From macrumors.com:

The M1 chip, which belongs to a ‌MacBook Air‌ with 8GB RAM, features a single-core score of 1687 and a multi-core score of 7433.

...

In comparison to Macs, the single-core performance is better than any other available Mac, and the multi-core performance beats out all of the 2019 16-inch MacBook Pro models, including the 10th-generation high-end 2.4GHz Intel Core i9 model. That high-end 16-inch MacBook Pro earned a single-core score of 1096 and a multi-core score of 6870.

From anandtech.com:

The performance numbers of the A14 on this chart is relatively mind-boggling. If I were to release this data with the label of the A14 hidden, one would guess that the data-points came from some other x86 SKU from either AMD or Intel. The fact that the A14 currently competes with the very best top-performance designs that the x86 vendors have on the market today is just an astonishing feat.

Looking into the detailed scores, what again amazes me is the fact that the A14 not only keeps up, but actually beats both these competitors in memory-latency sensitive workloads such as 429.mcf and 471.omnetpp, even though they either have the same memory (i7-1185G7 with LPDDR4X-4266), or desktop-grade memory (5950X with DDR-3200). [emphasis mine]

The most important thing to remember when you read these benchmarks is that, with the exception of one GPU core, every new Mac has exactly the same CPU. It's just clothed in three different skins.

• One is inexpensive.
• One has much better cooling and a bigger battery.
• The last is a desktop.

You really don't get the sort of performance step up you'd normally expect going from one tier to another. They've removed the reason you had to use a different class of processor in the Air -- reducing the wattage required -- by moving everything to the same low-powered chip. You no longer "unlock" a better class of processor when you go Pro. You "just" keep it cooler.

This is why I bagged a new Air.

The only reason I need macOS now is for Xamarin and iOS development. I bought a MacBook Air two years ago, and though it's nice with the upgraded SSD [sic], the processor is really getting long in the tooth. Insanely slow.

The M1's performance jump combined with the Air's price (and, admittedly, combined with the end of the butterfly keyboard) finally makes it make sense to buy a Mac again. And now that I've slowly added USB-C docks and monitors (including a nice Lenovo monitor that sends power with the video) around the house, two USB ports is plenty.

I'm looking forward to seeing how important the fan in the Pro is if you're compiling a decent amount. I may have made a mistake, and saving $300 over the Pro was penny wise & pound foolish, but I doubt it. If I could get by at all on the old Air (though it was getting close to unusable), this is going to be wonderful.

I'm also concerned about Rosetta 2 performance. So far, it appears things are running reasonably fast. If Visual Studio is happy, I'm happy. If World of Warcraft runs... well, without a fan, I bet it doesn't impress, but that'd be a nice bonus. I'm not too concerned about the rest of my app suite...

1. Visual Studio/Xamarin and the iPhone Simulator
2. Thunderbird (some concern; it's a bloated app)
3. Chrome (it's gotta work or Apple failed. That doesn't mean I'm putting money on it working)
4. Sublime
5. VS Code (already insanely fast)
6. ReadKit (though I can finally run NetNewsWire in Big Sur)
7. iStat (not hugely important)
8. Amazon Music?
9. MacVim

That's about it. Aside from maybe Thunderbird, I don't see an issue even if they don't go native soon. (I have played with Panic's Nova a little. It'll be native, so no issues there either.)

I'm looking forward to benchmarking some next weekend.

There are certainly other use cases that might steer you away from an Air. If you wanted to do video, maybe you skip the 7 GPU Air for the 8 core GPU upgraded Air or MacBook Pro.

If you need a brighter screen, the Pro is [100 nits iirc] brighter.

If you're Joe Cieplinski, and it's all about the battery, maybe you get a Pro.

• My battery life [with the M1 Pro] is likely to be close to double what I’m currently getting.

That said, USB-C has made it easy to pop a power bank in your bag and keep plugging away... and, as I've joked, I'm a Hodgman when it comes to battery power myself.

If you love the Touch Bar, which is actually pretty neat, maybe you grab a Pro.

If you never leave your desk or you're running a computer lab, maybe you grab the mini?

But I usually figure out what the floor for entry is for a platform and see if and when it's worth entering, and the bottom line is that using macOS seems like it's going to be worth it again with new M1-powered Macs.

Labels: apple, laptop, macbook, macbook pro

I've noticed that my 2017 MacBook Air will lose 10-20% of its battery at night sometimes even while it's sleeping. I don't remember having this trouble with other Macs.

Looks like I'm not alone. Here's a thread on MBPs with the same issue.

$ pmset -b tcpkeepalive 0
Warning: This option disables TCP Keep Alive mechanism when sytem is sleeping. This will result in some critical features like 'Find My Mac' not to function properly.
'pmset' must be run as root...
$ 
$
$ sudo pmset -b tcpkeepalive 0
Password:
Warning: This option disables TCP Keep Alive mechanism when sytem is sleeping. This will result in some critical features like 'Find My Mac' not to function properly.
$ 
$ 
$ pmset -g
System-wide power settings:
Currently in use:
 standbydelaylow      10800
 standby              1
 halfdim              1
 hibernatefile        /var/vm/sleepimage
 gpuswitch            2
 powernap             0
 disksleep            10
 standbydelayhigh     86400
 sleep                5 (sleep prevented by sharingd)
 autopoweroffdelay    28800
 hibernatemode        3
 autopoweroff         1
 ttyskeepawake        1
 displaysleep         5
 highstandbythreshold 50
 acwake               0
 lidwake              1

So the OS knows about this option, even though tcpkeepalive doesn't appear after a pmset -g.

