
The 2020 MacBook Air - FabHK
https://daringfireball.net/2020/03/the_2020_macbook_air
======
ksec
The most important thing to me about the new MacBook Pro and MacBook Air 2020
is ( hopefully ) the confirmation of price _trend_.

$999 Retina Mac with 256GB Baseline Storage?

Somewhere along the line in 2016, Apple's product value proposition went off.
Everything from Mac to iPhone, they either had the same price but not as much
improvement or a price hike with new feature.

At first it was thought Apple is moving into higher margin luxury style
business, but now it seems it was a cover up for Service Revenue with huge
margin. Despite Apple doubled its Service Revenue from 2016, its Gross and Net
Margin has been stable over the past 5 years at ~38% and ~19%.

iPhone 11, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, iPad in 2020 have all priced like they
were in ~2015. Roughly 30% premium to their competitors, So in a way, you can
think of Services ( and likely wearables ) is Subsidising ( Edit: Offsetting
should be the better word ) these price reduction.

~~~
diebeforei485
Apple tends to use roughly the same physical design over many years, and every
new physical design is usually accompanied by a price increase. Generally
speaking, every new physical design requires a lot of work and upfront cost -
so this is arguably fine.

Except the 2016-2019 models (except the new 16-inch model) didn't offer good
value - largely because the "redesigned" keyboard was unreliable, the touch
bar was laggy, and the thermals (super thin design) were not very great,
leading to performance and heat issues.

They pushed the touch bar way too hard. I thought the virtual esc key in
Terminal would be fine, but it ended up just being laggy and frustrating. The
2018 touchbar is somewhat marginally less frustrating, but people shouldn't
have to deal with a laggy esc key after paying $1800.

Also - they were selling 'Pro' computers with 128GB of storage. Ridiculous.

~~~
blablabla123
One should definitely do some research before buying anything expensive. On
the other hand I think some models are extremely reliable and despite (or
because of ;)) the fancy design far most robust than most PC laptops.

128 GB is really ridiculous, on the other hand it's possible to upgrade that.
I think the higher price tag is reasonable for a laptop that lasts so many
years. Also for anything compute intensive I think it's anyway more practical
to rent out a VPS somewhere...

~~~
diebeforei485
I don't think the keyboard is particularly reliable. And the storage is not
upgradeable.

~~~
blablabla123
Sure, especially for the models you pointed out. But other models...

On the other hand with PC laptops it's so common that a part at the display's
hinge falls off or even a key for that matter. Recently a MacBook Pro fell
from 1 meter or so, and the was just a tiny ditch, everything else was still
working.

------
JohnTHaller
Pro Tip: The MacBook Air line of today has taken over for the MacBook line of
old. It's not like the original air which was so much thinner and lighter than
everything else. Thickness of the 13" MacBook Air is 0.63" vs 0.59" of the 13"
MacBook Pro and weight of the Air is 2.8lbs vs 3.0lbs for the Pro. The MacBook
Air is the lower-end MacBook now.

~~~
rsync
"Pro Tip: The MacBook Air line of today has taken over for the MacBook line
..."

OK, I think that is correct.

But then what is the MacBook Air now ?

I am typing on a 2015 11" MBA that is, in my opinion, the high point of laptop
design and execution _ever_. With this laptop, Apple _solved_ the laptop - the
same way that they _solved_ the tower form factor with the original Mac Pro.

~~~
JohnTHaller
> But then what is the MacBook Air now ?

There isn't one. There's the MacBook Pro, which is the higher end laptop line
and the MacBook Air, which is the lower end. That said, both the current Pro
and Air are thinner than the original MacBook Air and the same weight or
slightly lighter.

~~~
rsync
"That said, both the current Pro and Air are thinner than the original MacBook
Air and the same weight or slightly lighter."

That may be, but there is no 11" model so it's a bigger thing to put in my
briefcase/bag ...

I knew I should have purchased _three_ identical 2015 11" MBAs ... I bought
two and I am on #2 now ... when it breaks there is nothing to replace it with.

~~~
pozdnyshev_
Still using a 2012 11" MBA and have only had to replace the battery once.
Occasionally open it up and replace thermal paste but that's it.

------
dillutedfixer
I wish Apple would bring back a true anti-glare matte display option. I can't
stand the reflectivity on any of their laptops despite their claim that it's
"anti-glare." I love the macOS ecosystem, but I REALLY love the 100% Adobe
matte 4k screen on my Dell Precision.

~~~
asdff
You can buy a matte screen protector

~~~
dillutedfixer
Not the same. I added one of those to a 13" MBP I used to have. The protector
alters the way you see the color on the screen, and adds a kind of weird
pixelated look. As someone who does professional photo and video editing,
that's a deal breaker. Not to mention how difficult they are to get on without
bubbles or dust trapped underneath, and the fact that they just eventually
start to peel off at the edges. There was a company in the bay area that used
to swap out the glossy screens with a true matte display and a dark bezel,
cant remember their name but once the retinas came out they stopped doing the
swaps.

