Apple Launches Redesigned MacBook Air With M2 Chip and MagSafe (theverge.com) 87
Apple's WWDC isn't an event that traditionally packs in several hardware announcements, but nevertheless, a new MacBook Air took the stage during the keynote. From a report: The new 2022 model has been designed around the more powerful M2 processor, and its design comes closer to that of the 14-inch MacBook Pro, with a more squared-off look than the traditional wedge shape. It features MagSafe charging, two Thunderbolt ports, and a headphone jack. It's 11mm thick and comes in at 2.7 pounds. It will be available in silver, space grey, and new "starlight" gold and "midnight" blue colors. This MacBook Air will be available in July starting at $1,199. The M1-based Air will continue to be available for $999.
The 2022 MacBook Air features a larger 13.6-inch display with smaller bezels surrounding it. Apple says it has 500 nits of peak brightness. It features a silent, fan-less design, which is impressive given the performance gains that Apple is claiming to squeeze from the M2. Apple says that it's 40-percent faster than the previous model, but that performance boost likely varies depending on the app.
The 2022 MacBook Air features a larger 13.6-inch display with smaller bezels surrounding it. Apple says it has 500 nits of peak brightness. It features a silent, fan-less design, which is impressive given the performance gains that Apple is claiming to squeeze from the M2. Apple says that it's 40-percent faster than the previous model, but that performance boost likely varies depending on the app.
M2 (Score:1)
M2, not to be confused with M.2??? Geez guys. Redo your marketing.
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What's your objection? In what scenario do you think somebody ends up with the wrong thing? Is somebody going to go in for a new Mac, get home and wonder why they have a hard drive in the bag instead?
Those who know what M.2 is are unlikely to find it problematic. Those who don't... well, for them it doesn't matter.
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M2 in the UK (Score:2)
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Not to be confused with Monkey Island 2 [wikipedia.org].
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Xorg has DRM which is not the same as the other DRM that prevents you from streaming video. People not young enough to have used a KVM now calling the hypervisor module KVM.
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M2, not to be confused with M.2??? Geez guys. Redo your marketing.
Wait until they get to the M5. . .
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Ah yes, the metric screw size, right?
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+1 TOS Trek joke ;-)
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+1 TOS Trek joke ;-)
At least someone got it!
Nobody's home at Apple Park (Score:2)
Water, treaded.
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The M2 seems to max out at 24GB of shared memory.
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Which is an improvement over the maximum of 16GB shared memory of the regular M1.
Max ram goes from 16GB to 24GB does not look good (Score:2)
Max ram goes from 16GB to 24GB does not look good for the mac pro M2. As even say 512GB MAX (x2 the Mac Studio ) is pro for an server or an pro workstation.
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For the macbook air, 24GB is fine.
There will be an M2 pro released a few months later which supports more.
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Problem is that the RAM is soldered onto the CPU substrate, and it's shared with the GPU.
No upgrades. Performance degrades with GPU usage. No ECC option.
Hard to see how they could fit 512GB on there.
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Memory bandwidth on the M1 is already pretty impressive for a cpu with integrated gpu, it's likely that the M2 will also bring improvements to memory bandwidth.
It may not be as fast as a high end dedicated gpu, but it's very fast for an integrated.
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It has to be. ARM CPUs have low code density, so they need massive caches and high performance memory. And that's just to come up to the same speed as mid range mobile city chips.
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There's not a huge gap in code density between x86_64 and arm64:
https://web.eece.maine.edu/~vw... [maine.edu]
By mobile standards, apple's chips are high end. The only chips beating them in outright performance are nowhere near them when it comes to power consumption.
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RISC always has lower code density than CISC. That's how it is designed to be.
As you say, Apple silicon is high end *for a mobile chip*, but compared to say Ryzen in laptops it's quite poor. The only areas where it does okay are where Apple built hardware acceleration for specific video encode/decode functions.
The GPU is tile based and suited to mobile games, but desktop/console games are not going to run well on it without some major re-engineering. Again, massive memory bandwidth helps.
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Re: Max ram goes from 16GB to 24GB does not look g (Score:2)
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Would anyone even realize if it started swapping to the ssd?
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when it starts to ware out
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Ok, but what about when it starts to wear out?
