We also have Catalyst, which allows a single app to be built to run both on ARM and Intel.
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.
Waiting for the 2021 MacBook Air
- Thread starter Falhófnir
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
We also have Catalyst, which allows a single app to be built to run both on ARM and Intel.
Your comment is a joke right?
There’s analysts that already know Apple is planning to transition to ARM Macs..
Personally I kind of wish they stayed with Intel for compatibility
Jon Prosser is also now saying there will be an Arm based 16" MacBook Pro next year, so either the transition timetable is shorter than a lot of people expect, or there will be Arm and Intel versions of each model sold in tandem for a while? Of the seven Mac Models Apple registered in June 2019, three are also yet to be launched. As every model has now been refreshed this year/ late last it looks quite likely these could all be new Arm models?
Registered June 2019:
A2147
A2158
A2179 - 2020 13" MacBook Air
A2182
Registered January 2020:
I expect any (intel based) 2020 16" MacBook Pro to keep the A2141 model number as they don't usually change it for just a chip bump.
I wasn't around (or necessarily able to read or write) during the PPC/Intel transition, but would we call Intel to ARM a chip bump or a chip revolution? It seems like it'd be a pretty huge move
When I said chip bump I was talking about Apple updating the 16" MBP to Intel 10th gen chips, which may or may not happen this year (it's a very minor change). Arm based computers will almost certainly have new model numbers, and significant internal differences, even if they look outwardly similar to the equivalent Intel model.
It's possible, it depends what route they take.
Apple may well go all-in like Jon says. I certainly think there's a chance of that as well. Right now intel has been floundering in CPU performance improvements for the best part of a decade. Apple has been getting year on year gains of between 30-100% on a regular basis.
Apple may well do all of their mobile devices at the same time - they did with the intel change. It depends just how fast their ARM stuff is. If they do change wholesale it will be because their chips are fast enough to run almost everything at the same speed as the outgoing model via some sort of translation software.
This is exactly what happened with PPC -> intel. For most things the original intel machines ran PPC code via Rosetta around about as fast as the old PPC models did, and native intel code significantly faster.
If Apple got their A series fast enough to do that they will go Big Bang on all their mobile stuff.
If they didn't quite get that level of performance just yet, I think the 12" MacBook is their first target as those customers are less performance sensitive.
The more I think about it, the more likely I feel that yes they may actually go Big Bang after all. Apple don't have a habit of carrying legacy hardware and as far as I see it, Apple probably considers x86 processors in mobile as legacy already due to the performance stagnation and horrible performance per watt.
It is really, really bad. And it'd make great business sense to keep everything in your own supply chain, being less reliant on external development (and, as such, slowly falling behind).
Do you know if Apple considered AMD at any point over Intel?
Someone hooked up liquid cooling to the MBA and the performance increase was somewhere around 12%. The cooling system works just fine for the TDP
I'd like that - I'm also not so keen on the whole 'shrink the bezels' thing. I think the XPS13 looks great but I like the screen having a frame. Might be in the minority here.
Hopefully we will find out some news about the transition to ARM powered macs on June 22nd at Apple online WWDC.
I am excited about the move to ARM, especially for a new 12 inch Macbook and the 13 inch Macbook Air.
The greatest improvement over the 2020 intel MBA should be heat management and battery life. I would expect a cpu performance gain too. Ideally the 2021 MBA will be able to run cool and quiet.
I want to buy soon to move to the larger retina screen, from my old 11in MBA. I love the MBA form factor and real function keys. My wish list is for an ARM 13 inch MBA or a Tiger Lake MBA with a heat pipe
I am excited about the move to ARM, especially for a new 12 inch Macbook and the 13 inch Macbook Air.
The greatest improvement over the 2020 intel MBA should be heat management and battery life. I would expect a cpu performance gain too. Ideally the 2021 MBA will be able to run cool and quiet.
