Apple debuts new MacBook Air with Apple Silicon M1 chip

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  • Reply 41 of 130
    elijahgelijahg Posts: 2,753member
    Beats said:
    That ENDING to the event was hilarious!!

    Underwhelmed overall. These are old Macs with new chips. Was hoping to see new designs, FaceID and an all new App Store.


    elijahg said:
    docno42 said:
    elijahg said:
    I notice the price is the same as before, so rather than dropping the price due to cheaper CPU and increasing accessibility for people, they're just absorbing the extra profit. Great, that's the Cook Way. ߙ䦬t;/div>
    You aren’t buying a collection of parts, your buying functionality.

    If you don’t think the value proposition works for you, don’t buy it.  Frankly I’m surprised they didn’t raise the price - this little thing called inflation means they are already grossing less just from that alone.  

    If you want cheap crap there are plenty of other vendors to choose from out there.  Have at it.   I have no problem paying more for a better experience.
    Yes, all these added bells and whistles are nice, looking better on webcam etc, faster ML, but those things are super niche. Better battery is great, but having 10 hours vs 20 isn't essential. When's the last time you worried about how you look on webcam, or how fast ML is? It's actually less functionality for me at least, as it can't run Windows which I use for parts of my job - And so does Apple. Amusingly, the Mac Pros are running Modelsim, which is a logic analyser. And it's Windows only. I used Windows on my Mac regularly at uni, if I couldn't, I would have got a PC laptop. Same for several of my friends at uni.

    Funny how battery life is what everyone bit*hes about but when Apple fixes it, suddenly no one cares.


    elijahg said:
    I notice the price is the same as before, so rather than dropping the price due to cheaper CPU and increasing accessibility for people, they're just absorbing the extra profit. Great, that's the Cook Way. 🙄

    Can you break down component pricing, manufacturing costs and shipping since you seem to have all the data? Thanks.
    People were bitching about MacBooks with a 10 hour battery life? Please do show me where. 

    Well since the only thing that has changed is the CPU and the removal of the majority of its supporting components, there's not really much need to break down to anything other than the cost of the CPU. Which I have already mentioned in an above post. But I'm sure iFixit or similar will come out with a BOM soon for you.
  • Reply 42 of 130
    XedXed Posts: 2,519member
    elijahg said:

    docno42 said:
    elijahg said:
    Yes, all these added bells and whistles are nice, looking better on webcam etc, faster ML, but those things are super niche. Better battery is great, but having 10 hours vs 20 isn't essential. When's the last time you worried about how you look on webcam, or how fast ML is? It's actually less functionality for me at least, as it can't run Windows which I use for parts of my job - And so does Apple. Amusingly, the Mac Pros are running Modelsim, which is a logic analyser. And it's Windows only. I used Windows on my Mac regularly at uni, if I couldn't, I would have got a PC laptop. Same for several of my friends at uni.
    With that kind of battery life I will no longer care that magsafe is gone.  It’s now irrelevant.  If you need Windows that sucks and these machines aren’t for you (yet).  Luckily I have no such needs for my laptop.  I only care about Windows for gaming and I have a gaming PC for that.  

    Also the Windows story on Apple Silicon hasn’t been completely told yet.  We know Parallels is working on x86 emulation and since Apple owns their CPU design it wouldn’t surprise me if it was going to be beneficial and not complicate things that they have hardware assist for x86 emulation.  I’m not holding my breath, but Apple knows x86 is going to be an issue for Pro’s so I wouldn’t count something like that out.

    It’s WAY early in this transition.  This is the start of a 2 year process, according to Apple.  It will be interesting to see how things play out, that’s for sure.
    Perhaps Apple will release a dual-CPU machine with an Intel CPU and an M1, so we don't have to live with emulation. Emulation is horribly slow without hardware support. Don't know if you ever tried to use Windows on a PPC Mac, but it was excruciatingly slow.
    Um, no. Not going to happen. If you don't want to use Rosetta 2 then you can either wait for your app to be updated (which will happen in record time compared to the transition to Intel) or just use your old Mac. 
    williamlondoncornchiprezwitsronnwatto_cobraRayz2016
  • Reply 43 of 130
    It all looks very impressive. I was hoping for a return of the 12” MacBook, or at least the mooted below a 1kg system. So I’ll hold off in the hope we get one or the other. I’m sure the tech abilities will mean a lighter Air, or similar, at some time. 
    williamlondonwatto_cobra
  • Reply 44 of 130
    elijahgelijahg Posts: 2,753member
    docno42 said:
    elijahg said:
    But either way, nope. Most of the the R&D has already been done in the chips used in iPhones and iPads, did you forget the iPad Air is only $329?
    You aren’t buying component parts.  Your buying a device that delivers an experience.  

