charlesn

hexclock said:

It seems this was an easily avoidable mistake. Did they not test these models, or did they just say “good enough” and shove them out the door? 

Funny how so-called "mistakes" are always "easily avoidable" as determined by those on the sidelines with no knowledge of what was actually going on. When the M2 Air first dropped in 2022, it had been and still was a time of severe supply chain issues and chip shortages as a result. This affected many industries. We won't ever know for sure, but it was widely speculated that Apple couldn't secure enough of the 128GB chips... or couldn't secure enough of them at the right price... so it switched to a single 256GB chip for the Air's base model SSD. This was a perfectly reasonable and sane explanation, but of course the technosphere pitchforks and torches crowd would have none of it, preferring to castigate Apple for its wanton greed, blah, blah, blah. Well, here we are in 2024, with the supply chain fixed and parts shortages no longer a thing and... wouldn't you know it!... the 128GB chips are back. What a coincidence! 

I had been using my 2TB Time Capsule in exactly this way for a while. But then it started getting glitchy, with the backup file getting corrupted maybe once a month, and I'd have to start again with a clean backup which took a while. I figured the hard disk might be on its way out, so decided very reluctantly that it was time to give up my venerable Time Capsule for something more reliable... and that turned out to be a great decision. After researching possible solutions, I plugged a 4TB Samsung T7 SSD into the USB 3.2 port of my Asus router, and it works like a charm with Time Machine. (Just be sure to configure your Asus router settings to recognize the disc for Time Machine backups.) I now have more space plus faster and reliable backups to a device that doesn't require a separate power supply and is a tiny fraction of the size of Time Capsule. 

"Big" improvement over M2? Even Apple marketing isn't trying to make that claim, focusing instead on comparisons with Intel chips and M1. For the sake of argument, let's say the 20% bump in bench testing is accurate... what does that translate to in real world tasks? Is it even 10%? And considering that the vast majority of real world tasks are now handled instantly, how much does a 10% improvement on "instantly" matter? Possibly, professionals who work in processor-intensive tasks that do take time on a daily basis--video editing comes to mind--would benefit if everything was 10% faster. But those people are probably buying Macbook Pros or desktop machines. 

And look, I get it: what was Apple going to do, NOT upgrade the MBAs to M3? Obviously, this needed to happen, if for no reason other than marketing purposes. But this is Apple's conundrum across product lines, except at the pro level: the hardware is already beyond what the vast majority of people will ever demand of it. Apple now needs new and compelling capabilities that require new hardware to drive the rationale for upgrading Apple products. We all know that the M4, M5, M-etc. chips are coming in a year, two, three, whatever. Do you care? Tell me what those machines will be able to DO that my current machines can't and you'll have my attention. 

The King is dead! Long live the King! Lost in the above news is that the venerable wedge-shaped Macbook Air has been dropped from the product line, just a little more than 16 years after Steve pulled it from an envelope. What an unbelievable, precedent-setting run of success that will likely never be equaled. I hope AI will devote an upcoming article to the history of this incredible laptop.  

Well, I see late stage capitalism continues apace. There are more releases of $349 Hermes bands--13 new ones just for spring!--than there are for regular Apple bands. But I dunno--maybe when a wrist-sized ring of knitted, stretchy fabric costs $99, the Hermes leather bands ain't such a bad deal after all, lol.