I don't know. I saw this a couple of places, the terminal seemed to admit its existence, and I'd like the laptop to sleep without losing power. We'll see.

Labels: apple fail, macbook

Everyone’s weighed in on Jonathan Ives leaving Apple, and originally I didn’t have anything new to say. It sure looked like this was coming if you followed the work he was doing with Jacobs (?) on charity items, work on Apple Park from furniture to walls, etc. He may have led teams doing hardware redesigns, and was probably giving some detailed, serious (and seriously good) feedback on projects delivered to him, feedback that likely drove those designers nuts, but day-to-day Apple hardware? Maybe the Pro case? But, ultimately, I’d believe not so much.

But the release of Texas Hold ’Em, an app peak Jobsian in its appreciation of the skeuomorphic, the death of the 12" MacBook, and the rumors of Macbooks getting away from the butterfly keyboard as quickly as possible – combined with iOS 7 – gave me a distinct thought:

When the designer gets to choose the key constraints and is not given them, you risk unproductive idealism.

Ives was about minimalism. Oh, I’d love to see him write some code. It would be beautifully DRY without one wasted line. But it also might only do 80% of what the acceptance criteria requested.

iOS 7 was an interesting thought experiment: How flat can I make UI and still have it be a human-friendly UI? We got there… and a little farther. You sometimes have to cross the line to find it, and you could argue we really didn’t need to find it. But he did, and we did, and iOS has spent several years now recovering -- and has done that recovering not, as I understand it, under his leadership.

But Ives selected “flat”. Nobody was clamoring for flat. That was his constraint, his ideal, his Moby Dick. Not ours, iOS users’. That was only his.

The butterfly keyboard is similar. The MacBook Air I’m using right now, pre-butterfly, is plenty small enough. The extra ports it has make a lot of sense. It may not be a marvel of ideal design, but it is a marvel of practical design.

But that wasn’t enough for Ives’ Apple. They felt they had to find the line – for thinness. For minimalism. And then they unknowingly crossed it. It’s beautiful to have the same holes on each side of the machine, but it’s not human-friendly. It’s wonderful to have the thinest notebook ever, but not if it means that your keyboard craps outs. It’s great to have a 12“ MacBook with a beautiful ”retina" screen, but you’re telling me not only is my CPU pitifully constrained, but that I can’t use a jump drive and my power supply at the same time?

Who said we needed thinner notebooks and flatter UIs? Nobody. These were design goals – design contraints – picked by the designer. So much of a notebook’s design aren't elective constraints, but inherent ones for the device. That we need human-sized keys on the keyboard. That we need screens designed for the human eye. That we need the processing power to run a modern OS. That our antennae must get adequate WiFi signal. That our batteries last for a work day plus.

But those real-world, human constraints operate against Ives’ elective constraints of minimalism and thinness. He stopped designing for the world and started pursuing ideals. Some of those just happened to work fine with users – the iPhone is as much fashion as practical computer, after all, and we would all yet benefit from still smaller slabs in our pockets. We have not yet reached the functional peak of thinness for phones. We have with laptops.

Same with computer and phone screens' resolutions: We are now to the peak, where it’s almost impossible to see pixels with the naked eye, at least for someone who’s not nearsighted. Ives' ideals were useful there (and luckily even he realizes "more than more than the eye can see" has no practical value), but on the thinness & flatness fronts the Ives train has played itself out.

And it was at that point of idealism that Ives ceased being a good leader for the largest company by revenue in the world, one that ultimately sells devices to actual humans trying to get daily work done.

Labels: apple, apple fail, iphone, macbook

I’ve talked a little about buying a 2017 MacBook Air for $700 in 2018 and how the 2017 model compares favorably to the newer model, since we have both in the house.

But I’d forgotten one of the most important reasons I liked the older MBA model until just recently, when its paltry 128 gig SSD filled again and my usual cleaning and ruthless deletions still left me with a pretty full drive:

The 2017 MacBook Air has an upgradeable hard drive.

SSD prices from Apple are insane. I checked for both models of MacBook Air, as Apple still sells the 2017 version for $999. The upgrade from 128 gigs is the same for both: $200 for 256 and $400 for 512.

Sheesh.

Now I’ve seen just enough about the OWC SSD upgrades for the older MacBook Air like mine to make me a little wary of buying, but the prices can’t be beat. For “just the drive”, the prices are:

240 gigs: $113
480 gigs: $179
1000 gigs: $280

That is, I get to keep my 128 gig drive on the chance the new drive ever dies and I get to add a terabyte of storage to my MacBook for $280 (plus tax and $9 for the pentalobe screwdriver), $120 less than buying a MBA with 512 gigs from the stable – or, in this case, $420 less, since I bagged the MBA for $700, nearly $300 off of the same model’s current price on apple.com.

Apple, you crazy. I mean seriously, one extra user-accessible port – itself apparently just a quick hack on a normal m.2 port. WHY APPLE WHY?!! – adds tons of extra life to your old Macintosh. How much can soldering the hard drive directly to the board really save you on a unit? How much lost goodwill does that savings cost you later? Revenge of the Mezzanine slot, I suppose.

Though with butterfly-keyboard-gate, I guess the SSD is pretty low on the ole “cust-sat” worry list.

Labels: applefail, mac tax, macbook