Flip Flopping between macOS and Windows

[The point and shoot pro]

I don't find my Dell 2 in 1 lagging in speed at all. It's a little slow doing 4k encoding, but for the most part it's no different than an M mac in the work I do on it. Definitely not worth the money to buy a new macbook. I I have a nice 10th gen intel desktop with my dell xps 8940 which just rips through my creative works I do. My wife and son both have dell notebooks now of older generations and they work fine as well. Both snunk in under the 11 rules so they are both running windows 11 with no issues whatsoever.

As for android, it's the same as apple. Apple just hides the fact they take the same amount of data from it's users under the cloak of "security". The fact we cannot see what's being done is reason enough to doubt their claims. At least with android, you KNOW whats being used.

 

[LiE_]

WWDC only introduced 1 feature that would have made my usage better, Safair profiles. That means I wouldn't have to run 2 browsers to have that separation between personal and work.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

I don't find my Dell 2 in 1 lagging in speed at all. It's a little slow doing 4k encoding, but for the most part it's no different than an M mac in the work I do on it. Definitely not worth the money to buy a new macbook. I I have a nice 10th gen intel desktop with my dell xps 8940 which just rips through my creative works I do. My wife and son both have dell notebooks now of older generations and they work fine as well. Both snunk in under the 11 rules so they are both running windows 11 with no issues whatsoever.

As for android, it's the same as apple. Apple just hides the fact they take the same amount of data from it's users under the cloak of "security". The fact we cannot see what's being done is reason enough to doubt their claims. At least with android, you KNOW whats being used.

That’s fine, but that isn’t what they say. One has e2ee, one does not. And says they will not because they don’t get your sweet, sweet data. Guess which one is which. Again, I don’t trust Apple either, but equating the two based on what their legal departments make them say isn’t right either. They are not the same. Again one has e2ee (if you jump through the hoops) and one does not and will not.

 

[LeeW]

I just go with whatever works for me at the time. Right now that is a PC for games, M2 Mac Mini for everything else and got a 12.9 iPad for mobility.

It's tough and depends on the use case. For me, it would be easier and cheaper overall to just have a PC and the M2 MBA. But I like the Mac Mini as a desktop, less complicated. It then makes no sense to have a laptop as that's just managing 2 macOS devices and trying to keep them both in the same sync which is not convenient.

The iPad allows me to do everything I need on the move but still allows me to remotely manage servers and write code. For all the basic things it's easier and faster on an iPad than on a laptop. I got an M1 12.9" for £849 at the Refurb store which is not the worst price for the size of the device with M1. The iPad today is simply a good companion to a Mac device.

And of course, with a Mac, iPad and iPhone, Watch and IPP everything is perfectly in sync. I use iCloud+ for email which is a £180 pa saving vs what I was using (Google for workspace).

As critical as I am about Apple I can't really fault their current devices for my needs. But, if they pissed me off enough or money was an issue I would not hesitate to drop them and go to a PC, Pixel, Samsung Tablet and a different smartwatch.

Apple provides me with a greater level of integration and convenience that suits me today. I have plenty of options for tomorrow if needed.

 

[solq]

I still feel this way, but the strength of my conviction ebbs and flows.

I'd upgrade that 2015 MBP. I had one too and replaced it with an M1 MBA awhile back. You'll be blown away by the speed and battery life. The newer M2 machines are just that much better. I worried about a lack of ports too, but in practice it's been a non-issue (just had to buy a USB-C SD reader). And the new Airs have Magsafe, so that frees up an additional USB-C port while charging.

I’m in no rush, when I got the 15” MB Pro it was the fastest possible CPU and the most memory I could buy. It was more than $4k if I remember correctly, and it’s still fast. I’m not worried about battery life because I use it virtually only plugged in, I just use it in different locations.

I did try the new ones, just for normal tasks there’s no perceptual speed difference. The new screens are brighter and the keyboards are a bit better, but also the new Pros are thick and not quite as sexy as my old one, if I may say so. To me, they messed up the design a little.

I dread running stuff in emulation mode, I hate incompatibility problems, I do multi-platform development and I don’t know if the tools I use are all ready and working on the Apple silicon. To be honest I’m rather tempted to spend the minimal amount of cash on a Mini or something like that, if I need to do any Apple development from now on.

The new Airs have all the ports on the same side as the MagSafe and this is a silly choice. My SD adapter is quite wide and doesn’t fit with the MagSafe charging cable. Like I said, I personally expected another port on the other side, for the 15”. Disappointing!

I’ll have a look at the Samsung Book3 Ultra, I just think Apple made a mistake going with their own silicon.

