Apple Says New MacBook Air Up to 23x Faster Than Intel-Based Model, But Read the Fine Print

[McG2k1]

I just feel like citing any kind of ai upscaling or frame interpolation is a major red flag signaling no real tangible performance increase. At least not one warranting a generation to generation upgrade. Macs and iPhones and innovates themselves into such minor upgrades that I feel like a 4-6 gap between systems is no biggie. nVidia cards have stooped to this status too.

 

[now i see it]

but is Safari snappier?

 

[UltimateSyn]

I just want it compared to my 2021 16” M1 Max MacBook Pro.
I’m tired of lugging around this monster, she’s too heavy.

You may be in for a treat next year: https://www.macrumors.com/2025/02/11/oled-macbook-pro-thinner-design-2026/

 

[JamesMay82]

I use to be obsessed with boot up times more than anything.. think my 2008 was close to a minute, 2014 with SSD and as like 30 and new ones are 15 seconds I think?

 

[Macalway]

They need to stop with that. That's bad advertising, and somehow they let that get through.

Funny.

I mean, the line-up of jokes in this thread will make your head spin.

 

[Fuzzball84]

Are you using an Intel Mac, or are you making this up?

I usually keep about a hundred Safari tabs open, sometimes several hundreds of them, and never had any issues in any of my M-series Macs.

On the other hand, this may be because my devices are usually loaded with RAM.

Why would anyone have hundreds of tabs open???

Surely that’s quite a unique situation. Would you not want to refresh them in any case?

 

[Love-hate 🍏 relationship]

comparing it to a 6yo chip is peak dishonesty

 

[Macalway]

comparing it to a 6yo chip is peak dishonesty

Ya know, it is kinda. It's bad advertising that borders on deception, it's so inept.

It's such a joke. Evyone know's it's a minuscule upgrade from the last one, so what do they do? They go back to discontinued models for some real fun. Someone must have said "Find something to make it look good".

Yup.

 

[KPOM]

Yup you guys are right... 23x more might not be realistic in most cases... And we might have the same problem with the M4 against M1 since they are comparing the 32gb of ram against a 16gb... not the base models.

Though 16GB vs 8GB would also make a difference, so even the base models should have substantial gains.

 

[The_Martini_Cat]

So I went to SuperResolution menu choice (this was the 24x speedup function) in Pixelmator Pro and ran it on an olde photo I had been working with. Almost instantly it eliminated the pixels (and also turned an 11MB file into a 176.9 MB file 🍸🙀). It couldn't really invent the more detail that I sort of wanted, so the perceptual change was not much (unless zoomed in). Oh well. M4Max MBP, so not comparable except same generation.

 

[KPOM]

Ya know, it is kinda. It's bad advertising that borders on deception, it's so inept.

It's such a joke. Evyone know's it's a minuscule upgrade from the last one, so what do they do? They go back to discontinued models for some real fun. Someone must have said "Find something to make it look good".

Yup.

The jump from M3 to M4 is bigger than most of the jumps during the Intel era. But comparing to older chips is fine, since most Air buyers don’t upgrade more often then every 4-5 years. Apple isn’t targeting those who bought the M3 model last year. They are targeting those still on Intel Macs or the M1.

 

[TechGuy327]

Also, it's 860,000x faster than iBook



View attachment 2489140

I wanted that when I was younger and couldn’t afford it now that the MBAir comes in blue I can finally fulfill my dream! YAY!

 

[seek3r]

Why would anyone have hundreds of tabs open???

Surely that’s quite a unique situation. Would you not want to refresh them in any case?

You don't know many software engineers, writers, teachers, or scientists, eh?

 

[awshucks]

Yikes, I better upgrade fast, I'm starting to fall behind.

One of the funniest comments I’ve ever seen on MR 🫡

And I just ordered a PowerBook G4 12”. Thanks for nothing Apple for making my recently purchased machine feel obsolete!

 

[Fuzzball84]

You don't know many software engineers, writers, teachers, or scientists, eh?

I am a scientist. 😂

Why would you keep so many tabs open, when you can save bookmarks, favorites, links??

That’s just bizarre

I think most people keep up to 5 to 10 open

If you’re researching or working in a project maybe 10 to 30.

But keeping hundreds open, you’re a tab enthusiast or hoarder.

 

[Macalway]

The jump from M3 to M4 is bigger than most of the jumps during the Intel era. But comparing to older chips is fine, since most Air buyers don’t upgrade more often then every 4-5 years. Apple isn’t targeting those who bought the M3 model last year. They are targeting those still on Intel Macs or the M1.

Yeah you are right, I'm wrong. What I forget is that not everyone is a tech junkie like myself. Bless them.

I usually don't make errors like this, but there you go...

 

[bigglow]

Would anyone have data on how many PowerPC and Intel Macs are being used on the Internet in March 2025 relative to Macs with Apple Silicon chips?

 

[Fuzzball84]

Ya know, it is kinda. It's bad advertising that borders on deception, it's so inept.

It's such a joke. Evyone know's it's a minuscule upgrade from the last one, so what do they do? They go back to discontinued models for some real fun. Someone must have said "Find something to make it look good".

Yup.

This has been happening a lot for a while now. It is very naughty of Apple.

Another is rounding differently. Like 11 inch instead of 10.9 inch

 

[Astuces iOS]

Though 16GB vs 8GB would also make a difference, so even the base models should have substantial gains.

I agree but less than 32GB vs 16 since the 32GB includes a 10 cores GPU also… +

 

[newtestleper]

I just want it compared to my 2021 16” M1 Max MacBook Pro.
I’m tired of lugging around this monster, she’s too heavy.

Was it light when you purchased it?

 

[baconcat_8964]

That comparision makes M1 Air really impressive. 60% - 80% of M4 Air's performance, but with around 60% of M4 Air's price.

 

[Reason077]

I usually keep about a hundred Safari tabs open, sometimes several hundreds of them, and never had any issues in any of my M-series Macs.

On my 8GB M1 MacBook Air it does start to churn a bit when you hit a few dozen tabs... need to stay disciplined about closing old tabs. I sometimes wish desktop Safari had a "close inactive tabs after 24 hours" feature like iOS Safari!

 

[CarlJ]

Very niche, specific task to achieve a mind-blowing 23x-faster marketing claim.

To be fair, when I hear "up to 23x faster", I don't think, "wow, I guess it'll be 23x faster at most things", I expect that's the very best case, and it portends considerable, but lesser, improvements at other tasks, which seems to be borne out.

 

[SoyMaxV]

We still have a couple of those in our fleet at work, and just booting the damn thing is painful. I'd submit them as the worst Mac Apple's made in the last 25 years.

I'd say the 2016/2017 Macbook Pros were even worse. Those are terrible in every sense. The keyboard is absolute crap (Apple doesn't even replace it anymore), the touchbar freezes randomly and the only one I've got left suddenly went into a bootloop out of nowhere and is still stuck there 😅

 

[CarlJ]

I think most people keep up to 5 to 10 open

Repeat along with the rest of the class: "my use case is not everyone else's use case".

I'd venture a guess that what you think is wildly off. Nobody I know has only 5 to 10 tabs open.