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Portables (Apple) Apple

Apple Unveils New MacBook Air, Powered By M3 Chip (apple.com) 150

Apple has announced the launch of its new MacBook Air laptops powered by the company's latest M3 chip, offering up to 60% faster performance compared to the previous generation (M1-powered MacBook Air). The new 13-inch and 15-inch models feature a thin and light design, up to 18 hours of battery life, and a Liquid Retina display. The M3 chip, built using 3-nanometer technology, boasts an 8-core CPU, up to a 10-core GPU, and supports up to 24GB of unified memory.

The laptops also offer enhanced AI capabilities, with a faster 16-core Neural Engine and accelerators in the CPU and GPU for improved on-device machine learning performance. This enables features such as real-time speech-to-text, translation, and visual understanding. The 13-inch MacBook Air with M3 starts at $1,099, while the 15-inch model starts at $1,299. Both models are available for order starting Monday and will begin arriving to customers and be available in stores on Friday, March 8. Apple also reduced the starting price of the 13-inch MacBook Air with M2 chip to $999.
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Apple Unveils New MacBook Air, Powered By M3 Chip

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  • by pahles ( 701275 )

    offering up to 60% faster performance compared to the previous generation (M1-powered MacBook Air)

    The previous generation was the M2 Macbook Air...

  • storage $400 per TB and ram $200 per 8GB! = ripoff!

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      So don't buy it.

      • You don't really have a choice, though. You can't upgrade the storage or RAM on modern Macbooks after you buy it, so you have to pay the insane markup prices from Apple if you want it or need it.

        Personally, I think that it's insane that you can still get a $1,000 laptop with only 8 GB of RAM or a 256 GB SSD in it. These things are going to be obsolete in less than five years when Apple and Microsoft up their minimum system requirements for whatever AI "enhanced" bloatware they'll be selling by then.

        • by registrations_suck ( 1075251 ) on Monday March 04, 2024 @03:17PM (#64289354)

          You Totally have a choice. Lots of manufacturers besides Apple.

        • I paid $5500 for a Mac IIci with 8MB of RAM and 170MB hard drive and 14" monitor. That was with student discount (back when it was a real discount), and buying the RAM and hard drive third party.

          ANYTHING sold today strikes me as a fucking bargain.

        • So what if it is obsolete in 5 years? $1000 over 5 years is $200/year. Not even $20/month. Big fucking deal.

          Fun fact: I still use my 2012 MacBook Pro daily. No problems!

          • So what if it is obsolete in 5 years? $1000 over 5 years is $200/year. Not even $20/month. Big fucking deal.

            Fun fact: I still use my 2012 MacBook Pro daily. No problems!

            Me too.

            It was actually fully supported up through macOS Catalina (10.15), and trivial to Update up through Ventura, and possible even in Sonoma.

            Plenty fast enough for general use.

            • I couldn't even tell you what version on is on mine. Whatever software update permits as the most recent version. It's more than sufficient for anything I need a computer for.

              • I couldn't even tell you what version on is on mine. Whatever software update permits as the most recent version. It's more than sufficient for anything I need a computer for.

                Apple Menu. About This Mac. Processor, RAM, and OS Version are right there. Or you can click the Button and get a very Detailed Screen.

        • You don't really have a choice, though. You can't upgrade the storage or RAM on modern Macbooks after you buy it, so you have to pay the insane markup prices from Apple if you want it or need it.

          Personally, I think that it's insane that you can still get a $1,000 laptop with only 8 GB of RAM or a 256 GB SSD in it. These things are going to be obsolete in less than five years when Apple and Microsoft up their minimum system requirements for whatever AI "enhanced" bloatware they'll be selling by then.

          So don't buy it.

        • You don't really have a choice, though. You'd have to run Windows or Linux on other computers.

          FTFY

  • by registrations_suck ( 1075251 ) on Monday March 04, 2024 @11:17AM (#64288544)

    EU has announced a new lawsuit against Apple for bringing out these new laptops. Details are lacking, but EU says it will fill in the details once it comes up with its excuse.

  • They finally support more RAM than my 14 year old laptop shipped with!

