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New MacBook Air Announced as First Apple Silicon Mac With M1 Chip and Fanless Design
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I call Freudian slip. Overinflated, initially impressive in specs but lacking upon closer inspection and in hand.
I know I'm going to get a lot of hate for this, but I'm sad it's 2.8 pounds. Wish it was much lighter.
It seems the chips are identical in all respects, except for the weird 7 vs. 8 core GPU, which is probably just 1 core being disabled or a lower bin. Guessing there is only 1 M1 chip for all 3 models announced today. They probably just run the Pro & Mini chip at a higher clock speed since there's a bit more space and cooling available, I don't expect the difference to be too dramatic, like 20% or less.
I agree with you, I was hoping for something closer to 2 lbs.
Most people just want the bezels rounded and slimmed way down. The unibody design itself is fine.
Apple said that it's their lightest MacBook, which I guess is true if they're talking about their current lineup, and even with the removal of the fan, I was hoping for something around 2 pounds as well.
I still bought the damn thing. Went for the "higher end" MBA -- after all customization, cost me $2k.
If they come out with a 12-inch MacBook with the same internal specs by Spring, I'm gonna hate myself.
Knowing how slow audio companies usually are, I’d say your plugins/interfaces may be compatible by... 2025?
Is there not emulation that will allow all of the legacy apps to work?
What I really wanted was for them to bring back the 11" MacBook Air form factor, with an M1 of course, but with a 12" to 12.5" screen by completely losing the bezels (look at the photos, those bezels were huge). That machine was 2.38 lbs. 5 years ago, so ~2.2 lbs. seems achievable with the M1 and other advances.
I agree with these features but this is more of evolution. It'll still look like a laptop.
Hmm.. need to check how it would work in real life, rosetta2 does all translation at install instead of run time.
Not sure when will developers release universal binaries for python and other programming languages IDEs.
The apps are likely fine, my concern would be that, since many audio plugins require really low latency, the Rosetta solution, no matter how fast, may not be up to the task.
I think there are going to be a lot of compatibility issues in the beginning, so it would probably be a poor decision to switch now since finishing my music is a priority.
No harm in that, there are a LOT of music professionals using years old systems. With all the variances that there can possibly be, once you get a set up that works DON’T alter it lightly. Anything that pulls you out of that comfortable creative flow can be disastrous to your craft.
For anyone starting today, yeah, an M-series would be good for them because they don’t have anything to bring forward. For anyone using Intel, even AFTER all the plug-ins are brought over, I’d STILL say buy the new system then use them side by side for 6 months or so if you have the luxury. Sort out any and all bugs in a way that doesn’t impact your ability to drop the experiment and get RIGHT back to creating
It is due to the Macbook design flaw that looks outdated and Apple can fix it with some improvement over the 2016 design.
Quick search online brings up that the Macbook 12" vs Macbook Air 11" specs are:
Width 281mm / 300mm
Depth 197mm / 192mm
Thickness: 13.1mm / 17mm
Weight: 921g / 1080g
Personally, I don't see any positives of the 11" Air form factor compared to the 12". With the 12", they nailed it - the width was the smallest possible without reducing the keyboard from standard size, which would be a huge mistake. And the depth of the main body was perfectly sized to allow for it to be comfortable for your palms to rest on.
And then the thickness and weight just married the whole machine together perfectly.
For me, I think if they just expanded the screen of the Macbook to make it a 13" with bezel sizes like the Dell XPS, it'd be perfection. And that's what I'm hoping they'll do.
I think that Apple have just wanted to get Silicone "over the line", especially with Covid grinding a lot of tech wheels to a halt. And perhaps, they didn't want to play their whole hand at once. They probably think, Silicone is enough of a landmark without having to mess about with changing the design or reintroducing old MacBooks. I really do think that Apple will reintroduce the ultralight laptop (lets not give it a name, and for arguments sake say that ultralight is < 1.1 kg), I just don't know whether it will co-exist with the Air (in which case the Air would certainly expand into a 14" screen in the current form factor), or if it will be the 13" Air.
In both cases, the 13" Pro would definitely expand into the 14" Pro.
I hook my 12" up to a 24" Dell 4K monitor for desk work, and use it on my lap when watching background TV like sports. I can't (and won't) give up that weight, but I'm really craving giving Silicone a test-drive, so I think I'm going to keep my 12" as an iPad-alternative and get the Silicone Mini to hook up to my desk. Disappointed that they've reduced the Thunderbolt ports to 2 and space-grey isn't an option, but I'll survive.
Seems the best compromise, and maybe in a year or two they'll reintroduce the ultralight Macbook and I'll either marry my two machines up or simply upgrade my Macbook and stick with my Mini as well.
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Same here. An extra 512 GB SSD for $200 is a no brainer for me, wish 32 GB RAM was an option for future proofing but 16 is OK for now. Dec 3-10 ship date for me. My first gold Mac, never thought it would happen but time for a change. One reason is Space Gray isn’t dark enough for me.
It’s the bezels. Other than that I think it’s still OK. I mean honestly what else can they do without it getting weird?
Sure, but better thermals when bigger. Even the original MacBook Retina with no fan and mediocre Intel Core M low power chips had thermal problems. The MacBook Retina was nice to handle, but you can now do so much more on even the base MacBook Air. That thing screams.
If you remove all the bezels, I guess there will be less room for speakers? I'm fine with the design. Heck, I look at my old MacBook Pro 2010 and I think it looks fine. My MacBook Air 2013 looks fine. Really, Apple has always done a class job in making design rather ageless, especially because of the choice of using aluminium. Okay, big bezels with the base iPad may look somewhat outdated, but really the design still looks fine to me. It's not that I constantly shout: Those bezels! Not once when I use my MacBook Air or iPad.