I want to buy soon to move to the larger retina screen, from my old 11in MBA. I love the MBA form factor and real function keys. My wish list is for an ARM 13 inch MBA or a Tiger Lake MBA with a heat pipe
Why a heat pipe?Hopefully we will find out some news about the transition to ARM powered macs on June 22nd at Apple online WWDC.
I am excited about the move to ARM, especially for a new 12 inch Macbook and the 13 inch Macbook Air.
The greatest improvement over the 2020 intel MBA should be heat management and battery life. I would expect a cpu performance gain too. Ideally the 2021 MBA will be able to run cool and quiet.
I want to buy soon to move to the larger retina screen, from my old 11in MBA. I love the MBA form factor and real function keys. My wish list is for an ARM 13 inch MBA or a Tiger Lake MBA with a heat pipe
Numerous reported concerns of heat and noise issues on the 2020 MBA on these forums and tech reviews, especially with the quad cores. Even my old 11 inch MBA has a proper cooling system with a heat pipe. The last 7 years using multiple chrome tabs +15, my experience has been perfect, both quiet and cool. The only negative is the non retina screen.
I know the old MBA's used a 15 watt intel U series cpu. I actually do not mind a lower powered cpu but it seems that the new 10th gen quad core cpu's in the MBA have pushed beyond the passive cooling ability, or alternatively Apple have intentionally limited it's thermal performance to less than what was previously capable in an older MBA.
I have not tested the 2020 MBA, but from all the numerous reports and reviews, I am not confident it will perform as quiet and cool as my 2013 MBA, just using chrome and watching youtube. Maybe all would be fine with an i3 using safari, or I would have to buy the base MBP.
That was my experience, yeah. Not as cool or as quiet as the 2013 or 2015 or 2019 I've had. The i3 we have (and kept) is pretty good, but still exhibits some weird random heat/noise spikes in normal light usage.
I'm not sure if re-introducing the heat pipe is the solution, I think that the Ice Lake in the 2020 has pushed the MacBook Air's 3-year old passive cooling design too far. Obviously the chip isn't melting and failing, but I don't like that the 2020 is the hottest and loudest yet.
(Before I get yelled at, some people have an i5 or an i7 that is cool and quiet - that's awesome. That wasn't my experience, the experience of many here, or what many reviewers found. By the limited raw numbers that we have from Notebookcheck, the 2020 i5/i7 is the hottest and loudest Macbook Air yet released.)
If they don't move to ARM, any redesign of the thermal management system would be my number one wish for the 2021. If only so I can stop getting angry private messages saying 'well MY 2020 i5/i7 is colder than a penguin in Antarctica so YOU must be LYING!' 😂
Last edited:
I work in a quiet environment and use my MBA on my lap. So I value my laptop running quiet and cool, above speed and performance. I love the MBA form factor and function keys and would be happy to pay more to be able to buy a MBA that had improved thermals, such as pricing the quad core i5 MBA with a heat pipe at $1199. (an extra $100).
The $1299 13 inch base MBP is already differentiated from the MBA with the better screen, speakers, touch bar and higher performance cpu and Apple would still hit the $999 price point with the dual core i3 MBA with the passive cooling.
I want the MBA, so I do not want to buy a MBP just to get active cooling. A move to ARM should solve the heat management issues or hopefully Apple will change the design for another quad core intel MBA.
There's a thread on here with a link to someone putting water cooling to the MBA 10 gen. Improvement for all the additional cooling was 12%.
The existing cooling system is fine. You never hear the fans - certainly less than a MBP 6 core when video conferencing.
Benchmarking is not the real world.
[automerge]1591531326[/automerge]
Stop being hung up on cooling.
The MBA and MBP are total different processors with wildly different TDP. If you need the performance of the MBP, then you know you Need it i.e. you make money producing content and a slower system costs you money.
Browsing the internet and writing documents does not push any modern computer.