------
mortenjorck
"Jony Ive was the hero long enough to become the villain" may be an overdone
take at this point, but this just continues to prove it true. Ive led Apple's
design org through a renaissance that lasted two decades, but it ultimately
collapsed in a string of vanity projects that put a serious dent in Apple's
design credibility.

Maybe it was not having Jobs as a counterbalancing force that wasn't afraid to
say "no;" maybe it was something else. But it's clear Apple is both
immeasurably better for having had Ive from the 90s to the early 2010s, and is
now better for his having given up the reins.

~~~
chipperyman573
What vanity projects?

~~~
scarface74
The $10,000 Gold first generation Apple Watch, the trash can Mac Pro, the 12”
MacBook, and the dumpster fire last generation keyboards.

~~~
aczerepinski
I disagree on the 12" MacBook. My wife has one and I think it's a fantastic
product. With only 0.2 lbs separating the Air and Pro right now, I don't think
both lines really need to exist. If they had kept iterating on the ultra-light
MacBook it would be such a great product to recommend to parents, etc.

~~~
kirstenbirgit
I think it's a big shame they're not making the 12" anymore. It's a perfect
computer for lounging around on the sofa or on the go. The new Air actually
feels a lot more heavy and cumbersome compared to it.

~~~
mmhsieh
I just made the switch recently; the larger volume of the new 13" and the
increased mass really creates a discernible different in the moment of
inertia. Subtle difference that makes me miss the 12".

------
pjungwir
I have a late 2013 Macbook Air and I love it. I do most of my work on a
Xubuntu desktop, but the Air is great for travel, working outside, or carrying
around the house. I use it every day. I bought it to replace a heavy plastic
dual-boot Dell laptop that was falling apart. It felt weightless and the
battery lasted 10+ hours.

Every time I see a new Apple laptop now I dread that I'll have to go back to a
non-Apple Linux system instead. In theory a Linux laptop would be great for
me, but when I read about my options there's none I feel great about. But my
Air with its 8GB of RAM is feeling under-powered whenever I have to run
docker/k8s/vagrant, and now the screen is starting to flicker.

I can't tell yet whether this model is enough to keep me in the Apple fold. It
sounds like they improved a lot, but they're really parsimonious with those
ports. My old Air is anxiety-free: it gives me power, 2 USBs, and DisplayPort.
I routinely use them all. So the 2020 model is still going to feel like a
downgrade. At least it still comes with a standard headphone jack, I suppose.
:-/

~~~
0xff00ffee
Let's hear it for 2013 Macs!

My 2013 MBP is going strong. I do 100% of my work on this computer, and half
of that is through AWS EC2 instances (x86 and ARM linux, and Windows for
testing); if I need a local OS I run VMWare images of Ubuntu and Windows. I've
had 0 issues with this computer. It really blows my mind how good it is.

By comparison: my first laptop was a Toshiba Portege (sic) in 1992 that was
monochrome for about $4000... and then my various jobs usually gave me IBM
Thinkpad / Lenovo thinkpads, buit would waterfall them routinely.

But my MBP2013? this is the longest I've owned any computer in my life (work
or personal), and I have absolutely no reason to replace it.

------
taylodl
Here's my perception of the markets for the MBA and MBP based of anecdotal
observations:

The MBA is for students, the sales force, and road warriors. These people
value ultra portability and long batter life and typically don't have highly
demanding use cases necessitating a lot of processing power and storage.

The MBP is geared toward the so-called power user who needs portability. That
portability is typically moving between meetings or between facilities where
they work. They're generally always close to a power source.

This has been my observation since the MBA was first introduced. I'd love to
see Apples' product personas to see how close my experience is to their
expectations.

------
ebg13
The only interesting part of this was the performance comparison chart showing
that Apple's ARM chips from 2018 and 2019 are significantly faster than the
2020 Intel chip.

MacBook Air 2020 (4-core Core i5) 1,127 2,854

11″ iPad Pro 2018 (8-core A12X) 1,118 4,477

iPhone 11 Pro (6-core A13) 1,321 3,387

~~~
2muchcoffeeman
Can the iPad and iPhone sustain the performance? I think that’s the kicker.
Your regular laptop even an air will have a fan. The A series chips look
amazing on paper but iPad and iPhones don’t have the cooling for sustained
performance.

