It bugs me that many traditional Apple Mac applications (Mail, Calendar, Contacts) under Big Sur have been redesigned for a touch interface, with extra space added to make it easier to select items unambiguously with one’s fingers, but the space is completely wasted because nobody has a touch screen Mac. On a 13” screen, the inefficiency is even more pronounced. A lot of people are working significantly less efficiently now, for no good reason. Apple needs to provide an option to revert to prior spacing.
Why do you think this is the case?
What does this mean with respect to the MacBook Air? Also, why would Apple design a UI around a computer they don’t make? I’d bet if you talk with a UX designer you’d gain some insight into why modern UI designs are following a more open and airy appearance with more white space.
Yeah i know, we’d all be much more efficient if we’d just learn how to use a keyboard properly and if all UIs followed the vi editor command paradigm and Wordstar keyboard shortcuts.
Why are you asking me these questions? As my query states, I'm curious as to why cpsro thinks Apple has "redesigned [macOS Big Sur] for a touch interface" when this is clearly not the case.
Great review! My biggest disappointment with the M1 MacBook Air is that it wasn't an M1 MacBook 12" which, IMO, is the most ideal form factor in a laptop for the masses that Apple has ever produced. (But I suspect their sales data indicates that "the masses" disagree.) My 1st gen MB12 still runs fine and remains perfectly quick enough for everyday business tasks.
Once upon a time, the "Air," really was that, a true marvel that was a radical downsizing in size and weight from previous Apple laptops. But now? Not so much. It's an "air" in name only. It's essentially the same size as a MBP 13" and only a few ounces lighter. The MB 12 was over 3/4 pound lighter than the Air, essentially a laptop as easy to carry as an iPad.
That said, the new Air is such an impressive performer, it forces the MBP 13" into more of a niche corner for those who must have the absolute fastest speeds and support for multiple displays. I'll be curious to see the next iteration which I'm hoping will be the time to upgrade. Not looking for radical redesign--the Ives-era laptop designs were such a master class in merging form and function in as clean a way as possible, they mostly don't become dated. My wish list is for a thin-bezel 14" display, support for WiFi 6e and 5G cellular (would like both but would settle for either one), plus (finally!) a 1080p camera.
It bugs me that many traditional Apple Mac applications (Mail, Calendar, Contacts) under Big Sur have been redesigned for a touch interface, with extra space added to make it easier to select items unambiguously with one’s fingers, but the space is completely wasted because nobody has a touch screen Mac. On a 13” screen, the inefficiency is even more pronounced. A lot of people are working significantly less efficiently now, for no good reason. Apple needs to provide an option to revert to prior spacing.
Why do you think this is the case?
What does this mean with respect to the MacBook Air? Also, why would Apple design a UI around a computer they don’t make? I’d bet if you talk with a UX designer you’d gain some insight into why modern UI designs are following a more open and airy appearance with more white space.
Yeah i know, we’d all be much more efficient if we’d just learn how to use a keyboard properly and if all UIs followed the vi editor command paradigm and Wordstar keyboard shortcuts.
Why are you asking me these questions? As my query states, I'm curious as to why cpsro thinks Apple has "redesigned [macOS Big Sur] for a touch interface" when this is clearly not the case.
Sorry Xed, I was adding on to your question to cspro, not questioning your response.
I shouldn't have tried to do this from my iPod Touch.
It bugs me that many traditional Apple Mac applications (Mail, Calendar, Contacts) under Big Sur have been redesigned for a touch interface, with extra space added to make it easier to select items unambiguously with one’s fingers, but the space is completely wasted because nobody has a touch screen Mac. On a 13” screen, the inefficiency is even more pronounced. A lot of people are working significantly less efficiently now, for no good reason. Apple needs to provide an option to revert to prior spacing.
Why do you think this is the case?
What does this mean with respect to the MacBook Air? Also, why would Apple design a UI around a computer they don’t make? I’d bet if you talk with a UX designer you’d gain some insight into why modern UI designs are following a more open and airy appearance with more white space.