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Speaking of which, does the Apple controller support OPAL drive encryption?
Re: Max ram goes from 16GB to 24GB does not look g (Score:2)
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The drive controller does the encryption. No CPU load, no loss of performance.
Even with good raw encryption speed there is a big performance loss with software encryption.
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Meaningless at the moment.
Apple is already offering the M2 model on its website.
Two models, both with 8GB RAM and 256GB/512GB SSD.
https://www.apple.com/shop/buy... [apple.com]
Maybe higher-end models will come with more RAM.
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What does a borderline tablet device have to do with a Mac Pro?
All I really want to know (Score:2)
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DisplayLink external USB video adapters (and all their lagginess), or does it support native DisplayPort?
When the Mac Pro is updated (Score:4, Insightful)
When the Apple Silicon transition is complete, I hope that finalizes the Great Boomer Purge.
Craig Federighi is an embarrassment. Who approved those lame action transitions? Cook?
As long as I'm complaining, did they all but forget that this is the developer conference?
It was a nauseating presentation of feature additions, each with a little tag at the end saying that
there will be "an API" that will let devs maybe tag along as a feature insert to Apple's apps
(later this year).
Two minutes on Metal3, but what ever happened to SceneKit/GameKit/RealityKit?
It looks like they've deferred to large studios with their own engines, with an assumed nod towards Unity and Unreal.
If or when Apple comes out with the AR/VR product, they have shown
that you can't trust committing to any of their frameworks. A waste of time.
Same goes with the never completed SwiftUI. WWDC keynote with no mention of Xcode?
Looks like within five years, Apple will just drop the developer's program and bring it all in house.
balls.
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Is he? Still?
That explains much.
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I loved the CFed action sequences. Engage in a little whimsy, geez.
By all accounts, he's also really knowledgable about everything that's going into the OS at the deep level. He's a programmer that rose through the ranks and still understands the work that his engineers are doing very well.
Like, if you don't like the keynote, don't watch it, go watch the State of the Union or the individual sessions. The keynote is a broadly interesting presentation that's for the press so they can write about new features
Still sticking with those odd ports (Score:2)
Thunderbolt forever!
Magsafe proprietary charging.
Retro square corners!
(Kind of heavy for a 13.6" notebook...)
Fanless! (Aren't most notebooks fanless? I haven't had a fan in a notebook for 10-15 years.)
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Retro square corners!
lol, love it!
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Thunderbolt forever!
Not quite so odd. Basically every new Intel computer has them. They're also USB C compatible. Yes, if you have a USB A device you'll have to adapt it. But, it's still a common port now.
Magsafe proprietary charging.
Sure, it's proprietary. But, they also support USB C power delivery.
(Kind of heavy for a 13.6" notebook...)
They weigh about average for the size category.
Fanless! (Aren't most notebooks fanless? I haven't had a fan in a notebook for 10-15 years.)
In fact, it's quite the opposite.
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The lack of a fan limits performance. I'd much rather have a fan that doesn't run most of the time, but is there when I need performance.
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Then you need the new M2 13" MacBook Pro. The price difference with the new M2 MacBook Air is ridiculous and I would buy the Pro if it weren't for the stupid touch bar.
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It's weird that the Pro has the stupid touchbar instead of F keys, while the Air has F keys (even though they are behind an Fn key). You would have thought that the gimmick would be on the consumer model, not the Pro.
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By your MagSafe comments, I can only guess that:
1) You've never used it - it's a great concept, other standards should steal the good ideas from it and adopt them
2) You've never broken a usb-c cable neck from setting a laptop down gently
No, core i7 laptops have fans, you just don't notice them until you're usin
Does it run..... (Score:2)
Does it run OpenBSD ? Usually I would say Linux, but Linux is now in bed with our Corporate Overlords and pretty much allows locked down blobs these days.
I already know the answer, but that question is the one I ask if I need to get new hardware. Why ? If OpenBSD works on it, I believe just about any "Free" OS will work fine without gigs of blobs. Yes, OpenBSD has blobs, but they are not locked down like say Nvidia.
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You don't have to use any blobs you don't like.
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What does this even mean?
Is there an NVIDIA driver for OpenBSD that does not have a corresponding Linux implementation?