~~~
ebg13
I don't think you're making the argument that you think you are. For the right
mental comparison, imagine the iPad CPU in the laptop housing with all of the
laptop's cooling.

~~~
2muchcoffeeman
You can’t buy one of these mythical setups. I think people bring up the bench
marks as though there’s going to be another architecture change. Maybe. But
for now the Air is still faster than your phone in general.

Don’t get me wrong. The A series chips are amazing. But the benchmarks have
looked very impressive for years. Nothing has come from it except fantasising.

------
CapriciousCptl
Absolutely glowing review. Personally, I'm not as enthusiastic about its
design. My 2016 Dell XPS 13 (Ubuntu) with a 4k screen is lighter at 2.6lbs and
smaller without a bezel around the screen.

~~~
scarface74
Of course and most Mac users are just dying to use Linux....

~~~
asdff
imo macos is the best unix distro

------
talkingtab
Uh no. 8GB memory is not okay. 16GB is marginal but $200 more. Can you upgrade
the memory?

~~~
dean177
8GB is absolutely fine for most people, but it is an expensive upgrade.

~~~
pivo
In my experience with family members who have 8G laptops, they are not fine.
Even my mother who just uses a web browser, mail.app and occasinally Photos is
not fine with 8G. Her MacBook Pro regularly ground to a halt. I replaced it
with a used model that was almost exactly the same except that it has 16G and
now she is fine.

~~~
dangus
I don't in any way believe you, sorry.

There's absolutely no way anyone with that workload is hitting RAM limits.

Example:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnuNs_Nu46Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnuNs_Nu46Q)

~~~
blackhaz
With browsers eating half a gig just to launch these days, I agree 8 GB is
borderline. I often hit the limit even just doing web browsing, e-mailing and
a mix of other apps here and there, nothing fancy.

~~~
dangus
"Hitting the limit" doesn't mean performance is impacted.

Operating systems and programs allocate RAM somewhat intelligently. They won't
necessarily clear out information from RAM if there's no reason to do so.

In Chrome, you have to have around 25 tabs open to hit swap, but performance
only becomes a problem at many more than that. The obvious answer is to close
some tabs - there's no way you can even read the titles of 25 tabs anyway.

If people like my parents need a new computer, I absolutely wouldn't bother
recommending the 16GB memory system to them. Absolute total overkill. Storage
and CPU are better upgrades to make first.

------
Niccizero
I don't see the reason to buy a such a compromised machine over a X1 Carbon or
a XPS 13. No ports, crappy soldered everything, worst company for consumer
rights, etc. They have nice screens I guess? And you can't deny the brand
appeal of the Apple logo.

~~~
snazz
For the kinds of people who wouldn’t be running Linux on the other laptops,
maybe they just like macOS better than Windows? It’s not like Hackintoshing is
trivial. It’s not necessarily a developer machine.

~~~
thelittleone
This is pretty much it. OSX is what locks me in to Apple. Ironic that it (OSX)
is free.

~~~
vulcan01
Nitpicking, but I wouldn't necessarily consider it "free". There is a cost to
get it, which is the price of your Mac.

~~~
thelittleone
Fair point, although OSX can be installed on non-mac hardware (if one has the
patience) or in a virtual host.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
I haven’t checked recently, is Windows still available off-license?

------
tomerbd
My only reasons for sticking with MacBook's \- The OS - I don't really feel it
which is great because I want to focus on my work. \- The quality - like the
touch bar, I can work a lot with it and I forget about it, it's big and very
useful. Excellent screen, lightweight, 2 usbc are good enough for me for
everything. \- It's light. \- In any way I stick with MacBook Pro 2017 16 GB
RAM 512SSD costs today around $1500 and it's a great machine for a software
developer. More RAM/Disk would be better but for now it's perfect.

------
globular-toast
I'm really surprised that the Macbook Air is the most popular. I had this idea
that it was a niche product for people who wanted portability above
everything. I guess it's a really good thing because presumably it has lower
power consumption than higher performance machines. There was a time when the
standard PC that your grandma would buy from Dell came with a top of the line
Pentium 4. It's good that this is no longer the case.

------
dna_polymerase
The ARM comparison in terms of power efficiency doesn't really make sense,
does it? I guess he's right about the efficiency but there isn't a real
competitive ARM-based laptop available right now, at least I haven't heard of
one and even if there is one: Apple couldn't just go for ARM they'd have to
adapt their OS for that and I assume by now there is a lot of code in there
making use of x86 quirks not easily adaptable to ARM

~~~
insaneirish
> Apple couldn't just go for ARM they'd have to adapt their OS for that and I
> assume by now there is a lot of code in there making use of x86 quirks not
> easily adaptable to ARM

If you think Apple doesn’t have macOS running on ARM today, then you’re
probably missing something.