    If you wan’t to parse with vendors where you can break things out by component parts, they exist.  With the corresponding user experience as well.  Have at it!  
    Of course, my point was that the $329 Air exists, so the CPU can't be anywhere near as expensive as an Intel one. Unrelated to purchasing component parts.
  • Reply 45 of 130
    docno42docno42 Posts: 3,755member
    elijahg said:
    You're the one with no real world experience, if Macs are such great value why is it a Mac with almost identical specs to a Windows machine is so much more expensive?
    Because enough people see the value of the Mac as more than the raw cost of it’s component parts? The Mac is more than just hardware and “specs” - the value of the Mac for myself and many others is the entire experience - hardware, software, sales, support, etc.  People make fun of the “it just works” but it’s far more true, in my experience, for the Mac than it is any other general purpose computing platform.  That has value.  
     
    That “more” is worth paying extra for many others than just me too, apparently.  Indeed Apple sold every Mac they manufactured, even with new hardware obviously on the way.  Mac sales have been increasing over time with only a few deviations for decades - thats pretty incredible.  

    So there must be something to that “more” that is beyond simple components and specs.  Or are you going to try to argue it’s just blind fanaticism?

    fastasleepwilliamlondoncornchiprmusikantowmwhiterezwitsronnraoulduke42watto_cobra
  • Reply 46 of 130
    docno42docno42 Posts: 3,755member
    customtb said:
    They list one of the differences between Air and Pro as "USB-C power port". What does that mean?

    I suspect power out to charge a device like an iPad if plugged into the laptop.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 47 of 130
    tmaytmay Posts: 6,309member

    I also expected them to support 5G in laptops, but alas. 


    You won't see 5G in Macs until Apple can integrate their own, or Qualcom's, modem into the SoC. That might be as soon as next year or next refresh, but it could be years.
    williamlondonCheeseFreezewatto_cobra
  • Reply 48 of 130
    elijahgelijahg Posts: 2,753member

    Xed said:
    elijahg said:

    docno42 said:
    elijahg said:
    I notice the price is the same as before, so rather than dropping the price due to cheaper CPU and increasing accessibility for people, they're just absorbing the extra profit. Great, that's the Cook Way. ߙ䦬t;/div>
    You aren’t buying a collection of parts, your buying functionality.

    If you don’t think the value proposition works for you, don’t buy it.  Frankly I’m surprised they didn’t raise the price - this little thing called inflation means they are already grossing less just from that alone.  

    If you want cheap crap there are plenty of other vendors to choose from out there.  Have at it.   I have no problem paying for a better experience.  I originally typed out paying more for a better experience, but comparing previous Air to this one you aren’t paying more for a machine that appears to be better in every way.

    Yup - damn those greedy Apple bustards!
    Lol yeah these dudes crack me up, they’re used to lemonade stand economics and that’s about it. No real world experience in product, don’t grasp value propositions, likely have never run a business, etc etc.. Just IT nerds doin what they do best — bitchin’. 
    You're the one with no real world experience, if Macs are such great value why is it a Mac with almost identical specs to a Windows machine is so much more expensive? A Dell XPS is cheaper than a Mac, has the same specs and is cheaper. And surely if "running a business" is a way to know value proposition, every business would be full of Macs, but they aren't. Why do you think that is?
    LOL You can't look at a handful of specs and claim something is the same. There is no T2 in the Dell. There is no Touch ID. Both having an SSD does not make something "the same."
    The T2 and Touch ID add $500 to the cost? The SSD in the Dell is roughly 700MBps, the Intel Macbook is 1500MBps. That's nice, but 700MBps is never going to be a bottleneck.
  • Reply 49 of 130
    dewmedewme Posts: 5,328member
    elijahg said:
    I notice the price is the same as before, so rather than dropping the price due to cheaper CPU and increasing accessibility for people, they're just absorbing the extra profit. Great, that's the Cook Way. ߙ䦬t;/div>
    Insanity. You’re conveniently overlooking years of R&D which you apparently believe falls off trees. Now they have to recoup that. A more capable machine at the same price despite inflation is an appealing value proposition. Out in the real world, where people will snap these up, nobody cares about IT dudes pretending to be CEOs whining about things they don’t understand. 
    Thank you StrangeDays.