Yeah i know, we’d all be much more efficient if we’d just learn how to use a keyboard properly and if all UIs followed the vi editor command paradigm and Wordstar keyboard shortcuts.
Why are you asking me these questions? As my query states, I'm curious as to why cpsro thinks Apple has "redesigned [macOS Big Sur] for a touch interface" when this is clearly not the case.
Sorry Xed, I was adding on to your question to cspro, not questioning your response.
I shouldn't have tried to do this from my iPod Touch.
In a very superficial way I understand his initial consideration, but after a moment that notion of Big Sur has been reddened for a touch UI should be replaced with an "Oh, I see now that Apple is making some of the UI aspects (when feasible) more relatable to those coming from iOS and iPadOS, but are not making it a touch UI as most of the interface would clearly not work without a pointer being used."
It bugs me that many traditional Apple Mac applications (Mail, Calendar, Contacts) under Big Sur have been redesigned for a touch interface, with extra space added to make it easier to select items unambiguously with one’s fingers, but the space is completely wasted because nobody has a touch screen Mac. On a 13” screen, the inefficiency is even more pronounced. A lot of people are working significantly less efficiently now, for no good reason. Apple needs to provide an option to revert to prior spacing.
Why do you think this is the case?
What does this mean with respect to the MacBook Air? Also, why would Apple design a UI around a computer they don’t make? I’d bet if you talk with a UX designer you’d gain some insight into why modern UI designs are following a more open and airy appearance with more white space.
Yeah i know, we’d all be much more efficient if we’d just learn how to use a keyboard properly and if all UIs followed the vi editor command paradigm and Wordstar keyboard shortcuts.
Why are you asking me these questions? As my query states, I'm curious as to why cpsro thinks Apple has "redesigned [macOS Big Sur] for a touch interface" when this is clearly not the case.
Sorry Xed, I was adding on to your question to cspro, not questioning your response.
I shouldn't have tried to do this from my iPod Touch.
In a very superficial way I understand his initial consideration, but after a moment that notion of Big Sur has been reddened for a touch UI should be replaced with an "Oh, I see now that Apple is making some of the UI aspects (when feasible) more relatable to those coming from iOS and iPadOS, but are not making it a touch UI as most of the interface would clearly not work without a pointer being used."
To which I would add that Apple is trying to refine their user interfaces with more consideration for UX design imperatives that have emerged from user feedback from a much wider audience of users than computer enthusiasts, programmers, and technology insiders. This is user experience (UX) driven, not driven by a desire to prepare the Mac for a move to touch-centric interaction. It just so happens that touch based UIs have to be much more attuned to the proper use of white space, but the focus on the proper use of white space in non-touch UIs is not an unusual thing at all, or at least not unusual for application development that employs professional UX designers.
Sorry to be pedantic but the m1 macbook air is 60% faster in single core and 200% faster in multicore or if you prefer 160% and 300% as fast. To be be 160% faster it needs to have a speed 2.6 times that of the intel version. Great machine and a great leap forward- once they sort out the number of ports it will be truly unchallengeable choice unless you need to run windows, and even that might well be solved.
Great review! My biggest disappointment with the M1 MacBook Air is that it wasn't an M1 MacBook 12" which, IMO, is the most ideal form factor in a laptop for the masses that Apple has ever produced. (But I suspect their sales data indicates that "the masses" disagree.) My 1st gen MB12 still runs fine and remains perfectly quick enough for everyday business tasks.
Once upon a time, the "Air," really was that, a true marvel that was a radical downsizing in size and weight from previous Apple laptops. But now? Not so much. It's an "air" in name only. It's essentially the same size as a MBP 13" and only a few ounces lighter. The MB 12 was over 3/4 pound lighter than the Air, essentially a laptop as easy to carry as an iPad.
That said, the new Air is such an impressive performer, it forces the MBP 13" into more of a niche corner for those who must have the absolute fastest speeds and support for multiple displays. I'll be curious to see the next iteration which I'm hoping will be the time to upgrade. Not looking for radical redesign--the Ives-era laptop designs were such a master class in merging form and function in as clean a way as possible, they mostly don't become dated. My wish list is for a thin-bezel 14" display, support for WiFi 6e and 5G cellular (would like both but would settle for either one), plus (finally!) a 1080p camera.