 

[LeeW]

I just think Apple made a mistake going with their own silicon.

Disagree based on the performance I see vs every prior Intel Mac device I have owned, that's a lot. Even having to use R2 a lot, the experience is still far better. None of the devices are heat demons, less to no throttling and so on.

Still early days but very good so far.

 

[The point and shoot pro]

Disagree based on the performance I see vs every prior Intel Mac device I have owned, that's a lot. Even having to use R2 a lot, the experience is still far better. None of the devices are heat demons, less to no throttling and so on.

Still early days but very good so far.

Don't kid yourself Lee, M series throttle. Especially the air systems. They still need fans contrary to popular belief.

 

[LeeW]

Don't kid yourself Lee, M series throttle. Especially the air systems. They still need fans contrary to popular belief.

Indeed, I did say less to no throttling. I can assure you under standard load the MBA does not throttle, the efficiency cores work well for the purpose. There is some throttling once it really ramps up but, I can play WoW on my wife's M1 MBA, it throttles, but it barely gets warm and the performance loss is really not noticeable. But it's not really for gaming.

Even the last Intel Mac Mini that had good cooling made no difference, it hit 100C within minutes and performance loss was at 20% in no time and it got worse. The M1 MBA at worst loses 15% under sustained load and still barely gets warm.

Massive improvement. But the fanless MBA is not designed to be a workhorse. It manages just fine without a fan under normal conditions but can still ramp up just fine.

Could they benefit from a fan? Sure. Do they need a fan? No.

 

[bobcomer]

Indeed, I did say less to no throttling. I can assure you under standard load the MBA does not throttle, the efficiency cores work well for the purpose. There is some throttling once it really ramps up but, I can play WoW on my wife's M1 MBA, it throttles, but it barely gets warm and the performance loss is really not noticeable. But it's not really for gaming.

I can assure you that an M1 MBA, 16G RAM, 1TB SSD, throttled HEAVILY on my standard workload. SO much so I used it for a month, the put it on the shelf to be traded in on a Studio Max later on. It got even quite hot to the touch over the CPU area (top of keyboard, middle) And no, it wasn't for gaming, just normal IT work with a VM or two.

Could they benefit from a fan? Sure. Do they need a fan? No.

I sure could have used a fan in it!!

 

[Romain_H]

I can assure you that an M1 MBA, 16G RAM, 1TB SSD, throttled HEAVILY on my standard workload. SO much so I used it for a month, the put it on the shelf to be traded in on a Studio Max later on. It got even quite hot to the touch over the CPU area (top of keyboard, middle) And no, it wasn't for gaming, just normal IT work with a VM or two.

Strange. On my MBA M2 nothing of the sort happens

 

[LeeW]

I can assure you that an M1 MBA, 16G RAM, 1TB SSD, throttled HEAVILY on my standard workload.

That's the one I had, then I also had the M2 version. All I can say is that was not my experience, far from it. Same for others I know and we all tested it pretty hard. Does it lose performance? Sure. Noticeably so, no. Same for every test I have seen so not sure what your sensitivities were.

I am no Apple Sheep, I will criticize where it is needed. I have yet to see a review that saw it throttle above 15% under sustained load over a period of 10 minutes. That's not what the device is for though.

 

[Romain_H]

I am no Apple Sheep, I will criticize where it is needed.

Yeah, same here

 

[The point and shoot pro]

That's the one I had, then I also had the M2 version. All I can say is that was not my experience, far from it. Same for others I know and we all tested it pretty hard. Does it lose performance? Sure. Noticeably so, no. Same for every test I have seen so not sure what your sensitivities were.

I am no Apple Sheep, I will criticize where it is needed. I have yet to see a review that saw it throttle above 15% under sustained load over a period of 10 minutes. That's not what the device is for though.

Even editing 4k on my dell, I have not seen any throttling. The fans spun up, but never slowed down. Now, i do have my notebook repasted with notcua NH-T2 paste (made a good amount of difference). I have seen some systems, mostly AMD based units throttle WAY more than the intel systems I owned of similar vintage.

 

[LeeW]

Even editing 4k on my dell, I have not seen any throttling.

I wouldn't expect it to if it has decent thermals. The MBP does not throttle, well barely, again push it hard enough, sustain the max load for 20 mins+ and you will get a little but nothing noticeable. In fact, many extreme tests I have seen resulted in no throttling at all.

The MBA is designed to be fanless to keep it thin and light. It's an everyday device for the masses. If you know you are going to be editing videos, regular compiling and so on, you know a fanless device isn't for you, unless you don't mind the extra wait time.