    For a minute there I was wondering if I'd missed the part of the presentation where Tim Cook said something to the effect that "I'd like to thank all the marketing folks, product managers, designers, engineers, industrialization, test, and QA folks who volunteered to work for free to bring this product to market." Good to see that other folks saw and heard the same stuff I did and know it's not just about the cost of chips. This little thing called non recurring engineering (NRE) has a huge price tag on it.

    Regarding the M1 MacBook Air - wow, this thing is definitely going to make me think twice about buying another iPad Pro. I've always loved the ergonomics of the MacBook Air and actually prefer the clamshell design for on-lap use. I still have my 2011 MacBook Air 13" in the house and it still serves as the family home office computer.

    I also have a few iPad apps that I really like, like Brushstroke, Snapseed, Dark Sky, myQ, Ring/Rapid Ring, Spectrum TV, Net Analyzer, and OverDrive, for example, that aren't available on the Mac.

    So far, I'm digging what I'm seeing - and the M1 is just the starting point...
    fastasleepchiawilliamlondondocno42randominternetpersonRayz2016ronnMplsProundaboutnowwatto_cobra
  • Reply 50 of 130
    docno42docno42 Posts: 3,755member

    With all the new “guts” inside I was surprised they didn’t update the actually hardware design, especially the MacBooks. Smaller bezels, some design cues from the phone or Mac Pro perhaps? 
    This felt like a moment to introduce a new design. It’s weird they didn’t.

    I dunno - I just want an updated Air.  They delivered.  Actually they exceeded since they also added touch ID.  They have plenty of time to introduce completely new designs.  Then again other than maybe playing with the bezels not sure how much can really be dramatically changed with current notebook designs.  They have been refined for more than 20 years now and I think we are running up against physical constraints for screen size, keyboard size, etc.

    Also, after the original 13” MBP fiasco and the outcry around it coupled with the fact that the MacBook Air is by far their most popular laptop we should not be surprised that they “played it safe” for the first batch of laptop rollouts.   The response to this launch will let them gauge how much of a battle Apple Silicon adoption will be.
    cornchipronnwatto_cobraspock1234
  • Reply 51 of 130
    tmaytmay Posts: 6,309member

    elijahg said:

    docno42 said:
    elijahg said:
    Yes, all these added bells and whistles are nice, looking better on webcam etc, faster ML, but those things are super niche. Better battery is great, but having 10 hours vs 20 isn't essential. When's the last time you worried about how you look on webcam, or how fast ML is? It's actually less functionality for me at least, as it can't run Windows which I use for parts of my job - And so does Apple. Amusingly, the Mac Pros are running Modelsim, which is a logic analyser. And it's Windows only. I used Windows on my Mac regularly at uni, if I couldn't, I would have got a PC laptop. Same for several of my friends at uni.
    With that kind of battery life I will no longer care that magsafe is gone.  It’s now irrelevant.  If you need Windows that sucks and these machines aren’t for you (yet).  Luckily I have no such needs for my laptop.  I only care about Windows for gaming and I have a gaming PC for that.  

    Also the Windows story on Apple Silicon hasn’t been completely told yet.  We know Parallels is working on x86 emulation and since Apple owns their CPU design it wouldn’t surprise me if it was going to be beneficial and not complicate things that they have hardware assist for x86 emulation.  I’m not holding my breath, but Apple knows x86 is going to be an issue for Pro’s so I wouldn’t count something like that out.

    It’s WAY early in this transition.  This is the start of a 2 year process, according to Apple.  It will be interesting to see how things play out, that’s for sure.
    Perhaps Apple will release a dual-CPU machine with an Intel CPU and an M1, so we don't have to live with emulation. Emulation is horribly slow without hardware support. Don't know if you ever tried to use Windows on a PPC Mac, but it was excruciatingly slow.
    You seem adept at making pronouncements with absolutely no information available at all. Maybe you should just bite the bullet and buy a DELL.

    Better yet, perhaps wait patiently until real information becomes available. I'll be prescient and note that it won't be all that long a wait.
    edited November 2020 williamlondonRayz2016rezwitsronnmwhiteroundaboutnowwatto_cobraspock1234jdb8167
  • Reply 52 of 130
    docno42 said:
    customtb said:
    They list one of the differences between Air and Pro as "USB-C power port". What does that mean?

    I suspect power out to charge a device like an iPad if plugged into the laptop.
    Why? You can already do that with current MacBooks.

    I just went thru both product pages and can’t find an explanation.
    edited November 2020 watto_cobraspock1234
  • Reply 53 of 130
    elijahg said:
    docno42 said:
    elijahg said:
    I notice the price is the same as before, so rather than dropping the price due to cheaper CPU and increasing accessibility for people, they're just absorbing the extra profit. Great, that's the Cook Way. ߙ䦬t;/div>
    You aren’t buying a collection of parts, your buying functionality.