Are you referring to the fact that OpenBSD simply eschews support for recent Nvidia cards, as if Linux is somehow forcing you to use a Nvidia blob by simply allowing the option?
What is a blob that is not "locked down like say Nvidia?"
Still overpriced (Score:2)
I don't really get why anyone would buy one of these. I find it even more surprising how many people work in IT and love them.
Apple hardware is restrictive and controlling, and vastly overpriced. Some people bring up quality, but the Dell and Asus laptops I've owner were always perfectly fine and took a ton of beatings.
You can get something thinner, more durable, more compatible, with more freedom and likely more powerful for much less than the price of a MacBook.
So why?
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I have used PCs and Macs in my company both for a long time and Macs have far fewer issues on average and productivity is higher. We haven't seen a single user moving from Mac to PC and overall cost of Mac is actually lower than PC. PCs are good for things: 1) low end, cheaper than any Mac 2) Heavy and bulky ones providing better performance than any Mac at gaming. In between, I see Mac as a winner by a small margin.
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So this is just anecdotal and likely a result of confirmation bias.
I doubt you have many people moving from PC to Mac either, and if you do it's a minority.
Maybe you run or manage a small shop, that's fine. Not really useful as experience though.
As for being sturdy, reliability depends on the manufacturer. Compare say Dell to Apple vs every single PC to Apple and Apple isn't, if at all superior in that context.
Most importantly, you dismiss that many PCs are cheaper, lighter and more powerful than equivalent
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You just made up a bunch of unsubstantiated facts and accused the previous poster of confirmation bias for giving you his own opinion?
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No, I didn't make anything up. Try re-reading.
Re: Still overpriced (Score:2)
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Mmm, a mac advocating accusing someone else of needing to check their reality, that's funny.
Especially since the term reality distortion field was coined in computing to refer to the bs Apple managed to sell people on.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:Still overpriced (Score:4, Interesting)
I've been using Linux since the late 90s. It's amazing, and it's been my bread and butter my entire career. That said, I also really like Apple's stuff for some really pragmatic reasons.
* Macs are the closest "mainstream" thing to Linux. For the first half of my career, I wrote most of my Linux-targeted code in Windows because my companies wouldn't even consider anything else for corporate desktops. Talk about frustrating!! Over time, they became convinced (begrudgingly at first) to allow Macs, which at least is unixy enough to make life a lot easier. Non-tech people just like 'em more, cuz they're pretty and easier to use. Once they had the foot in the door, lots of people wanted them, and they became pretty standard.
* While my main developer workstation is a kickass Linux workstation, I do still keep a kickass Mac on my desk as well. I find that it just does some things better: Media, "office" tasks, Zoom, proprietary software that doesn't support Linux, and development tasks for projects where the usual workflow/scripts assume you're on a Mac. When I'm not using it, it makes a nice jukebox. :)
* The hardware lasts *forever*. When it starts getting long in the tooth for MacOS, you install Linux on it. I'm still using 2012 Mac Minis running Ubuntu as a Kubernetes cluster. My 2015 Macbook Pro runs Linux Mint like a champ after a simple battery replacement several years ago. Seriously, I almost never throw the stuff out. So what do I do? I buy high-spec'ed hardware when I get it, and spend the money on it, because I know I can reasonably expect to still be using it in ten years. I upgrade my high-touch machines every 3-5 years, and the existing machines go to family members or my server cluster for a second life.
I know MS has changed their stripes somewhat over the last decade, but as an old timer who saw their antics under Ballmer and Gates, I still struggle with considering Windows or its ecosystem for anything at all. It might be better in some ways, but old habits and prejudices die hard, I guess, so, for me, it's not even in the running.
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I get using macs as a unix os that is commercially supported, there are many contexts where that makes sense.
Disagree about the things you say it does better though, i.e. office tasks or zoom. Such tasks are *very* basic and I don't see how one platform can do them better than the other. I've done those tasks on every platform and they are all about equal, so it sounds like fluff to say mac does them better unless you care to be specific?
