instantly" only to have the OS say it needs to shut the system down in 10 minutes because the battery is drained?
Aw, come on... You know what they mean by up to 30 days standby. Sure, after 25 days maybe you only have several minutes left when you wake it up.
But the point is, say after 28 days, you could then charge it and then after that resume from exactly where it went to sleep, with all your apps and documents open. What other laptop in the world can be in instant on standby/sleep mode for weeks and still be woken up from it instantly to original running state with RAM as it was, etc.?
The point remains, if the claims are correct, we're basically talking about laptops that are never restarted and never shut down for weeks. Months if you recharge it from time to time.
Aw, come on... You know what they mean by up to 30 days standby. Sure, after 25 days maybe you only have several minutes left when you wake it up.
But the point is, say after 28 days, you could then charge it and then after that resume from exactly where it went to sleep, with all your apps and documents open. What other laptop in the world can be in instant on standby/sleep mode for weeks and still be woken up from it instantly to original running state with RAM as it was, etc.?
The point remains, if the claims are correct, we're basically talking about laptops that are never restarted and never shut down for weeks. Months if you recharge it from time to time.
Just an assumption, but after the battery gets to low I would expect that it would do a proper shutdown, the way iOS-baed iDevice do to preserve themselves.
Just an assumption, but after the battery gets to low I would expect that it would do a proper shutdown, the way iOS-baed iDevice do to preserve themselves.
But on iOS such shutdown does not preserve the state of running apps, right? It boots up fresh once power is restored... Macs do deep sleep/hibernate where contents of memory are written to disk and the unit totally powered off, then restored to running state when it is powered and turned on again.
So I guess the Macbook Air would have several states as such:
Running
Sleep - Normal sleep
Standby - Instant On
SleepingBeauty - Contents of memory written to disk, unit fully powered off
But on iOS such shutdown does not preserve the state of running apps, right? It boots up fresh once power is restored... Macs do deep sleep/hibernate where contents of memory are written to disk and the unit totally powered off, then restored to running state when it is powered and turned on again.
So I guess the Macbook Air would have several states as such:
Running
Sleep - Normal sleep
Standby - Instant On
SleepingBeauty - Contents of memory written to disk, unit fully powered off
You?re right. My mistake, it wouldn?t have to do a proper shutdown because it?s already saved the RAM contents to NAND.
At least they are trying. It?s not as if the mods get paid for their service.
In some circles (I get the term from Bruce Schneier), it is called Security Theater. It gives the appearance of robust action, despite the near-total lack of tangible results.
Hmm. I know my Macbook Alu 2ghz can go at most overnight in sleep mode without power connected before it shuts down. When I say 1 to 8 hours I mean depending on how much battery you've already used. It could get warm if you put it in a tight bag in ambient temperatures of 30degC / 90+degF.
What laptop do you have? What's your experience so far. Curious. I don't think the current crop of Intel laptops can go more than okay, say, 24 hours in sleep mode without shutting down to Deep Sleep.
Anyone?
Sounds like you have problems with your battery.
http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=36158
So where is yours so we can all see how it should be done?
Anyone familiar with SSD on the earlier Airs? Has your performance decreased over time?
Maybe 10.7 will include it. Lack of TRIM may be one reason that Apple upgrades iPhone with a complete overwrite instead of incremental patches. When you start using SSD as a full featured OS, there are thousands of rewrite blocks that ultimately need to be erased and that can only happen a finite number of times with flash.
I did. I know what I'm talking about.
You sure aren't explaining what you're talking about, and I really would appreciate it if you did.
Almost worth it. Now if Apple would only add a multitouch display that can flip and fold back over the keyboard like the convertible PC tablets...
In the official Apple video introduction to the new MacBook Air, Phil Schiller Explained exactly why that would lead to an awkward and uncomfortable user experience, and I couldn't agree more. Touch input devices should be kept separate from traditional input methods, as Mac OS X is designed for more precise selection that in many cases a finger would be to large for efficient use.
As for the convertible PC tablets... Well, I wouldn't be looking to get an Apple if I wanted a typical, fragile, and blunt PC tablet type device. The zen-like experience of using a Mac notebook is lost when adding functionality that might appeal to a narrower group of people.