The rMB was a failure in the market for one reason: the single port. The older style MBAs with outdated processors at the time still outsold it because of that one thing.
Sorry to be pedantic but the m1 macbook air is 60% faster in single core and 200% faster in multicore or if you prefer 160% and 300% as fast. To be be 160% faster it needs to have a speed 2.6 times that of the intel version. Great machine and a great leap forward- once they sort out the number of ports it will be truly unchallengeable choice unless you need to run windows, and even that might well be solved.
While editing the review, Appleinsider might also clarify the GPU performance paragraph too. Was it a seven or eight core GPU?
It bugs me that many traditional Apple Mac applications (Mail, Calendar, Contacts) under Big Sur have been redesigned for a touch interface, with extra space added to make it easier to select items unambiguously with one’s fingers, but the space is completely wasted because nobody has a touch screen Mac. On a 13” screen, the inefficiency is even more pronounced. A lot of people are working significantly less efficiently now, for no good reason. Apple needs to provide an option to revert to prior spacing.
What does this mean with respect to the MacBook Air? Also, why would Apple design a UI around a computer they don’t make? I’d bet if you talk with a UX designer you’d gain some insight into why modern UI designs are following a more open and airy appearance with more white space.
Yeah i know, we’d all be much more efficient if we’d just learn how to use a keyboard properly and if all UIs followed the vi editor command paradigm and Wordstar keyboard shortcuts.
More whitespace means more scrolling up and down which leads to inefficiency. The malaise has been around for several years. Even Windows Server 2015 was infected with it. Not everyone works on 4K screens but some UI designers seem to assume that we have infinite vertical space on our kit. We don't but they don't care and it seems to be getting worse.
It bugs me that many traditional Apple Mac applications (Mail, Calendar, Contacts) under Big Sur have been redesigned for a touch interface, with extra space added to make it easier to select items unambiguously with one’s fingers, but the space is completely wasted because nobody has a touch screen Mac. On a 13” screen, the inefficiency is even more pronounced. A lot of people are working significantly less efficiently now, for no good reason. Apple needs to provide an option to revert to prior spacing.
What does this mean with respect to the MacBook Air? Also, why would Apple design a UI around a computer they don’t make? I’d bet if you talk with a UX designer you’d gain some insight into why modern UI designs are following a more open and airy appearance with more white space.
Yeah i know, we’d all be much more efficient if we’d just learn how to use a keyboard properly and if all UIs followed the vi editor command paradigm and Wordstar keyboard shortcuts.
More whitespace means more scrolling up and down which leads to inefficiency. The malaise has been around for several years. Even Windows Server 2015 was infected with it. Not everyone works on 4K screens but some UI designers seem to assume that we have infinite vertical space on our kit. We don't but they don't care and it seems to be getting worse.
I would actually prefer that we (end users) had the ability to tweak the UI settings to fit our preferences. The UX folks are trying to target the majority of users, which they can back up with usability studies, but some of us in the minority do appreciate having a bit more control over things like line spacing and white space.
In fact, a really good example of two similar applications that took a different approach are Apple's Books app versus Amazon's Kindle reader app. I apologize in advance to my fellow Apple fans, but Amazon's Kindle Reader apps (on macOS and iOS) absolutely blow Apple's apps out of the water. The difference is most apparent on macOS, where Apple's book reader (Preview app) looks like it was a total afterthought, scraping the bottom edge of the bar, while the Kindle Reader app was designed by someone who truly understood the specific kinds of customization that a reader of e-books would want, like changing line spacing, margins, fonts, font size, text and background colors, access to notes, etc. and who was bound and determined to deliver a best-in-class app. It's not even a fair comparison because Apple's book reader is so bad. It's in class by itself because nobody trying to entice people to buy e-books would, in good conscience, put out such a lame app. What makes the Kindle Reader app so good is not just it's much better baseline feature set, but its customizability.
