xyzzy01

The 90s called and want their screen vertical refresh rates back... I hope Apple fixes this in their next versions of their laptops. I would have bought an M1 MacBook Air[*] by now if it supported two screens, as one of the customer sites I'm frequently at has that setup.

[*] I like the weight and the lack of fans.  Processing power just isn't an issue these days, if I'm doing something intensive it's in the cloud anyways.

This is just a little push away from looking for pictures of Winnie the Pooh, democracy demonstrations, or even written language patterns that could be critical of the current regime. CSAM should be discarded - if no backhole exists, it's harder to be pressed to expand it.

While China would love to remove democracy from them, it's still an independent island - and after how China has been going on in Hong Kong, they're obviously not going to tempt Taiwan into trying "one country, two systems" as China pretended to allow earlier.

As an Apple customer, it's also good that there are extensive leaks to third party accessory makers so that there is a good selection of e.g. cases, armbands for running etc as soon as possible after launch.

Apple, OTOH, wants to avoid the leaks for multiple reasons. Surprising the customers is one aspect, to get the maximum media impact around launch. Decreasing the time to react for the competition is another reason. Thirdly, the more you can delay third parties making accessories, the more you can charge for a partnership program for selected vendors. Finally, Apple has a different interest than the customers when it comes to selling close-to-being-replaced hardware at full price - they want to sell it, even if it the customer would be better off waiting (weeks or months).

I'm waiting for a new laptop, but don't need one right away. The first thing that comes to mind is that both the MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air need better front facing cameras. Previously, I didn't really care that much... but the last 16 months have been filled with online meetings, and I expect that to continue to be important - hopefully less so, but more than in the past. The cameras are pretty bad, because Apple didn't care either. Hopefully, the last year and a half have given them time to fix that... even though we see that there is some lag, in that many devices just support FaceID and don't include the new Touch ID on the side button. With hardware and a large company, it takes time before a need translates into changes in upcoming products.

I like the idea of going fanless, so MBA is the front runner on that account - I don't use the touchbar much on my current MacBook Pro, and sustained performance isn't that important. But I will have to wait and see for the next gen for a better camera.

Also, with Apple now building their own CPUs I'm also thinking that Q3 is not a good time to buy a laptop, just as that's a bad time to buy a new iPhone.