    If you don’t think the value proposition works for you, don’t buy it.  Frankly I’m surprised they didn’t raise the price - this little thing called inflation means they are already grossing less just from that alone.  

    If you want cheap crap there are plenty of other vendors to choose from out there.  Have at it.   I have no problem paying more for a better experience.
    Yes, all these added bells and whistles are nice, looking better on webcam etc, faster ML, but those things are super niche. Better battery is great, but having 10 hours vs 20 isn't essential. When's the last time you worried about how you look on webcam, or how fast ML is? It's actually less functionality for me at least, as it can't run Windows which I use for parts of my job - And so does Apple. Amusingly, the Mac Pros are running Modelsim, which is a logic analyser. And it's Windows only. I used Windows on my Mac regularly at uni, if I couldn't, I would have got a PC laptop. Same for several of my friends at uni.
    More people use their webcams than use Windows on their Macs by a huge margin. It is you who are super niche.
    fastasleepwilliamlondondocno42cornchipronnroundaboutnowwatto_cobraspock1234
  • Reply 54 of 130
    docno42docno42 Posts: 3,755member

    elijahg said:
    Perhaps Apple will release a dual-CPU machine with an Intel CPU and an M1, so we don't have to live with emulation. Emulation is horribly slow without hardware support. Don't know if you ever tried to use Windows on a PPC Mac, but it was excruciatingly slow.
    Windows was a hot mess period in those days but yes, software emulation on PowerPC didn’t help back then either.

    However this is no longer the 90’s/early 2000’s.  Apple has complete control over the instruction set in their chips so they could be working with parallels and if there are one or two areas that would dramatically help emulation they could do that.  

    I guess another way to put it - just because it sucked a couple of decades ago I wouldn’t automatically assume it will suck just as bad now.  It may - but if Apple didn’t care about it they wouldn’t have had Parallels on stage during WWDC - anything presented on stage is a pretty deliberate decision since stage time is a finite quantity.  
    fastasleeprezwitsronnraoulduke42roundaboutnowwatto_cobraspock1234
  • Reply 55 of 130
    The only disappointment to me is the maximum RAM is only 16GB and to me that should be the base amount of RAM.
    My 6 year old MBP has 32GB RAM so I won’t be upgarding it yet. Sigh.
    williamlondonNaiyasasdasd
  • Reply 56 of 130
    elijahg said:
    docno42 said:
    elijahg said:
    I notice the price is the same as before, so rather than dropping the price due to cheaper CPU and increasing accessibility for people, they're just absorbing the extra profit. Great, that's the Cook Way. ߙ䦬t;/div>
    You aren’t buying a collection of parts, your buying functionality.

    If you don’t think the value proposition works for you, don’t buy it.  Frankly I’m surprised they didn’t raise the price - this little thing called inflation means they are already grossing less just from that alone.  

    If you want cheap crap there are plenty of other vendors to choose from out there.  Have at it.   I have no problem paying more for a better experience.
    Yes, all these added bells and whistles are nice, looking better on webcam etc, faster ML, but those things are super niche. Better battery is great, but having 10 hours vs 20 isn't essential. When's the last time you worried about how you look on webcam, or how fast ML is? It's actually less functionality for me at least, as it can't run Windows which I use for parts of my job - And so does Apple. Amusingly, the Mac Pros are running Modelsim, which is a logic analyser. And it's Windows only. I used Windows on my Mac regularly at uni, if I couldn't, I would have got a PC laptop. Same for several of my friends at uni.
    Seriously? I think it's time to take a hard look at your university. Most any university these days has platform agnostic web apps and integrations. If yours doesn't, I certainly hope they aren't offering any tech related classes, because they are stuck in the 2008-2010 era. get out ASAP and find a university that is a much better use of your (or your parents', or government taxpayers') hard earned dollars. In 2020, any university that has a learning system locked to a singular platform is a relic. 
    edited November 2020 fastasleepwilliamlondondocno42cornchiprezwitsronnroundaboutnowwatto_cobraspock1234jdb8167
  • Reply 57 of 130
    Rayz2016Rayz2016 Posts: 6,957member
    Disappointed by the no design refresh. iPad Pro style thin bezel screens and Face ID should have been included in the new MacBooks. Every other PC manufacturer is now making top line notebooks with modern edge to edge screen designs and Apple is still shipping a machine that looks almost identical to what they first released in 2015. Face ID is the most baffling thing of all. The Mac is the best suited platform to unlock the power of Face ID and it’s the only platform where it’s not available. 