Anyone who thinks a MBA won't throttle, I can't help them

 

[TheOtherAndy]

Disagree based on the performance I see vs every prior Intel Mac device I have owned, that's a lot. Even having to use R2 a lot, the experience is still far better. None of the devices are heat demons, less to no throttling and so on.

Still early days but very good so far.

I will just add my voice to this as someone who has purchased far too many Macs in his flip-flopping adventure: my M1 Mini provides the best MacOS experience I've ever had. Things are simply much snappier, and the thing has never made a peep.

I wish my copy of CS6 still worked, but that wasn't an M1 issue that was 32-bit issue so that's neither here nor there.

 

[bobcomer]

Strange. On my MBA M2 nothing of the sort happens

What's so odd about it? We all have different workloads and ways of working. The air didn't fit mine and I was stupid to try it.

 

[bobcomer]

That's the one I had, then I also had the M2 version. All I can say is that was not my experience, far from it. Same for others I know and we all tested it pretty hard. Does it lose performance? Sure. Noticeably so, no. Same for every test I have seen so not sure what your sensitivities were.

I am no Apple Sheep, I will criticize where it is needed. I have yet to see a review that saw it throttle above 15% under sustained load over a period of 10 minutes. That's not what the device is for though.

Our experience is quite different!

 

[LeeW]

Our experience is quite different!

Absolutely, not trying to suggest what you experienced is wrong. Just not the norm.

We all have different workloads and ways of working. The air didn't fit mine and I was stupid to try it.

That seems to be the issue, your standard workflow wasn't suitable for the fanless MBA.

 

[The point and shoot pro]

Absolutely, not trying to suggest what you experienced is wrong. Just not the norm.



That seems to be the issue, your standard workflow wasn't suitable for the fanless MBA.

That's why I never bought it after as well. I wanted that midnight macbook SOOO bad. Love the hardware, but it would not work with my workflow.

 

[LeeW]

Expectations were set high with the MBA based on early feedback and rightly so. It remains a stunning device with huge performance improvements. For the cohort it's aimed at there is nothing better in terms of battery life and performance in that type of setup.

The M1 MBA is the sweet spot, Apple did such a good job that they will find people will be slow to upgrade due to it being so good. The M2 has a bit higher chance to throttle if pushed than the M1, not surprising.

That said, there will be a tipping point in the future when not having a fan is going to be an issue as the CPU/GPU gets more powerful. How will they handle that? Just let it throttle, restrict it in another way, totally different CPU? Time will tell.

 

[The point and shoot pro]

Expectations were set high with the MBA based on early feedback and rightly so. It remains a stunning device with huge performance improvements. For the cohort it's aimed at there is nothing better in terms of battery life and performance in that type of setup.

The M1 MBA is the sweet spot, Apple did such a good job that they will find people will be slow to upgrade due to it being so good. The M2 has a bit higher chance to throttle if pushed than the M1, not surprising.

That said, there will be a tipping point in the future when not having a fan is going to be an issue as the CPU/GPU gets more powerful. How will they handle that? Just let it throttle, restrict it in another way, totally different CPU? Time will tell.

Apple will FORCE them to upgrade. That's what apple does. Cut software support quickly. "Your" M1 macbook will be a paperweight in 6 years from when they were announced.

 

[LeeW]

Apple will FORCE them to upgrade. That's what apple does. Cut software support quickly. "Your" M1 macbook will be a paperweight in 6 years from when they were announced.

Apple support cycles are no different today than they were yesterday. Countless threads on here with people continuing to run their devices for 10 years and don't seem to have any issues other than not getting the latest OS. Many can if they want to put the effort in.

There will already be a thread somewhere about getting Sonoma running on unsupported Macs.

Edit - there it is.

macOS 14 Sonoma on Unsupported Macs Thread

This thread will be dedicated to the discussion of running macOS 14.0 on unsupported Macs. At the time of writing, we are waiting for Apple to send out macOS 14 Developer Beta 1. It is currently unknown whether or not Apple will release a publicly-downloadable InstallAssistant. We will be...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[The point and shoot pro]

Not my experience with my macbook. so YMMV. Getting it running on unsupported devices is very different than apple supporting them.

 

[LeeW]

Always about choices, use mac or don’t.

 

[The point and shoot pro]

Always about choices, use mac or don’t.

Yep. exactly. I just think that apple are very heavy handed with their "upgrade" schedule. Microsoft HAD to do this time around for security purposes and the older chips do not have the proper security in them. After that is done, you will be able to run windows for many many versions on that hardware. Just like my 2007 acer is running current version (which is still supported until 2025) windows 10. That's what I am talking about. I would be more inclined to use mac if they were not on a roughly 5 year cycle from apple.