I would love to use the Kindle Reader app on the new M1 MacBook Air.
... Knowing Apple, they'll probably do something stupid like shaving down the height of the chassis to make it lighter at the expense of longer battery life. Thin and light is all that Apple ever strives for. I wonder if that's what most customers want. I certainly don't want ultra-thin and light and would rather have longer battery life.
Pretty sure Apple's discontinuation of the 12" MB (to the chagrin of users like my wife who don't need a lot of power, extra ports, etc. but really, really, do appreciate having less weight and bulk to carry around) as well as Apple keeping the MBA almost as big as the 13" MBP all says otherwise.
You should probably check your bias at the door and consider facts before making such wild irrational statements.
[Meanwhile, if they can put this M1 chip (or one of its successors) in something like that 12" chassis (maybe a mm or two thicker to include a scissor keyboard) it could be almost everything the Air is now with little compromise. My wife for one would welcome that, and as few others as there may or may not be like her, she can't be the only one.]
Genuinely surprised that they didn’t fix the webcam. Sounds like 2021will be the year for something fresher, crisper and broadly compatible.
If that's the case, I'm sorry to say you'll continue being "genuinely surprised". People really need to get past this.
Unless some significantly new technology comes out they will not "fix" the webcam because it's not (currently) possible, without making the display significantly thicker, which would compromise the design in ways that normal people would really prefer they didn't.
Have you noticed the "camera bump" on all the iPhones since the 6 series over 5 years ago - which is still a problem today? They can't fit a decent camera in the iPhone's 8mm thickness without a bump. So how are they going to fit a decent camera in the 2mm thick laptop displays?**
It's a webcam for goodness sake. You're not shooting a feature film with it (while some people are doing so with the iPhone cameras). Why should anyone care if you look a little fuzzier for your zoom meeting than you would with a better camera (that as I say would severely compromise the experience of everything else). Alternatively if it really is that big a deal, enough that the compromises required are less important to you, then get a professional external one.
Ya'll need to get over it.
----
** In 10min of googling I can't find any other decent laptop with a webcam better than 720p. Anyone feel free to point me to one if you know of any.
Genuinely surprised that they didn’t fix the webcam. Sounds like 2021will be the year for something fresher, crisper and broadly compatible.
If that's the case, I'm sorry to say you'll continue being "genuinely surprised". People really need to get past this.
Unless some significantly new technology comes out they will not "fix" the webcam because it's not (currently) possible, without making the display significantly thicker, which would compromise the design in ways that normal people would really prefer they didn't.
Have you noticed the "camera bump" on all the iPhones since the 6 series over 5 years ago - which is still a problem today? They can't fit a decent camera in the iPhone's 8mm thickness without a bump. So how are they going to fit a decent camera in the 2mm thick laptop displays?**
It's a webcam for goodness sake. You're not shooting a feature film with it (while some people are doing so with the iPhone cameras). Why should anyone care if you look a little fuzzier for your zoom meeting than you would with a better camera (that as I say would severely compromise the experience of everything else). Alternatively if it really is that big a deal, enough that the compromises required are less important to you, then get a professional external one.
Ya'll need to get over it.
----
** In 10min of googling I can't find any other decent laptop with a webcam better than 720p. Anyone feel free to point me to one if you know of any.
I was surprised that I couldn't find 1080p or better web cams as the norm for even higher-end laptops considering how common that complaint is around here. I even looked at high-end gaming laptops which have very thick top casings (relatively speaking), but I only found 720p on $4000–5000 gaming laptops.
Here's a Reddit post of someone asking for such a laptop, and everyone that responds keeps posting wrong information.
It bugs me that many traditional Apple Mac applications (Mail, Calendar, Contacts) under Big Sur have been redesigned for a touch interface, with extra space added to make it easier to select items unambiguously with one’s fingers, but the space is completely wasted because nobody has a touch screen Mac. On a 13” screen, the inefficiency is even more pronounced. A lot of people are working significantly less efficiently now, for no good reason. Apple needs to provide an option to revert to prior spacing.