    At most. Apparently you can still get ones with 8G. And a generous 256GB SSD!

    • I suppose they do that so they can list the "Starting at..." price at a compelling price point. But, realistically, no one should be buying a computer with those specs in 2024. It is sort of like how car manufacturers have "Starting at..." prices for cars that have manual roll-up / and down windows, stick shift, etc. and they produce exactly 3 of them which sit abandoned on a lot somewhere. But it is a risk to Apple because someone who unsuspectingly buys a computer with these specs is going to be disappoin
      • Completely agree re the 8gb, especially as that is shared between desktop and RAM. However, having used one of the minimal spec M* macbook airs before, it was completely fine for average desktop usage (ie web browser machine, maybe Word/Excel).

        The 256gb I don't think matters at all for many people.

        • I still have 166 GB free of the stock 256 on the M1 Air Granted it's not the production machine, but for what I use it for it's fine.

          The 8 GB of ram also seems fine,

          Battery life and light weight is what I'm most interested in.

        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          An 8GB/256GB Macbook is pretty much a Chromebook. Fine for web browsing and light office tasks, starved of RAM for other things.

          256GB storage is an absolute joke. That's one big app or game and your drive is full. Backing up your 128GB iPhone consumes up to half your storage.

          Bother are just there to tempt you in with an overpriced but not completely batshit entry level, and then when you get to the shiny Apple store/website there is the upsell for their insanely priced upgrades.

        • 256GB quickly fills up with software, user data and OS upgrade files. I've had a few OS upgrade blockings just because of that. It's no fun to run a full cleanup, move user data to an external hdd, download & run the OS upgrade and copy all userdata back again. Or you can try telling them they can't save/install 100GB worth of software, family pictures/movies, documents, a bunch of recipes, tax filings, etc. anymore so you won't have to deal with an OS that can't be upgraded. So in a minimalist sense yo
      • On the other hand, it seems the price point for the maxed out configuration isn't too bad, and seems less expensive than a previous generation, around $2200 or so.

        However, for that price, it is a good daily driver of a machine, even without active thermal cooling, and the weight and size are nice for schlepping around places, especially around college, or on business trips.

        Of course, a decent PC laptop is less costly, but for a Mac, which tends to have some value when traded in, this isn't a bad deal.

      • I suppose they do that so they can list the "Starting at..." price at a compelling price point. But, realistically, no one should be buying a computer with those specs in 2024. It is sort of like how car manufacturers have "Starting at..." prices for cars that have manual roll-up / and down windows, stick shift, etc. and they produce exactly 3 of them which sit abandoned on a lot somewhere. But it is a risk to Apple because someone who unsuspectingly buys a computer with these specs is going to be disappointed.

        macOS isn't RAM-Hungry Windows.

        I used my easily-upgradeable 2012 MacBook Pro with the 4 GB(!) it shipped with for several years. Had no problems, even using Logic and Final Cut Pro. Kind of amazing, actually. My work Windows Laptop struggled with Swap File Hell with 16 GB in it.

        Finally upgraded it about 2 years ago to 16 GB (its maximum); but only because I was worried that Compatible RAM was going to start getting hard to find/expensive.

    • They finally support more RAM than my 14 year old laptop shipped with!

      At most. Apparently you can still get ones with 8G. And a generous 256GB SSD!

      Elementary students and Grannies need more?

    • If you run Microsoft's garbage Electron/ "Web apps masquerading as native" piles of steaming shit, then sure you need a gazillion GB of ram, go buy a Dell.

      On Apple, most Apple targeting apps (rather than crappy ports from Windoze) are properly native. I am running a nice set of Apps right now on my MacBook: Pixelmator Pro, Sketch, Xcode (with 4 projects open), iThoughts, Pages (and quite a few more).

      System is under no memory pressure. 6 GB free out of 16GB, Xcode is using under 500mb, Pixelmator pro is usin

  • by Andrio ( 2580551 ) on Monday March 04, 2024 @11:21AM (#64288570)

    I know these things perform very well in general use stuff, but I can't believe they still start at 8GB of RAM and 256GB storage.