I would have to personally test a 2020 MBA with my use case, to see if it does runs quiet and cool. I would prefer to buy a quad core MBA in 2020, after 7 years of my dual core MBA. Benchmarks is not my concern. Heat and noise is, working in a very quiet environment (no background noise) and using on my lap.
I hope that you are wrong. I am really looking forward to a ARM MacBook. In the mean time my 2020 Air and Hackintosh for the desk are doing well.
Yeaaaah no. 5000rpm on the i3 this morning just noodling around in Brave. 8000rpm on the i5 in any video conferencing app I tried. Here is what I normally get when I mention this:
'Just use Safari! Use Pages! Use Apple apps only!' That's ridiculous.
'You're using it wrong!' I'm using it like any other notebook I've used in the last decade, including Macbook Airs.
Stop being hung up on cooling? No. Not when I'm paying $1500-2000AUD for a computer that's historically been (and is marketed as) being cool and quiet.
'Browsing the internet and writing documents does not push any modern computer'?
Agreed. Now tell Apple. In the last decade I've only come across these issues on the three 2020 MBAs I've owned.
Hoping for much better consistency in 2021.
Exactly. Very basic use. I should not need to buy a MBP. A modern 2020 MBA should be able to use multiple tabs +15 using chrome and watching youtube without issue (including heat and noise). My 2013 MBA has been doing this for the last seven years and has been quiet and cool in use.
If a modern 2020 MBA cannot do the same as a 2013 MBA, that would mean there is something seriously wrong with Apple's development and testing or they are intentionally limiting its thermal performance. I expect improvements in 7 years.
If I test it and find it runs hot and noisy, some will say I need to use safari or to buy a MBP, which actually means I need active cooling just to run multiple tabs in chrome. Alternatively, the MBA could have the same active cooling it had previously (to 2017) so there would not be the reported issues on these forums.
Apparently the issues reported on these forums, as well as Reddit, Youtube, whatever, are all an anti-Apple conspiracy.
Or the people reporting the issues are using the wrong (?) apps.
Or they're using the computer wrong ('it shouldn't be on your lap!').
Or it's all a scheme for YouTubers and Big Copper to make money from home-brew mod fixes.
The idea that the 2020 MBA might have quality control issues that cause some users to experience thermal issues is, apparently, an affront to some users' self image, or completely unbelievable for some reason I can't fathom.
In any event, it seems like some machines are fine, and maybe a recent software update has improved the issue for others. But in 2021, I want a Macbook Air that doesn't have any back-and-forth about thermals or performance or noise.
For a decade it was the go-to laptop because it just worked. That'd be nice to get back.
The non retina 13 inch and 11 inch macbook air were great laptops for many years and easily recommended. In 2018 the 13 inch got a nice redesign, retina screen, but passive cooling, an underpowered cpu and a poor butterfly keyboard. 2019 just brought true tone. 2020 the 'magic' scissor keyboard is back, performance has improved greatly with the new quad core cpu, but they seem beyond the limits of the passive cooling system with reports of heat and noise issues.
Like the 12 inch Macbook, the retina Macbook air passive cooling would be perfect for an ARM cpu in 2021. These should bring performance improvements to graphics, light gaming, battery life and thermals.
I personally find the 12 inch Macbook too narrow to use. My 11 inch MBA is 1 inch wider, the same width as the 2018-2020 retina MBA. A 14 inch screen is likely to add weight. I would prefer a new lighter 13 inch MBA with the weight of my 11 inch (2.4 pounds).
If the 2021 MBA stays with an intel cpu, Tiger Lake looks like a nice improvement. Hopefully Apple brings back active cooling to the intel MBA, especially for the quad cores. The Macbook Air can be great again if Apple wants it to be.
Last edited:
Good idea - test it out. Like I said I never hear mine. I have a MB 12" fan less and the performance is much faster and only audible when video conferencing. I also have a 6 Core i7 and those fans are very loud.
If your use case is sustained multi core tasks you are looking at the totally wrong machine.
It doesn't mean it's a bad laptop, it means it's not fit for purpose for your use case.