Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
iFixit Tears Down M2 MacBook Air, Finds Accelerometer and Adhesive Pull Tabs for Battery
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Part of me wonders if they’re AAPL stock shorters. You see this kind of behaviour on the investment boards all the time. People make the poor life choice to short the most successful company in the world and then try their darnedest to convince a small handful of people the sky is falling, as if their measly posts could have any influence on the direction the stock goes.
More and more people get in over their heads with options trading every day, it’s just so easy to get started with no understanding of what you’re doing. I might be grasping at straws here but I wonder if the increase in trolling here has any correlation to the increase in AAPL shorts losing their shirts.
In my experience, they sound about the same.
Maybe the M2 are slightly better.
In terms of loudness or whatever they seem to get just about as loud as each other. I’m not gonna use a decibel measure to see that M1 gets 80db and M1 gets 81db, that’s insane.
If you’re going to absolutely be blasting music as loud as possible through your MacBook Air speakers, either way it’s going to sound horrible because they are laptop speakers.
put on some headphones, connect some HomePods, no one wants to hear your laptop speakers.
In the same way that no one wants to hear music blasting from your iPhone speakers
Apple uses graphite tape with Gore thermal insulation (the thick black adhesive) to prevent the bottom chassis from getting too hot. I think we can see why the throttling is up to around -25% performance.
GORE® Thermal Insulation for Mobile Devices
Meet growing thermal management challenges in mobile electronic devices using GORE® thermal insulation. Learn more about Gore thermal solutions.www.gore.com
Which is the best solution. Having the potential for fan noise and getting a hot exterior is so much worse. Reducing performance is a fantastic way to reduce heat and I wish all laptop manufacturers did the same for all their models.
THEN BUY AN M1!!!
You’re absolutely correct. The M1 machines are amazing. So buy one.
And I’m sure a year from now when the M2 machines are heavily discounted, and the M3 machines are being torn apart in these forums for who knows what, you can go on about how “the M2 Air is such a good value.”
Please don't tell the readers that the US version has one less key than the non-US version.
Yes, we in Europe get 1,28% more keys.
It depends on what you require for a cooling solution.
My requirement are:
- No noise (so no fan)
- No warm exterior
- Very little additional weight
The MacBook Air exists to be a lightweight computer which makes no fan noise. Performance shouldn't be prioritised at all and certainly not sustained performance.
Heat sinks adds weight and the MacBook Air is already too heavy.
Apple doesn't mention any names at all.
But the most important thing, Apple isn't doing anything on forums dedicated to Microsoft and Intel.
Some commenters here seems so angry at Apple that it would, for their own mental health, seem best that they stopped using Apple products and services.
To me a lot of commenters here shows dysfunctional behaviour.
Here are some quotes from your recent posts:
“There is absolutely ZERO reason why the alerts should be at a different volume than the current setting. This needs to be fixed immediately. It's at the same level of stupidity as the airlines raising the volume on the "safety announcements", the movie theaters attacking your eardrums with.”
“So you get double-screwed by Apple hardware. First, you can't upgrade the storage yourself because....because....well, because Apple deliberately chose to have a proprietary SSD instead of a standard one. Second, they deliberately cut corners--while at the same time increasing the price by $200…”
“This is completely ridiculous. Another nail in the coffin of the App Store concept.”
“The idea that software that runs on a device YOU OWN must be approved by Apple has to die.”
“The Mac may be in a better state than it was 5 years ago, but there is still nothing that looks attractive to me in their lineup. The Studio in particular is so disappointing: not expandable (modular, my ass!), not service-friendly, way overpriced.“
“Completely wrong direction [about Apple doing more business with China]. Apple needs to de-extricate from China, diversify its manufacturing base, slowly get out of it, and only SELL the Chinese products at a high profit margin.”
And not directed at Apple: "Anyone with minimal intelligence is very anti-Republican."
You don't seem to be very friendly towards Apple and its products and services.
I wanted so badly to use that machine but it had too many compromises. But now that they have the right processor to put in it and are using real keyboards again, it could be perfect. MagSafe for charging, one or two USB-C ports -- the perfect little ultraportable laptop.
I miss the little button on the bottom that lit up a series of LEDs to show how charged your battery was without opening up the machine. Essential? No, but really just a nice little amenity.
“I’m sorry, Sir; your MacBook isn’t eligible for service under AppleCare. The onboard accelerometer diagnostics show that the computer was hurled at the wall in a violent outburst when the SSD speed dipped.”
Last edited:
Yes, perhaps the accelerometer can be used for games (i.e. by tilting the laptop to move around in a 3D game), as well as other interactive features like 360˚ panning for Google Street View, Apple Maps' 3D mode, etc. It would be really fun to use this functionality for playing Marble Madness or a flight simulator!