Plenty of PC hardware lasts forever as well, so that isn't anything sp
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I've had trouble with Zoom the several times I've tried it. Sometimes it worked ok for a little while, but then the camera would get laggy, or the sound would get choppy, or it would crash, or it wouldn't be able to find the camera, or some other weird misbehavior. Granted, it's been a while since I've tried it, because I hate having problems during meetings, so maybe they've worked some of this out. Also, I've now got pipewire instead of pulse, so maybe that'll make a difference. The point is that it just
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Your problems with zoom could have been due to anything, and I bet there are mac users that have problems with zoom on occasion as well. A one off experience like that isn't representative.
I guess I get your point but as a user of Windows (and everything else) for 20+ years, I've never had an issue that wasn't easily solved or that made me blame the OS/hardware and want to switch to Mac.
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Well, maybe there's something they know that you don't. I'm in IT and find Macs ever more pleasurable to work on than Windows laptops. Give them a try.
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I've work in IT as well, longer than most who love macs, and I've used plenty so I doubt I'm lacking some arcane knowledge that would change my opinion.
It's just a preference, likely due to advertising and peer pressure, nothing more.
I'll take a dualboot Windows/Linux PC any day of the week.
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And Mac users think your preference is likely due to ignorance and unwillingness to try something, nothing more.
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Funnily enough that just shows the ignorance of Mac users and their tendencies to rely on spurious assumptions.
Re: Still overpriced (Score:2)
Prefer using the mac most of that period except when windows 95 came out which felt more advanced back then. Currently I especially like how nice mac integrates with my iphone ipad and apple tv, no setup needed - notes, photos, passwords etc, with decent trust in privacy. They are statistically durable. So is my lenovo but itâ(TM)s fugly. Nothing wrong with paying more for something that is pretty i
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It's not incorrect, as a company they push the walled garden far more than they should.
In the other post about the OS X update there is someone saying they can't even change the lockscreen/login image for example.
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There's no debate and this thread is pointless if you are going to asset factually incorrect statements as counter arguments from an uninformed position.
Let me clue you in in a patronising tone
1. I am literally typing this on a 2022 iMac and just to double check, I changed the Lock Screen image, and surprise, it changed!
2. I have just downloaded an unsigned, unknown source executable and installed it, marked it as allowed to execute, and, low and behold, it runs!
so, be off with your made up facts in suppor
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I'm not uninformed, that's your first mistake, nor am I asserting anything incorrect. I refered to something in another post, which is not an assertion.
If you want to try and correct people it would help if you know what you are talking about first.
In response to your point:
1. I meant login screen image. User reporting that is here: https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
2. Being able to run an unsigned executable isn't proof that Apple isn't a controlling company, it's just proof that they are not as controlling
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In my experience, you will have a *very hard* time finding a PC as powerful as the MacBook Air M1 and at the same pricepoint.
You will find cheaper PCs, less powerful. You will find more powerful PCs, at a higher pricepoint. But similarly powerful/specced PCs are a bit more expensive. And I'm not even mentioning weight, battery life and fan noise here.
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People still think in terms of hardware instead of operating system, device integration and interoperability, and workflow. If you still think all operating systems are equal, then you need to do a bit more research.
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I consider all aspects. It's not just hardware, OS X is a huge pain to use IMO, and it's a large aprt of why I think it is so odd that so many people in IT seemingly love it.
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If you think macOS is a pain to use, I'd like to hear your opinion about Windows 10/11.
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I honestly can't say, I still keep a Windows 7 machine around for gaming but otherwise run some flavor of unix. I am planning on creating a Windows 10 or 11 VM soon, but I've heard bad things.
Still, I think macos is a pain to use compared to windows 7 and pretty much any *nix DE.
Damn Zombie Touchbar! Stay dead! (Score:1)
$200 for 8GB ram and $200 for 512GB storage! (Score:2)
$200 for 8GB ram and $200 for 512GB storage!
Nice markup there apple!
Does it support two external screens? (Score:2)
Does it support two external screens?
Asking for my long-suffering coworkers whose fancy Arm MacBooks only support one external screen, while my Windows laptop supports three at less than 1/3 of the price.
Re: Does it support two external screens? (Score:2)
Attractive general use machine (Score:2)
I have the 14 inch pro variant since last November. It is terrifically quick even with complex processing of batches of raw photos and for video editing as well. However i think that this new Air would not be that much slower during most operations.