I’m really happy with how this episode came out. I hope y’all enjoy it.
Next week: Our macOS Big Sur episode!
I really enjoyed the interview, so thanks for that.
I am very excited about my MacBook Air M1.
I loved my 2015 MacBook, with the lack of fan and ease of portability. Didn’t like the only-1-port and didn’t like having to get the keyboard replaced 3 times.
I kept it until 2019 when I upgraded to the MacBook Air, which I didn’t love, but the 2015 MacBook was no longer reliable.
In April of 2020 I upgraded to a 16" MacBook Pro because I needed more “oomph” for all the video/Zoom/WFH stuff that I was doing. Loved the horsepower. Got a great dock so I don’t actually use more than 1 port (when I’m at my home office desk anyway).
I don’t love the size. It’s fine on a desk, but on the couch it’s unwieldy.
I don’t love the Touch Bar. I tried. I really tried. I even tried Better Touch Tool. But I just don’t like it, and I only use it by accident.
The good news is that I can trade my MBPro in for a new MacBook Air with 16GB and 1TB SSD (which is what I have now) as basically an even exchange.
I’m more excited about this than the previous MacBook Air or the MacBook Pro because it reminds me of the MacBook (but with an extra port, which everyone always said was a big drawback) and not only is this one not underpowered, but it’s likely to equal to my MacBook Pro, but in a much smaller form-factor and without a fan.
Did I mention there’s no fan? I’m a big fan of no fan.
And no Touch Bar.
Plus, being able to run iOS apps, which seems like it might be cool… as long as the developers of some apps that I’d like to use don’t opt-out, I guess.
This was great! I had a bit of a “hair-blown-back” moment when @MacSparky said “and this is the slowest Apple Silicon that will ever be released!”
I had to pause playback and let that soak for a minute. He’s absolutely spot-on! These speeds and performance are the new “low” benchmarks for each generation that comes after it. It’s truly incredible to think about when put into context like that.
Thanks for the Touch Bar comment. I’ve tried it on other people’s machines and want to like it…but I don’t. Guess it’s the new MBA for me!
The M1 is going the opposite direction as far as user-replaceable parts goes. Take my 2019 Macbook Pro that I purchased in March… I got 32GB RAM and 2 TB drive, which I thought would be enough for the next 4-5 years. My local storage needs went up dramatically in 5 months later, and I’m already using half of my storage. It’s going to go up again soon , so I’ve been researching my options for upgrading the hard drive.
So far the memory is sufficient, but I really wish that I could get an internal 4TB drive for my Macbook Pro. I’ve tried external TB drives and they just aren’t practical.
It looks I’ll probably have to jump off the Apple computer train for my next computer unless Apple changes course and offers the ability upgrade hardware, whether self-service or by an Apple technician.
I wouldn’t count on future computers being any more user-upgradeable than these are. That’s just not the direction things are going. I don’t love it either (I just put a new SSD in my 2008 Black MacBook), but that’s where we are.
Not that I condone such actions, but a motivated person could go the Hackintosh route
For as long as new macOS releases support Intel, at least.
Yep. What we need is consumer backlash ( vote with your dollars! ) in sufficient numbers to convince vendors to offer user-upgradable laptops.
I’m not ready to jump ship just yet. I’m in a weird limbo now where I run Ubuntu VM on my Mac for software development and testing cross-platform applications to replace macOS-only ones. I get the best of both worlds that way. Brew is nice but ( for me ) it adds an extra layer of compatibility issues since I run my services on Linux anyway. I might as well develop apps on same OS where they are going to run!
I’d mention some Linux laptop vendors , but that would be waaaaaaay off topic!
macOS and Macbooks have a lot going for them. I haven’t tried Apple Silicon/M1 hardware yet, everyone reports that it’s blazing fast and easy on the battery. Perhaps the Pro line will allow users to get higher specs with regards to memory, storage, and CPU.
That will almost certainly never happen. That would be like offering a user-replaceable battery on the iPhone — sure, some folks might want it, but not nearly enough to make a difference.
(Hey, I get it… I recently put a new SSD in my 2008 Black MacBook, and I’m glad I could… it means that computer still has some theoretical life left… but I don’t expect I’ll ever own another computer that will let me do that (with the possible exception of the Mac mini, but I wouldn’t even count on that).
I would think the pro line would obviously include all of those things as options.
None of it upgradable later, but definitely BTO options.