Why do you think this is the case?
What does this mean with respect to the MacBook Air? Also, why would Apple design a UI around a computer they don’t make? I’d bet if you talk with a UX designer you’d gain some insight into why modern UI designs are following a more open and airy appearance with more white space.
Yeah i know, we’d all be much more efficient if we’d just learn how to use a keyboard properly and if all UIs followed the vi editor command paradigm and Wordstar keyboard shortcuts.
Why are you asking me these questions? As my query states, I'm curious as to why cpsro thinks Apple has "redesigned [macOS Big Sur] for a touch interface" when this is clearly not the case.
Sorry Xed, I was adding on to your question to cspro, not questioning your response.
I shouldn't have tried to do this from my iPod Touch.
In a very superficial way I understand his initial consideration, but after a moment that notion of Big Sur has been reddened for a touch UI should be replaced with an "Oh, I see now that Apple is making some of the UI aspects (when feasible) more relatable to those coming from iOS and iPadOS, but are not making it a touch UI as most of the interface would clearly not work without a pointer being used."
At least someone gets it.
The other thing is that it will make life easier for developers if they can share as much of the layouts as possible … as long as they don’t get lazy.
Not to be too pedantic about the numbers, but when you say something is "350 percent faster" you are saying it is 4.5 times faster, *not* 3.5 times faster, because an improvement of N percent means the total is N+100 - it started at 100 percent. So perhaps either use a multiplier (less error-prone) or adjust (subtract 100) your percentages to reflect the actual speedups...
Genuinely surprised that they didn’t fix the webcam. Sounds like 2021will be the year for something fresher, crisper and broadly compatible.
If that's the case, I'm sorry to say you'll continue being "genuinely surprised". People really need to get past this.
Unless some significantly new technology comes out they will not "fix" the webcam because it's not (currently) possible, without making the display significantly thicker, which would compromise the design in ways that normal people would really prefer they didn't.
Have you noticed the "camera bump" on all the iPhones since the 6 series over 5 years ago - which is still a problem today? They can't fit a decent camera in the iPhone's 8mm thickness without a bump. So how are they going to fit a decent camera in the 2mm thick laptop displays?**
It's a webcam for goodness sake. You're not shooting a feature film with it (while some people are doing so with the iPhone cameras). Why should anyone care if you look a little fuzzier for your zoom meeting than you would with a better camera (that as I say would severely compromise the experience of everything else). Alternatively if it really is that big a deal, enough that the compromises required are less important to you, then get a professional external one.
Ya'll need to get over it.
----
** In 10min of googling I can't find any other decent laptop with a webcam better than 720p. Anyone feel free to point me to one if you know of any.
I was surprised that I couldn't find 1080p or better web cams as the norm for even higher-end laptops considering how common that complaint is around here. I even looked at high-end gaming laptops which have very thick top casings (relatively speaking), but I only found 720p on $4000–5000 gaming laptops.
Here's a Reddit post of someone asking for such a laptop, and everyone that responds keeps posting wrong information.
Going by the amount of bleating that goes on around here, I had sort of assumed that every other laptop out there had an 1080p camera. I'm a little shocked to find that this isn't the case.
However, if this working-from-home lark continues after the pandemic, then I think lots more companies will start fitting better cameras (if they can) and laptops prices will rise accordingly.
Genuinely surprised that they didn’t fix the webcam. Sounds like 2021will be the year for something fresher, crisper and broadly compatible.
If that's the case, I'm sorry to say you'll continue being "genuinely surprised". People really need to get past this.
Unless some significantly new technology comes out they will not "fix" the webcam because it's not (currently) possible, without making the display significantly thicker, which would compromise the design in ways that normal people would really prefer they didn't.