In the official Apple video introduction to the new MacBook Air, Phil Schiller Explained exactly why that would lead to an awkward and uncomfortable user experience, and I couldn't agree more. Touch input devices should be kept separate from traditional input methods, as Mac OS X is designed for more precise selection that in many cases a finger would be to large for efficient use.
I still think that large trackpad could be very useful if it had a visual output option. Besides making the calculator app much easier to use, now that Apple is pushing toward iOS-like fullscreen computing, having the trackpad area also being a display could let it list the clock, menu bar items and other useful stats. Even have little pop ups for IMs and Mail.
The potential usefulness is endless and it?s something other vendors can?t compete with easily if the history of Synaptics multi-touch adoption and usability in other OSes are any indication.
I still think that large trackpad could be very useful if it had a visual output option. Besides making the calculator app much easier to use, now that Apple is pushing toward iOS-like fullscreen computing, having the trackpad area also being a display could let it list the clock, menu bar items and other useful stats. Even have little pop ups for IMs and Mail.
The potential usefulness is endless and it’s something other vendors can’t compete with easily if the history of Synaptics multi-touch adoption and usability in other OSes are any indication.
It would also replicate the experience of using as small touch pad as a remote for Apple TV apps. Glance down at your control surface, glance back up at your main screen. Synergy, baby!
Sounds like you have problems with your battery.
http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=36158
Wow. Yet again the Mac surprises me.
I have two batteries for my MacBook Alu 2ghz. One gives me about 3-5 hours normal usage, the original one about 3 hours... This original one is about 100 cycles and yeah, that's not too many cycles and should not be that bad as lasting only 3 hours, however it is not "bad enough" to be considered defective and replaced by Apple. Particularly after the 1st year of AppleCare protection even though you have the full 3 year warranty.
Nonetheless, with the weaker battery, I tried last night, and it only went down from about 98% to 91% in about 6 hours or so! That's at worse 2% drain per hour which would give about 2 days of sleep!
I have no idea why I never noticed this before. Maybe my previous MacBook Core Duo had some issues or I never tried to sleep it that long. I'm quite pleasantly stunned.
See, this is the kind of sh*t I'm talking about with being in such a Windows cheapo laptop world. Even after almost a decade of using the Mac I can't believe how good some features are.
The latest MacBook Pros must have some killer battery life. 5-8 hours usage and at least 3 days of sleep from a full charge.
I still think that large trackpad could be very useful if it had a visual output option. Besides making the calculator app much easier to use, now that Apple is pushing toward iOS-like fullscreen computing, having the trackpad area also being a display could let it list the clock, menu bar items and other useful stats. Even have little pop ups for IMs and Mail.
The potential usefulness is endless and it’s something other vendors can’t compete with easily if the history of Synaptics multi-touch adoption and usability in other OSes are any indication.
You know, in the long run, I think that the entire keyboard/palm rest/trackpad should be a piece of multitouch glass display. It'll be hybrid in terms of the bottom part like a tablet and the upper screen just for displaying information. There will also be tactile feedback somehow on the soft keyboard for touch typing.
Imagine the paradigm. For the first time a "laptop" (and eventually desktop "keyboards") will have a totally customisable human-input-interface. Maybe some apps don't need a keyboard and trackpad. Maybe some apps have a better interface than this, and so the bottom surface can be that interface controlling the screen in a unique but appropriate way.
The Nintendo DS could provide some basic clues how this might work with dual screens.
Also, this multitouch display laptop as I describe would be a true iPad-like Mac laptop.
I still think that large trackpad could be very useful if it had a visual output option. Besides making the calculator app much easier to use, now that Apple is pushing toward iOS-like fullscreen computing, having the trackpad area also being a display could let it list the clock, menu bar items and other useful stats. Even have little pop ups for IMs and Mail.
The goal of an Apple product is to offer an elemental, refined, simple user interface. One must take into account the overall aesthetic, apart from the fact that if a display multitouch trackpad were added to a Mac notebook, the price would likely soar only for the purpose of adding limited functionality. Battery life may plummet. While I can see how you might find this an interesting idea "on paper," it may be more of a show off device suited for an expo of some sort.