[kotaKat]

As someone that migrated to the M1 Macbook Air from a Mid-2014 Macbook Pro... the Intel customers are still the ones they're trying to target, amusingly.

If they'd just give me onboard mobile connectivity, I'd upgrade to the next Air sooner, otherwise this thing will run until it dies... and maybe some day they'll start comparing performance against their original M1.

[whstl]

> the Intel customers are still the ones they're trying to target

Definitely. I have ZERO rational reasons to upgrade from my lowest-spec first-gen Air M1. I use it everyday and speed and battery life are still way more than I need.

[bartvk]

I had someone tell me "an Air? You're a developer, you need a Pro" and I thought to myself, well this Air is frankly amazing.

[alabastervlog]

Literally the only material difference between using my M1 Air and my work M1 Pro is the somewhat-better port selection on the Pro. Though even that doesn't have the single-most-useful port it could (aside from USB-C): a USB-A port.

[baq]

The extra ram in a pro comes in handy at a certain scale, but the price tag is oof.

[boogieknite]

few weeks back a professional ios dev looked at my m1 pro and ask why i had an air instead of pro. i might go air when i finally upgrade bc the new pros are giant compared to the m1

[brandall10]

You mean you have an Intel Pro? There's been no changes to the pro chassis for Apple silicon, M1 Pro 14/16 are the exact same as the M4 Pros.

[saagarjha]

I assume they had a M1 MacBook Pro rather than a M1 Pro MacBook Pro

[brandall10]

Ah right, I forgot they had an M1 variant in the older Pro chassis.

[svachalek]

Really? I have both an M1 Pro and M4 pro and never really noticed a size difference.

[boogieknite]

on reflection they had one with an HDMI port. maybe that was the difference

[auto]

This mimics my experience. I bought the absolute bottom barrel M1 when they launched to replace my 2014 MBP, 8gb RAM and 128gb of space. The HD space is annoying, but otherwise this machine is untouchable. I do game dev work bouncing between the MBA and my gaming rig, which is Ryzen 7 2700, 64gb RAM and a 3070, and with certain benchmarks, the MBA still wins, silently, on battery for hours. Still blows my mind.

[cph123]

I'm at exactly the same point with mine, it still feels like new even though it is nearly 5 years old.

I have yet to update beyond Monterey though (even though I really should) in case it slows down a bit or the battery life isn't as good.

[_mlbt]

I see a lot of people requesting cellular modems in MacBooks, but the integration with iPhone hotspot connectivity is so good that I don’t really see the point of it for most people.

[jpalomaki]

One benefit is that computer stays connected even if you go somewhere else with your phone.

It's one of those small things that makes like a bit easier. On Lenovo/HP these have been around for years and they don't cost that much.

[mschuster91]

Battery consumption and antenna efficiency are two major pain points. iPhones suck battery like a horse drinks water when in hotspot mode, and the large surface area of even a small MacBook Air would allow for some pretty interesting antenna design.

And it isn't really ironed out to behave in Germany where on a train you have frequent losses of phone connectivity. Every time it loses signal, the hotspot drops out and disconnects.

[snowwrestler]

You can save battery in hotspot mode by using Bluetooth instead of WiFI, or even better connect the phone and laptop with a cord.

[reustle]

But that’s an ok tradeoff. They offer a cellular iPad, why not MacBook.

[achandlerwhite]

They might once they are off Qualcomm modems (the new 16e is now an Apple modem). Qualcomm charges them a royalty fee per device sold.

[bgnn]

This is a weak argument. Qualcomm is charging for iphone and ipad too. They could do it if they wanted.

The real reason is Apple wants you to buy an ipad for on the road. Laptops, according to them, are strictly for office/home usage where wifi is available.

[youngtaff]

Different battery, different bills

[antasvara]

The integration is fine, but it's not perfect. It kicks my wife off her iPhone Hotspot every time she closes the lid on her laptop. It also burns the battery on her iPhone, which is a concern in the exact situation you'd want cellular connection (places with no wifi often don't have outlets either).

Anecdotally, I've also seen her get issues when going from an area with bad connection to an area with good connection (iPhone will disconnect).

The experience with a non-iphone is also not seamless, though that's to be expected.

Point being that reliable and easy cellular access on a MacBook would be a pretty nice improvement. This is especially true given how much of what people do on computers relies on the internet these days.

[disgruntledphd2]

> The experience with a non-iphone is also not seamless, though that's to be expected.

Dunno about that, I've been using Androids for hotspotting for years, and haven't noticed any issues.

[WonderAlmighty]

The page up to 2x faster than M1, but it's not worth upgrading from for the average person, your laptop should last longer than 4 years hence why they market to Intel Mac users.

[Cthulhu_]

I think that was around the time when macbooks were "fast enough", especially since that was when SSDs became the default. I remember I got my first macbook around 2011/12 and at the time doing your own upgrade of memory and replacing the hard drive with an SSD was a pretty popular DIY upgrade (N=1).

[chasd00]

> the Intel customers are still the ones they're trying to target, amusingly

yeah i just checked mine, it says MacBook Pro 16" 2019 and the cpu is an intel i7. i don't know what to say, it still meets all my requirements, i don't feel any need to upgrade.