Have you noticed the "camera bump" on all the iPhones since the 6 series over 5 years ago - which is still a problem today? They can't fit a decent camera in the iPhone's 8mm thickness without a bump. So how are they going to fit a decent camera in the 2mm thick laptop displays?**
It's a webcam for goodness sake. You're not shooting a feature film with it (while some people are doing so with the iPhone cameras). Why should anyone care if you look a little fuzzier for your zoom meeting than you would with a better camera (that as I say would severely compromise the experience of everything else). Alternatively if it really is that big a deal, enough that the compromises required are less important to you, then get a professional external one.
Ya'll need to get over it.
----
** In 10min of googling I can't find any other decent laptop with a webcam better than 720p. Anyone feel free to point me to one if you know of any.
I was surprised that I couldn't find 1080p or better web cams as the norm for even higher-end laptops considering how common that complaint is around here. I even looked at high-end gaming laptops which have very thick top casings (relatively speaking), but I only found 720p on $4000–5000 gaming laptops.
Here's a Reddit post of someone asking for such a laptop, and everyone that responds keeps posting wrong information.
Going by the amount of bleating that goes on around here, I had sort of assumed that every other laptop out there had an 1080p camera. I'm a little shocked to find that this isn't the case.
However, if this working-from-home lark continues after the pandemic, then I think lots more companies will start fitting better cameras (if they can) and laptops prices will rise accordingly.
St this point I have to assume the line of "reasoning" is well if my smartphone has a better than 720p front facing camera so my much large laptop should easily have it, too.
If people are working from home then there are countless USB connected webcam options on the market with higher specs. I know those have been hard to find due to the pandemic, but supplies should be rebounding by now.
What is the word on compatibility with the Adobe Suite applications? My son mostly uses those for his video and photo work. He has been limping along with a handed down Air. Maybe it’s time to get a new machine. But I don’t want to go there if it’s going to introduce issues into his workflow...
It would be smart to wait. Two reasons here. 1. it will take awhile for Adobe to get everything converted and stable. 2. There is a good possibility that sometime early in 2021 we will see the true pro models arrive. For the type of work he is doing more performance will always be welcomed. An uprated MBP would be great for somebody in his business.
I currently own a MBA M1 and can say with out reservation they are incredible machines. However if you really want to benefit from M1 you need native software and I think it is fair to say that even if I''m not in his industry. So yeah don't jump if your work flow isn't native.
As for native software I've been using Mac Ports and it literally gets better everyday. So open source is coming along at a good rate. As for apps from the Mac App Store, they are also coming along at a good rate and I've already have gotten updates. As for Apps that aren't native but still run on M1 performance is generally good.
So what I'm trying to get at is that generally there are not many problems with owning a M1 based machine right now. However if your core software isn't native it is just a good idea to wait.
Here are a few comments after a couple of weeks with an M1 based MBA:
1. I bought the machine due to the idea that it would be a better machine than an iPad for the types of usages that I have in mind for an iPad. Basically an iPad with a keyboard nad an OS that doesn't suck. In this regard the MBA has been a huge success.
2. In many ways I'm not really surprised at performance, if people have taken a serious look at iPad they would have realized that performance would be very good on an ARM based Mac. So all of the noise about performance seems to be a bit artificial to me, we are getting pretty much what one would expect knowing what iPads have been doing.
3. The big surprise is how well Rossetta 2 works. So far that is pretty satisfying as not everything is native yet.
4. Not everything is native but on the other hand we are getting native apps pretty quickly and they are generally pretty impressive.
5. Absolutely silence operation.
As to what I'm expecting from a refactored MBA in 2021:
1. They will get rid of the heat spreader and mount the processor directly to the case so that it functions as a heat sink. This might require redefining what is the bottom of the case is vs the top but a case mounted processor will sink heat to atmosphere quicker and more efficiently. This will lead to better performance in a fanless machine.
2. I don't expect a lot more ARM cores, maybe two if they can get below 5nm but rather improvements to the GPU. An improved GPU would likely serve the needs of a greater range of MBA users than a lot more ARM cores. If there is a place where M1 under delivers it is with respect to GPU performance (yes I know it is good but it should have been better).