    I bought the base level MBP in 2017 and it had those same specs. That's 7 years ago.

    • I can't believe they still start at 8GB of RAM and 256GB storage.

      Why not?

      If you were using a computer just for web browsing and editing documents, that would work just fine.

      Yes as developers we would like more (especially storage) but there are plenty of people who use laptops where that's plenty of power.

      I bought the base level MBP in 2017 and it had those same specs. That's 7 years ago.

      How much has web browsing and word processing changed in seven years? Hardly at all.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by nevermindme ( 912672 )
        The laptop is target audience is pointed at the multimedia creator who does not game, who does not own a render farm. It is an insufficient amount of technology for a teenager sold under a halo of the best integration on the planet. Storage and memory are dirt cheap and replaceable on the direct compilators. At least we had some years where intel pushed apple along just saying we are no longer supplying that chip, you must update your product or you make "intel inside" look bad.

        Moores law still h
        • by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Monday March 04, 2024 @12:01PM (#64288708)

          The laptop is target audience is pointed at the multimedia creator who does not game, who does not own a render farm.

          I would say that the Pro is better for this audience. Can someone use an Air for multimedia creation? Yes.

          At least we had some years where intel pushed apple along just saying we are no longer supplying that chip, you must update your product or you make "intel inside" look bad.

          What are you talking about? Intel stagnated for years at 10nm. That had nothing to do with Apple. If anything Apple was pushing Intel for years for example making their chip packaging smaller and cool better for laptops. What drove Apple away was the stagnation and QA got significantly worse for Intel chips. This ex-Intel engineer says that Skylake was a major problem for Apple [extremetech.com] as Apple was finding more bugs than Intel for that CPU generation.

          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            A big part of Apple's motivation was that they don't like having a single vendor for anything.

            They also like to have proprietary stuff, so you can't get it cheaper elsewhere or directly compare it to competing products. There are hundreds of laptops with Intel chips, usually newer ones than the current gen Macbook.

            • There are hundreds of laptops with Intel chips, usually newer ones than the current gen Macbook.

              By "newer" you mean a few months newer as the M3 was launched in October 2023 and Intel launched their latest CPUs starting in fall of 2023.. Also there are probably hundreds of Intel laptops that have older chips. So what is your point? Laptops have a range of generations of chips if they are Intel based?

        • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          No, it's a machine for people on the go. Those who are constantly on planes, trains, and automobiles visiting clients, customers, suppliers, etc. People who need to do more than what a tablet can get you (which can be a lot), but need portability first above all.

          So they're likely not doing much heavy work - they may need to open a few CAD drawings, but more likely to work on PowerPoint or other Word documents. They'll visit then draw up a proposal in the hotel to present the next day.

          The road warriors do ex

        • The laptop is target audience is pointed at the multimedia creator who does not game, who does not own a render farm.

          It is an insufficient amount of technology for a teenager sold under a halo of the best integration on the planet. Storage and memory are dirt cheap and replaceable on the direct compilators. At least we had some years where intel pushed apple along just saying we are no longer supplying that chip, you must update your product or you make "intel inside" look bad.

          Moores law still has a decade in solid state storage and memory, GPU/DPUs are doubbling in "AI" power ever 200 days. And we got Apple selling their stuck in 2018 parts bin gear.

          Fucking Liar.

          Apple gave Intel the Boot; and instantly gained both Compute Power and Battery Life for it!

    • Obviously they can't sell you the $$$ upgrade if the baseline configuration were good. Apple's entry model for almost all of their products has used this strategy for what seems like decades.
    • Dell XPS13 ultraportable still starts with 8/256 config, but way cheaper to get 16/512 config during US black friday window.
    • by CAIMLAS ( 41445 )

      Not sure how they did it, but their Apple Silicon is subjectively 2-3x as "effective" with memory use as an equivalent Intel machine.

      I've had 32GB+ in my AMD/Intel machines for the past decade - since about 2016. The 16GB M1 air is easily able to keep up with systems I've got with much more memory.