[sleepybrett]

My work laptop is a 2019 i7, my personal is a m3. There is a huge - very very noticeable difference. The thing that actually annoys me the worst with the intel though isn't the 'speed' per se but it's the shitty battery life and heat it generates (and the fan noise that causes).

[icedchai]

If it works for you... but I had an Intel MacBook Pro (2019, 16", i9) for a work machine and the fans would sound like a jet engine. Installing NPM dependencies was particularly bad, since all the writes would make the corporate file scanning spyware go crazy. It ran like crap.

I have an M1 Pro (which is considered old now) and it's like night and day.

[bartvk]

Mid-2014 MBP, that's amazing. Did you buy it new? And actually used it since 2014?

[alabastervlog]

My 2014 got a little screwy around 2022 and eventually wifi stopped working entirely (I suspect battery swelling putting pressure on something) but if not for that I'd still be using it. Hell, I probably could have gotten it fixed, though I'd prefer to put that money toward another machine that'll last me 8+ years.

I'm on a 2020 [edit: I got it as part of comp for a contracting gig, is why the overlap in years with my 2014 MBP ownership, but didn't switch to using it for personal stuff until after that was over and my MPB wifi broke] M1 Air now, so close to or in year 6 for that. No issues yet and battery life still stellar, should get at least 2-3 more years.

(Folks who are like "LOL who even needs 18 hours of battery life?", which is a common sort of post on Apple laptop announcements: well for one thing it's extremely nice to be hunting for outlets even less often, and to maybe go on a whole light-laptop-use 3-day trip and not charge it the whole time and it's still alive at the end of it, or to have that battery as reserve for charging your phone, but also and perhaps most importantly, it means that a 30% degraded battery after several years of ownership still gets you 10+ hours of real-world use)

[kotaKat]

Bought new since 2014, used all the way to launchday M1.

I was riding the 'service battery' indicator all the way to the bloody end. 1148 cycles, max capacity 3735 mAh.

[bartvk]

Fantastic... seriously, kudos. I love it when people use up every last ounce of their hardware.

[transcriptase]

Not who you replied to but I’m on a Mid-2014 15 inch MBP retina, bought new and used nearly every day since and taken on dozens of trips.

I had the battery replaced, the tab key replaced, and the screen refinished (anti-glare coating removed) for about $240 a couple years ago and aside from the fact it can’t be updated beyond Big Sur 11.7.10 I have no issues.

[rozenmd]

MacBooks last a ridiculously long time.

I used my 2011 MBP daily until upgrading to a 2020 M1 air.

I kinda miss the ridiculous heat output on winter mornings.

[jkestner]

Same, except my 2009 Mac Pro made for a better space heater, until I replaced it with an MBP M1 that doesn't have the decency to make noise to let me know it's working. Only downside of upgrading is that I had to get off of Mojave.

[Toutouxc]

I have a Late 2013 MBP still going strong. Original battery, original charger, no repairs whatsoever, hours of battery life still. Wife stopped using it just two months ago when I upgraded her to my M1 Air.

[rsynnott]

> the Intel customers are still the ones they're trying to target, amusingly.

Yeah, particularly for the Air that makes complete sense, though. Consumer laptops tend to get replaced pretty slowly. I'll be upgrading from a _2016_ MBP (though not to the Air, given the lack of the 120hz screen; going to go for the Pro).

[hwc]

I still love my M2 MacBook. I can't see any reason at all to upgrade.

But I am glad that they continue to refine the technology.

[sleepybrett]

Yeah, I have a personal m2max. The only thing that might get me to upgrade to the m4 is just being able to hand this laptop down to my sister or my parents for whom it is severe overkill for but they will use it for like 10 more years.

[wil421]

Why would you need onboard mobile? It’s 2 clicks to trigger a mobile hotspot from your iPhone and there are very cheap LTE dongles on eBay. Not sure how much service would cost, most of us have reasonable download caps on our mobile plans. The dongles have better data plans than phones.

[addicted]

Why wouldn’t I want onboard cellular connection instead of having to be dependent on the more finicky and less reliable Hotspot connection, hurting my ability to use my phone freely, and burning both my laptop and my phone’s batteries at the same time.

Besides, having a cellular modem also allows you to tap into both WiFi and Cellular seamlessly like your phone does to make your overall connection much more reliable.

[kotaKat]

Convenience, security, and power-savings. I currently also use a Thinkpad X13s with onboard 5G and it's nice to not have to screw with it when you want connectivity.

On my Verizon plan (Unlimited Ultimate), I qualify for two 'connected devices' to be discounted. My Thinkpad is $10/mo extra on my account for unlimited LTE. I'm not a heavy data user by any means and this works out well for me.

[hk1337]

> If they'd just give me onboard mobile connectivity

I don't even want that on my iPad Pro. I would rather tether it with my phone, mobile hotspot, or some other wifi connection.

[alabastervlog]

Yeah, they trash idle/sleep battery life—or, at least, used to, back when I had access to lots of differently-configured iPads for my job—so you don’t want it on there unless you really need it.