3. With the same reason as in #2 above, I'm expecting Apple to put a lot of focus on Neural Engine and other AI/ML accelerators. Still not sure how they will proceed here, but I suspect that Apple has a lot of plans in this area including morphing Mac OS into an AI power operating system. Just imagine ML performance advancing as fast as Apple advanced its ARM cores.
4. Built in (optional) LTE support. Seems like a no brainer to me, I'm not sure why iPad gets it while the MBA doesn't.
5 Wireless charging. This would make the two port MBA far more usable. Many of us still need ports and this is perhaps the MBA's greatest shortcoming if you want to use if for technical work. For me I have a desktop so I don't expect to do much of that on the MBA but just maybe for field work it could pass if charging had a separate avenue. On the flips side I don't see the battery going dead out in the field during a normal work day. Maybe more user experience is needed here.
I otherwise don't see a need to upgrade the MBA physically. The form factor is great, I don't use the web cam and the new keyboard is far better than the old crap from a couple of years ago. More performance is always great and better heat sinking through the case would do much for that. So any case refactoring would likely be to enable better thermals, not to enable new "design" as that does nothing for the user experience.
In any event M1 based MBA's are game changing as they have promoted Apple to a value leader which is odd on its own.
Here are a few comments after a couple of weeks with an M1 based MBA:
1. I bought the machine due to the idea that it would be a better machine than an iPad for the types of usages that I have in mind for an iPad. Basically an iPad with a keyboard nad an OS that doesn't suck. In this regard the MBA has been a huge success.
2. In many ways I'm not really surprised at performance, if people have taken a serious look at iPad they would have realized that performance would be very good on an ARM based Mac. So all of the noise about performance seems to be a bit artificial to me, we are getting pretty much what one would expect knowing what iPads have been doing.
3. The big surprise is how well Rossetta 2 works. So far that is pretty satisfying as not everything is native yet.
4. Not everything is native but on the other hand we are getting native apps pretty quickly and they are generally pretty impressive.
5. Absolutely silence operation.
As to what I'm expecting from a refactored MBA in 2021:
1. They will get rid of the heat spreader and mount the processor directly to the case so that it functions as a heat sink. This might require redefining what is the bottom of the case is vs the top but a case mounted processor will sink heat to atmosphere quicker and more efficiently. This will lead to better performance in a fanless machine.
2. I don't expect a lot more ARM cores, maybe two if they can get below 5nm but rather improvements to the GPU. An improved GPU would likely serve the needs of a greater range of MBA users than a lot more ARM cores. If there is a place where M1 under delivers it is with respect to GPU performance (yes I know it is good but it should have been better).
3. With the same reason as in #2 above, I'm expecting Apple to put a lot of focus on Neural Engine and other AI/ML accelerators. Still not sure how they will proceed here, but I suspect that Apple has a lot of plans in this area including morphing Mac OS into an AI power operating system. Just imagine ML performance advancing as fast as Apple advanced its ARM cores.
4. Built in (optional) LTE support. Seems like a no brainer to me, I'm not sure why iPad gets it while the MBA doesn't.
5 Wireless charging. This would make the two port MBA far more usable. Many of us still need ports and this is perhaps the MBA's greatest shortcoming if you want to use if for technical work. For me I have a desktop so I don't expect to do much of that on the MBA but just maybe for field work it could pass if charging had a separate avenue. On the flips side I don't see the battery going dead out in the field during a normal work day. Maybe more user experience is needed here.
I otherwise don't see a need to upgrade the MBA physically. The form factor is great, I don't use the web cam and the new keyboard is far better than the old crap from a couple of years ago. More performance is always great and better heat sinking through the case would do much for that. So any case refactoring would likely be to enable better thermals, not to enable new "design" as that does nothing for the user experience.
In any event M1 based MBA's are game changing as they have promoted Apple to a value leader which is odd on its own.
I don't see LTE and wireless charging coming to Mac notebooks, even though I've wanted both. The extra long battery life and advanced that make connecting an iPhone to a Mac tell me that Apple has even less reason to add these features. Many years ago when I had an expensive USB dongle from Verizon to make my Mac connect over cellular I really wanted this to be built-in, but once they made tethering a built-in feature I no longer wanted that extra expense in HW or monthly contract costs.