    Yeah, that's a tricky one. The thing is that Apple is selling transition: they do not want existing sales to dry up; they do not want folk to start waiting three years until the whole line has moved across. Keeping the case the same is a psychological trick for the vast majority of Apple's customers who are concerned with platform stability more than anything else. They're going to tread slowly and cautiously. This is the biggest change to the Mac since the Intel switch. See what the reaction is to the new machines, and feed that into the design of the next generation. 

    I'd like to see new cases, but I understand why they might wait for that.

    I wasn't expecting FaceID because there are an awful lot of folk who plug their laptops into monitors. I do that and even using TouchID is a a bit of a pain; FaceID would be worse. The other thing about FaceID is that it can be a bit fussy about angles. 
    williamlondondocno42ronnheadfull0winewatto_cobra
  • Reply 58 of 130
    mjtomlinmjtomlin Posts: 2,673member
    aderutter said:
    The only disappointment to me is the maximum RAM is only 16GB and to me that should be the base amount of RAM.
    My 6 year old MBP has 32GB RAM so I won’t be upgarding it yet. Sigh.

    I'm thinking that's a limitation of this first generation M1 SoC. Next generation (or maybe even M1X) might allow for off board memory expansion. 

    "Pro" version (M1X) may allow for off board memory expansion. This would be for the 16" MacBook Pro and possibly a second more powerful option for the mini.
    watto_cobraspock1234
  • Reply 59 of 130
    Rayz2016Rayz2016 Posts: 6,957member
    elijahg said:
    elijahg said:
    I notice the price is the same as before, so rather than dropping the price due to cheaper CPU and increasing accessibility for people, they're just absorbing the extra profit. Great, that's the Cook Way. ߙ䦬t;/div>
    Insanity. You’re conveniently overlooking years of R&D which you apparently believe falls off trees. Now they have to recoup that. A more capable machine at the same price despite inflation is an appealing value proposition. Out in the real world, where people will snap these up, nobody cares about IT dudes pretending to be CEOs whining about things they don’t understand. 
    My friend, Apple could release a poo emoji for $599 and you'd say it's the most amazing and unique product in the universe. 

    But either way, nope. Most of the the R&D has already been done in the chips used in iPhones and iPads, did you forget the iPad Air is only $329? Do you somehow think the M1 is entirely unique? If it was, then yes absolutely the cost is justified. But it's not, it's a reconfigured A14. And as I said, I'm not so sure they will without Windows support as a fallback. I know several people who won't get one because it can no longer run Windows. Indeed the school I worked at has Macs at the moment because they can use Windows programs in Boot Camp, but without it they'll go back to PCs.
    And we wish them all well.

    When they announced the switch, I wondered why they'd decided that now was the time. Then Cook mentioned that only 2% of Mac users actually use Bootcamp. So, yup; now's the time. Did you really think they'd pass up the chance to unify the entire product line on a common architecture, for 2% of the user base? 

    Still, your old Macs won't stop working, and when you're ready, just move to a PC.

    Don't really see the problem here.
    docno42jony0tmayrezwitsronnraoulduke42roundaboutnowwatto_cobraspock1234
  • Reply 60 of 130
    Disappointed by the no design refresh. iPad Pro style thin bezel screens and Face ID should have been included in the new MacBooks. Every other PC manufacturer is now making top line notebooks with modern edge to edge screen designs and Apple is still shipping a machine that looks almost identical to what they first released in 2015. Face ID is the most baffling thing of all. The Mac is the best suited platform to unlock the power of Face ID and it’s the only platform where it’s not available. 
    Honestly, I think everyone who has not recently. bought a Mac would have loved to see a design refresh. However, it seems. to be the wise move with the optics of - "hey, these are the same Macs you have always loved" type of thinking. Anything else would have made recent customers feel shorted. As smooth as Apple makes it appear, this is a rather tricky transition. 

    Also, we can expect the more impactful, game changing differences to show up on the Pro lineup (not to say that the budget line isn't already shaking up that respective category - it certainly is). This is the "budget" section that Apple has just revealed.  The. 16" MacBook Pro is currently a beast of a machine and could hold for a bit. The. iMac likewise. But the iMac and 16" MBP seem to be good candidates for M (or P?) series AND a hardware aesthetic (with form following function, of course) redesign. Personally, I would expect them by Spring '21. 

    I don't expect two years to go by from today until we see an M series (or P series) Mac Pro. We will likely see that machine by Winter '21 / Spring '22. 

    Apple sure looks great when they beat their own guidance, eh?
    docno42watto_cobra
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