Things that are overlooked here:
Price: The cost of semiconductors have gone up significantly and availability of parts is still scarce. Laptops will get more expensive for quite a while until the semiconductor industry catches up. Laptops are more expensive. Phones are now $1k. You can't order a new car without significant waits because of parts availability. We can't even get a topline BTO MBA in midnight until August. Everyone is paying more.
Target market: Thermals matter only if you're going to push the unit. 40 Chrome tabs is not pushing the unit. Editing photos won't push the unit. Batch exporting 200 RAW photos will warm things up a little. Rendering a 4k video that's 20 min long will get things hot. 3D rendering will get things hot. BUT, the only penalty here is time - your laptop might take 5 min longer to render that video. You will won't want that device sitting in your lap while this is happening. But will it burst into flames? No. The laptop will operate within the manufacturer's thermal envelope.
The average use case for the MBA may not be yours, but it is for a lot of folks. For everyone else, get a Pro. The Pro is made for people that are actually pushing the limits, and for those applications it's spectacular.
Sure everyone wants a 80ghz laptop with 1TB of RAM, 20TB of SSD that runs on battery for a month in an MBA form factor and weighs 8 oz. We're just not there yet. Stop pretending the MBA can do that job.
Price: The cost of semiconductors have gone up significantly and availability of parts is still scarce. Laptops will get more expensive for quite a while until the semiconductor industry catches up. Laptops are more expensive. Phones are now $1k. You can't order a new car without significant waits because of parts availability. We can't even get a topline BTO MBA in midnight until August. Everyone is paying more.
Target market: Thermals matter only if you're going to push the unit. 40 Chrome tabs is not pushing the unit. Editing photos won't push the unit. Batch exporting 200 RAW photos will warm things up a little. Rendering a 4k video that's 20 min long will get things hot. 3D rendering will get things hot. BUT, the only penalty here is time - your laptop might take 5 min longer to render that video. You will won't want that device sitting in your lap while this is happening. But will it burst into flames? No. The laptop will operate within the manufacturer's thermal envelope.
The average use case for the MBA may not be yours, but it is for a lot of folks. For everyone else, get a Pro. The Pro is made for people that are actually pushing the limits, and for those applications it's spectacular.
Sure everyone wants a 80ghz laptop with 1TB of RAM, 20TB of SSD that runs on battery for a month in an MBA form factor and weighs 8 oz. We're just not there yet. Stop pretending the MBA can do that job.
What's wrong with that? I use my TV to watch adverts for better TVs all the time. And they look really good! Much better than my TV. /s
1999 CNN interview, per the Vox: “I took the initiative in creating the internet.” Gore was widely mocked for this statement. But the men who did invent the internet, TCP/IP designers Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf, wrote in Gore’s defense in 2000. They argue that Gore was “the first political leader to recognize the importance of the internet and to promote and support its development.”
“As far back as the 1970s Congressman Gore promoted the idea of high speedtelecommunications,” the pair wrote. “As a Senator in the 1980s Gore urged government agencies to consolidate what at the time were several dozen different and unconnected networks into an ‘Interagency Network.’” Gore sponsored the 1991 High Performance Computing and Communications Act, which Kahn and Cerf say “became one of the major vehicles for the spread of the internet beyond the field of computer science.“
Consider something like Framework laptop. Yes, it is a relative fledgling, so was Apple at one time. Yet, instead of fueling corporate greed and environmental chaos, you get unparalleled ease of access to upgrade and repair it. Many of us have become too wedded to MacOS thus forcing us to deal with hardware that is both expensive and quirky.
Good... Apple deserves it. I may a be a long time (since 2001 or so) Mac user, but that doesn't make me a "fanboy" who will make excuses for every misstep they make.
The MacRumors crowd is far more technical, on the whole, than the average customer Apple sells to. Apple can put almost anything in a pretty new shell, tout its great features, and it will sell millions. Most people just assume it must be good because it's the latest thing, looks nice, and comes from a company they hold in high regard. We need more people to point it out when they're not living up to expectations.
In the Verge review, in the side by side sound comparison, the M2 Air sounds noticeably better than the M1. This is likely going to be a subtle thing and best judged in person.
And also far less technical, on the whole, than the people who design and manufacture technology products.
Particularly niche paddling pool they play in. Quite shallow, but can still drown in an inch of water eh?
You are taking it as a given that there is some kind of thermal design problem in the Air? It seems to handle most normal tasks just fine while staying cool and when you through a massive render process at it, it protects itself and slow down a little to keep cool and then keeps doing the work. That seems exactly what you would want in a small, light, consumer laptop.
Last edited: