One thing I recall is Linus is really big on "absolutely no noise whatsoever". The passively cooled but still reasonably powerful Air seems like ideal hardware for his tastes, at least for a laptop.
Yeah, somehow I am surprised with his cooled down take on this.
With the exceptionally good ARM hardware coming in from Apple, I can't see mainstream future for other laptops which will allow OS freedom. As time goes on, Apple should be able to significantly reduce the price of entry level Macbooks. Look at iPad pricing, entry level laptops just for iPad level work on a laptop form factor don't have to cost a lot.
I always thought this will be Chromebooks, and hoped Google would be more friendly to other OSs because of their past, but it looks like it will be Macbooks that will fill that space.
What incentive would Apple have to do that? For the most part their products have only gone up in price (as with the yearly iPhone releases). I'd expect exactly the opposite instead (e.g. thinner-bezel macbooks with face ID). A cheaper ARM Macbook would cannibalise their iPad sales.
Laptops with OS freedom have always been a more niche thing, same as dual booting on a desktop machine. Short of selling laptops with no OS at all, most people are going to stick with the default install.
>their products have only gone up in price (as with the yearly iPhone releases)
Hmm, not sure I agree with that. The iPhone 12 mini base price is $699 with 64GB. iPhone 3GS in 2009 with 8 GB was $599, or $727 in inflation adjusted 2020 dollars. Never mind the incredible increases in data rate, speed, display quality, and other capabilities.
Or, take the iPhone SE, an incredible phone compared to the 3GS and it has a base price of $399 with 64GB. 200 dollars less before inflation.
Apple has introduced premium models at higher prices but that leads to an incorrect comparison. It's just not reasonable to point to a 2009 iPhone and a 2020 iPhone Pro and suggest some sort of relevant price comparison.
In actual or inflation adjusted dollars it costs much less to own an iPhone today than it did a decade ago and you get a lot more phone.
I agree that we shouldn't expect a cheaper laptop, but I don't think it is because they care about cannibalizing their own sales. They set margin goals for each product and have demonstrated an unwillingness to discount below those goals solely to pursue market share.
Kinda, if you compare small screen price, which is kinda fair.
Yet look what competition is able to do with $300 budget - 5G, 120 fps screens (although lesser quality), similar (or better) cameras, similar performance, bigger batteries (similar life tho).
At $300 the manufacturer has to make serious trade offs. I’m sure there are models at that price point with great cameras, or 120hz, or 5g, or longer battery life (actual size of the battery is irrelevant, battery life is the important metric). Is there a model with all of those features at $300? I’m not aware of one. Especially performance, since most Android phones can’t beat the 2 year old iPhone XS.
> A cheaper ARM Macbook would cannibalise their iPad sales.
I was thinking of it more like. Here's your PC in tablet form for iPad, here's your PC in laptop form for a entry level Macbook. They can keep the internals same for both. Most users are fine with web browser, mail client, photo editor etc. which an iPad internal laptop should very well run.
> Laptops with OS freedom have always been a more niche thing, same as dual booting on a desktop machine. Short of selling laptops with no OS at all, most people are going to stick with the default install.
True, but everything being x86 or x86_64 allowed us to run other OSs and that community kept the threat of a different OS alive for other users. If no one can run other software on these laptops, that fear will go away completely.
How long before the thermal throttling kicks in? I guess if that's the case probably only a performance issue for me when not at home with a laptop cooler underneath.
Well, if that page is accurate, it paints a depressing picture for the competition.
The CPUs listed in those laptops? Either the same or a slower version of the processors used in the Macbook. You know, that fanless 12 inch Intel thing which everyone complained about because it was too slow (and the keyboard was the worst butterfly one ever made, but.)
Taken with the grain of salt as they ought to be, the Geekbench score for the M1 Air is 2.3 times higher single-core, 4.9 times higher multi-core than the most expensive MacBook with a i7-7Y75, one of the "Kaby Lake Core Y"s in that list.
The only newer processor there is from 8th gen Amber Lake, which seems to be the only newer "fanless" CPU from Intel.
(the 9th gen "Y" designs were, apparently, only ever used in the (fan-including) 2020 macbook air)