      I do wish for more, because more is always useful, but I've not yet felt constrained by 16GB except when I'm trying to do things with LLM and video AI upsampling to 8K. Unlike on an Intel box, it's still usable wh

      • Not sure how they did it, but their Apple Silicon is subjectively 2-3x as "effective" with memory use as an equivalent Intel machine.

        I've had 32GB+ in my AMD/Intel machines for the past decade - since about 2016. The 16GB M1 air is easily able to keep up with systems I've got with much more memory.

        I do wish for more, because more is always useful, but I've not yet felt constrained by 16GB except when I'm trying to do things with LLM and video AI upsampling to 8K. Unlike on an Intel box, it's still usable while I'm doing those things. *shrug*

        Not just Apple Silicon.

        MacOS has been incredibly good at memory management as long as I can remember.

        Absolutely no comparison with Windows.

        • by CAIMLAS ( 41445 )

          I'm comparing a 2019 (IIRC) i7 Macbook Pro w/ 32GB to an M1 Air/M2 Pro w/ 16GB.

          I had problems on the regular with the i7 and memory consumption, constantly having to kill things. No such problems on the M1 (or M2) at all, even with significantly more memory intensive applications.

          • I'm comparing a 2019 (IIRC) i7 Macbook Pro w/ 32GB to an M1 Air/M2 Pro w/ 16GB.

            I had problems on the regular with the i7 and memory consumption, constantly having to kill things. No such problems on the M1 (or M2) at all, even with significantly more memory intensive applications.

            Well, glad to see the Memory Pressure is even less on Apple Silicon!

            Not going to argue with that!

    • by antdude ( 79039 )

      No kidding. It's frustrating that buyers have to custom orders and pay more. :( And of course, we can't change and upgrade inside after buying those Macs. The very old (e.g., 2012) Macs could!

  • A great combo if you wanted to have a lightweight system for working anywhere would be, the 13 inch MacBook Air, with 24GB of RAM and paired with an Apple Vision Pro to use as the primary display.

    It would be a really small and lightweight combo and the Air would probably have enough power with the M3 chip to be fairly decent at compiling projects.

    • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

      by ACForever ( 6277156 )
      thanks for the apple ad.
    • the 13 inch MacBook Air, with 24GB of RAM and paired with an Apple Vision Pro to use as the primary display.

      It's like someone asked "how can I spend $6,000 on a computer with 24G of RAM in 2024".

      • It's like someone asked "how can I spend $6,000 on a computer with 24G of RAM in 2024".

        Curious why you think a computer with five monitors you can carry in your backpack and work productively anywhere on earth is not worth $6k.

        It's not about the computer so much as it is flexibility and portability.

        We already mostly work remote, there is value in being able to work even MORE remote when we choose. Especially those of us with fixed vacation time, if you can start working from anywhere you travel to with eas

        • Curious why you think a computer with five monitors you can carry in your backpack and work productively anywhere on earth is not worth $6k.

          It is not that. I've done the whole wall o' monitors thing in the past. Been there, bought the t-shirt and even found a VGA to 13W3 connector and a Matrox card to get a sync-on-green SGI monitor in the mix.

          It's a headset (complete with over half a kilo in weight and a sweaty ski goggle style light seal) which you can use to emulate that. And you know what? Video walls a

    • by nightflameauto ( 6607976 ) on Monday March 04, 2024 @11:56AM (#64288682)

      A great combo if you wanted to have a lightweight system for working anywhere would be, the 13 inch MacBook Air, with 24GB of RAM and paired with an Apple Vision Pro to use as the primary display.

      It would be a really small and lightweight combo and the Air would probably have enough power with the M3 chip to be fairly decent at compiling projects.

      This post makes me feel vaguely uncomfortable. Like I accidentally walked in on somebody masturbating to an Apple Ad, and now I'm not sure if I'm supposed to back away, or slap the ad out of their hand and help them seek out some form of therapy.

    • 24 gigs of RAM is an improvement from the 16 gigs in the M1, but, IMHO, I wish they bumped it up to 32 or 48 gigs for max capacity of the M3 native, just because even though Macs have a fast path to page RAM out to disk, having more RAM makes things like Vagrant runs, virtualization, or Docker stuff a lot smoother.