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Once upon a time, the "Air," really was that, a true marvel that was a radical downsizing in size and weight from previous Apple laptops. But now? Not so much. It's an "air" in name only. It's essentially the same size as a MBP 13" and only a few ounces lighter. The MB 12 was over 3/4 pound lighter than the Air, essentially a laptop as easy to carry as an iPad.
That said, the new Air is such an impressive performer, it forces the MBP 13" into more of a niche corner for those who must have the absolute fastest speeds and support for multiple displays. I'll be curious to see the next iteration which I'm hoping will be the time to upgrade. Not looking for radical redesign--the Ives-era laptop designs were such a master class in merging form and function in as clean a way as possible, they mostly don't become dated. My wish list is for a thin-bezel 14" display, support for WiFi 6e and 5G cellular (would like both but would settle for either one), plus (finally!) a 1080p camera.
I shouldn't have tried to do this from my iPod Touch.
While editing the review, Appleinsider might also clarify the GPU performance paragraph too. Was it a seven or eight core GPU?
In fact, a really good example of two similar applications that took a different approach are Apple's Books app versus Amazon's Kindle reader app. I apologize in advance to my fellow Apple fans, but Amazon's Kindle Reader apps (on macOS and iOS) absolutely blow Apple's apps out of the water. The difference is most apparent on macOS, where Apple's book reader (Preview app) looks like it was a total afterthought, scraping the bottom edge of the bar, while the Kindle Reader app was designed by someone who truly understood the specific kinds of customization that a reader of e-books would want, like changing line spacing, margins, fonts, font size, text and background colors, access to notes, etc. and who was bound and determined to deliver a best-in-class app. It's not even a fair comparison because Apple's book reader is so bad. It's in class by itself because nobody trying to entice people to buy e-books would, in good conscience, put out such a lame app. What makes the Kindle Reader app so good is not just it's much better baseline feature set, but its customizability.
I would love to use the Kindle Reader app on the new M1 MacBook Air.
You should probably check your bias at the door and consider facts before making such wild irrational statements.
[Meanwhile, if they can put this M1 chip (or one of its successors) in something like that 12" chassis (maybe a mm or two thicker to include a scissor keyboard) it could be almost everything the Air is now with little compromise. My wife for one would welcome that, and as few others as there may or may not be like her, she can't be the only one.]
Unless some significantly new technology comes out they will not "fix" the webcam because it's not (currently) possible, without making the display significantly thicker, which would compromise the design in ways that normal people would really prefer they didn't.
Have you noticed the "camera bump" on all the iPhones since the 6 series over 5 years ago - which is still a problem today? They can't fit a decent camera in the iPhone's 8mm thickness without a bump. So how are they going to fit a decent camera in the 2mm thick laptop displays?**
It's a webcam for goodness sake. You're not shooting a feature film with it (while some people are doing so with the iPhone cameras). Why should anyone care if you look a little fuzzier for your zoom meeting than you would with a better camera (that as I say would severely compromise the experience of everything else). Alternatively if it really is that big a deal, enough that the compromises required are less important to you, then get a professional external one.
Ya'll need to get over it.
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** In 10min of googling I can't find any other decent laptop with a webcam better than 720p. Anyone feel free to point me to one if you know of any.
Here's a Reddit post of someone asking for such a laptop, and everyone that responds keeps posting wrong information.
https://www.reddit.com/r/SuggestALaptop/comments/cjrv54/looking_for_2in1_laptop_with_1080p_or_better/
Going by the amount of bleating that goes on around here, I had sort of assumed that every other laptop out there had an 1080p camera. I'm a little shocked to find that this isn't the case.
However, if this working-from-home lark continues after the pandemic, then I think lots more companies will start fitting better cameras (if they can) and laptops prices will rise accordingly.
If people are working from home then there are countless USB connected webcam options on the market with higher specs. I know those have been hard to find due to the pandemic, but supplies should be rebounding by now.