~~~
dna_polymerase
I guess it could make lots of sense for them to support ARM and build ARM-
based devices, that said I'm not an Apple dev in any capacity so I don't know
what's going on internally. But right now there is now ARM-based Apple device
running MacOS, is there?

~~~
snazz
Ummm... iPhones? iOS and macOS share almost completely the same kernel
([https://github.com/apple/darwin-xnu](https://github.com/apple/darwin-xnu)).

------
monadic2
Unrelated, but something about the font/color combo makes this quite difficult
to read on ios.

~~~
monadic2
Revisiting: probably how thin the font is.

------
Phrodo_00
I started disagreeing in the first paragraph and it kept coming, but my tastes
are different than your typical Apple buyer. To me the workhorse mac is the
mbp.

I tolerate my work 2015 mbp, and while I could upgrade it, I'm still waiting
for Apple to release a decent keyboard before I do. I tested the keyboard on
the 2020 16" mbp, and it still felt worse than my lenovo yoga (non-thinkpad),
which is not a high bar at all.

------
dang
Related from a few days ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22615719](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22615719)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22615803](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22615803)

------
AndriyKunitsyn
Do MBAs 2020 have heatsinks detached from fans too?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiCBYAP_Sgg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiCBYAP_Sgg)

------
everetm
Any opinions on mba 2020 vs xps 13 2020? Bezels = xps Color = mba? Ports =
xps? Webcam = both bad? Keyboard = maybe mba?

~~~
IAmEveryone
MacOS

~~~
systemvoltage
This cannot be stated enough. Why is it so difficult to understand for most
people that MacOS is a much larger part of the equation than simply comparing
mac vs. pc hardware?

~~~
everetm
I'm an Android user and don't see myself moving to entire apple ecosystem. So
if I had a MacOS I don't directly see many benefits. (correct me if I'm wrong)

------
tpmx
So eight years after the first retina MBP there's finally a good retina MBA.

~~~
chambo622
Seriously.

Wondering if I should get one of these to replace my 2015 13" rMBP, which, as
of late, has pretty poor battery life and degraded performance. Wouldn't mind
something a bit more portable. Or, if the obvious move is a new iPad Pro.

~~~
ilogik
the 2020 mbp 14 inch should be just around the corner. I just replaced the
battery in my 2013 mbp

~~~
nicoburns
How much did the battery replacement cost? Mine's still ok, but it probably
won't be long before I'd consider a replacement. But that does rather depend
on the price...

~~~
sintaxi
I have replaced the battery in both my rMBP (2015). It costs about $100 and
can be done yourself.

~~~
rconti
I did a DIY on my 2011 Air for $70ish and while it seemed to solve my problems
at first, after a short while it seemed like every time i went to use the
machine it was dead. (I only use it once every week or three). I'm not sure if
it's not sleeping, or waking from sleep, or what. I use it too little to even
troubleshoot. But that was enough to get me to pull the trigger on a new i9
Air yesterday.

------
wodenokoto
Does anyone know how the mba speakers and mike compare to the 13” pro?

------
minikites
I'm not sure why Apple gets all this credit for making a reliable keyboard,
something the rest of the industry figured out decades ago.

~~~
cpach
The rest of the industry…? At work we have lots of Lenovo and HP laptops and
those keyboards are, IMO, clearly inferior to my MBA 2012.

~~~
mx24
ThinkPads are well known for having great keyboards. Apple’s do not compare.

~~~
pfranz
I think it's fair to compare. Excluding Apple's recent scissor switch
keyboard, they've both been reliable and serviceable. They've both had a
following over many years. Aesthetically, I've preferred Apple's keyboards and
I'm sure many people feel conversely.

------
Scarbutt
A 15" MBA would be nice.

------
safog
It's hard to take Gruber seriously anymore. I haven't seen anyone with such an
obvious bias for Apple and disdain for anything non-Apple so 99% of what he
writes about Apple is going to be sunshine and butterflies.

If you aren't going to say anything controversial, why bother even listening
to you? I'll just watch Apple's PR videos and be happy.

~~~
derefr
Gruber isn't really an essayist. He's a diarist. His oeuvre is pretty useless
if you just read one piece out of context. But it begins to be useful when you
read a bunch of his stuff (preferably in order, as one would if they were
following him over the years), and start compare-and-contrasting his takes on
e.g. generation N of a product vs. generation N-1 of the same product; or
between two different products released to solve the same problem in different
ways at different times. There's a lot of detail to be found there, that you
won't find in most takes.

~~~
JohnBooty
My brother once told me he liked a certain music blog because even when he
disagreed with the review conclusion and score, the writing was informative
and insightful enough to let him make up his own mind.

That's how I feel about Gruber. I probably agree with him 2/3 of the time, and
1/3 of the time I wonder if he's living on a different planet.

But even in those 1/3 of cases, he does a good job of laying out the facts and
the process by which he arrived at his conclusion. So for me, he's well worth
reading even in those times.

------
m0zg
Just before they abandon all the Intel crap and switch to ARM.