      The big thing about the MBA is that it is thin, light, and easy to tote around, without sacrificing too much for that ability.

      As for the Apple Vision Pro for a display, I'd probably get a headache

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Does it support more than one screen on the Vision Pro?

      At least as of a couple of days ago when Linus Tech Tips tested it, if you move your Macbook's screen to your Vision Pro, the display on the laptop goes black. No way to collaborate with anyone else, except by jankily streaming your Vision Pro feed to them so they can get motion sickness from all your head movements and focus tracking your eyes.

      Worse still, you can only have one Macbook screen in the Vision Pro. No dual monitors. You can open other Visi

  • Waiting for the m3 ultra mac studio...

    • I wouldn't mind a M3 or a M3 Pro Mac Mini myself. It may not be fancy, but for a desktop, it can do a ton of stuff without making noise.

      • I picked up a Studio M1 MAX base model for $1300 un-opened last fall. You may be able to find a used studio like this easier than a suped up mini as its rare people will load up a mini with performance options. The studio is dead silent.
  • by big-giant-head ( 148077 ) on Monday March 04, 2024 @12:48PM (#64288862)

    A 1300 dollar laptop with 8 gigs of ram a 256GB nvme. WTF am I supposed to do with that ? Read email and Play candy crush ? I can do that with my phone ? Seriously Apple needs to be shipping their base systems with 16 gigs of ram and 512Gb nvme. It's just sad. Waiting for the Apple fanboys to mod me to -1 because I hurt their feelings.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by kamapuaa ( 555446 )

      You choose the least bad option. I agree the price for the hardware is too high. At the same time, Linux isn't really an option, and I'm willing to price in the fact that MacOS is way the fuck better than Windows.

      Most people don't game or do virtual rendering or whatever. They need a computer, they don't need the most powerful. For instance my wife runs a successful small business off her computer. If I was a gamer or various other computation-heavy needs, yeah I guess I'd be forced into Windows.

      • I run Ubuntu at home .. I can play 90+% of the games on Steam via proton. Oh yeah my video card alone, RX 6850xt has 12GB of RAM. I can edit. .docx and .xslx if needed in Libre office. Blender , Gimp and a plethora of other things run FASTER than in winblows.. I can see some small office software that won't run on Linux or needing to run the Adobe tools in you are a photographer. However for everything I need to do at home it works fine. So many things run in a browser now. Linux runs fine AND IT

        • by BigZee ( 769371 )
          90+%? I accept that you may have a more comprehensive library than I do but I have a very high success rate with Proton. I'd be going with 99% from personal experience and the only thing that didn't work was a 3rd party program I added myself. Even then, the program worked partially.
    • "laptop with 8 gigs of ram a 256GB nvme. WTF am I supposed to do with that ?"

      LibreOffice does just fine with that. Not everyone is a video editor or a gamer.

    • Why? If you want more, buy more.

      The minimum model of ANYTHING Is virtually always:

      1) . Designed for people who don't need or want more.

      2). Designed as a "teaser rate" model, to get you in the door and give someone an opportunity to upsell you.

      There is nothing wrong with either and virtually all companies of any significance use such a model.

  • STILL starting at 8G for the base memory.

    Apple - this is disgusting. You haven’t updated your base RAM in like a decade!

  • SSD's wear out. I have found by watching the repairs on Adrian's Digital Basement and Jerry Walker that even good RAM goes bad.
    • SSD's wear out. I have found by watching the repairs on Adrian's Digital Basement and Jerry Walker that even good RAM goes bad.

      What would possibly make DRAM "Go Bad"?

  • iPhone Triangulation attack abused undocumented hardware feature [bleepingcomputer.com]

    Kaspersky explains that CVE-2023-38606 targets unknown MMIO (memory-mapped I/O) registers in Apple A12-A16 Bionic processors, likely linked to the chip's GPU co-processor, which are not listed in the DeviceTree.
  • Do those cores do something other than AI related work? What AI processing is the average Mac buyer doing locally on their laptop?

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