[electrograv]

I really wish Apple would make a MacBook Air variant with display quality on par with the iPad Pro or MacBook Pro (ProMotion/120hz and XDR/HDR, at least). The screen quality is the only reason I currently use the Pro despite its chunkier weight, since the local compute/memory of the Air is already plenty for me (and most users).

The iPad Pro proves that weight and battery life is no excuse here for the lack of state-of-the-art display tech in the MacBook Air. And as for cost — the base 14” MacBook Pro M4 (at $1600) isn’t significantly more expensive than the 15” MacBook Air M4 configured with same CPU/RAM/SSD (at $1400).

It’s really quite a shame that the iPad Pro hardware is in many way a better MacBook Air than the MacBook Air, crippled primarily by iOS rather than hardware.

[overstay8930]

I know Apple wants to differentiate ProMotion as a Pro feature, but even non-tech people I know are wondering why Android phones run smoother than iPhones. Stuff that would be completely unheard of purely because of how noticeable 60hz vs 120hz is.

Actual reputational damage is going on because of these poor decisions, I’m not surprised iPhones are struggling to obtain new market share. They just look like old and slow phones to most normal people now, “look how nice and smooth it looks” is such an easy selling point compared to trying to pretend people care about whatever Apple Intelligence is.

[crazygringo]

> but even non-tech people I know are wondering why Android phones run smoother than iPhones. Stuff that would be completely unheard of purely because of how noticeable 60hz vs 120hz is.

Are they? I'm a tech person and I can barely notice it at all. And I don't think I have a single non-tech friend who is even aware of the concept of video refresh rate.

Whenever there's something that doesn't feel smooth about an interface, it's because the app/CPU isn't keeping up.

I've honestly never understood why anyone cares about more than 60hZ for screens, for general interfaces/scrolling.

(Unless it's about video game response time, but that's not about "running smoother".)

[electrograv]

Yes, human visual perception exists along a spectrum of temporal, spatial, and chromatic resolution that varies from person to person — I’ve even met some people who can’t perceive the difference between 30hz and 120hz, while to me and most people I know, the difference between 60hz and 120hz is enormous.

So you could make the same argument against high DPI displays, superior peak screen brightness, enormously better contrast ratio, color gamut, etc. Also speaker quality, keyboard quality, trackpad quality, etc.

Where does this argument end? Do you propose we regress to 60hz 1080p displays with brightness, contrast, and viewing angles that are abysmal by modern standards? Or is the claim that the MacBook Air’s current screen is the perfect “sweet spot” beyond which >99% of people can’t tell the difference?

I think the market data alone disproves this pretty conclusively. Clearly a significant enough percentage of the population cares enough about image quality to vote with their wallets so much so that enormous hardware industries continue to invest billions towards make any incremental progress in advancing the technology here.

To be fair, I think there’s strong data to support that modern “retina”-grade DPI is good enough for >99% of people. And you can argue that XDR/HDR is not applicable/useful for coding or other tasks outside of photo/video viewing/editing (though for the latter it is enormously noticeable and not even remotely approaching human visual limits yet). But there’s plenty of people who find refresh rate differences extremely noticeable (usually up to at least 120hz), and I think almost anyone can easily notice moderate differences in contrast ratio and max brightness in a brightly lit room.

[VincentEvans]

Lol, reminds me of audiophile discussions when most people listen to youtube streaming a recompressed version of an mp3 someone uploaded.

[toxik]

It’s not imagined though, I use my partner’s phone sometimes and every time I used it I thought it was broken because the UI jitter was so jarring at 60Hz. Actually I’m still not convinced her phone isn’t broken. Also her flashlight resets to the lowest brightness EVERY time it’s cycled.

[crazygringo]

> because the UI jitter was so jarring at 60Hz

See this is what confuses me.

If the UI jitter on their phone was "so jarring", it's not because it's 60 Hz. It's because the phone's CPU isn't keeping up.

Like, nobody watches a video filmed at 60 fps and then watches their favorite TV show or a motion picture at 24 fps and says "the jitter was so jarring". And that's at less than half the rate we're even talking about! Similarly, even if you can tell the difference between 60 and 120 Hz, it's not jarring. It's not jittery. It's pretty subtle, honestly. You can notice it if you're paying attention, but you'd never in a million years call it "jarring".

I think a lot of people might be confusing 60 Hz with jittery UX that has nothing to do with the display refresh rate. Just because the display operates at a higher refresh rate doesn't mean the CPU is actually refreshing the interface at that rate. And with certain apps or with whatever happening in the background, it isn't.

[electrograv]

It’s deeply flawed logic at best (or an intentional red herring at worst) to cite the existence of pseudoscience discussed elsewhere, as an argument against real science being discussed here.

There is a well-understood science to both auditory and visual perception, even more concretely so for the visual side. The scientific literature on human perception in both categories is actively used in the engineering of almost every modern (audible/visual) device you use every day (both in hardware design, and software such as the design of lossy compression algorithms). We have very precise scientific understanding of the limits (and individual variation) of human visual and (to a slightly lesser extent) auditory perception and preferences.

[senordevnyc]

It's not about whether people can perceive the difference. They don't care.

[tomjakubowski]

It continues to amaze me years later how many people happily enjoyed watching 4:3 content stretched to 16:9, before 4:3 mostly disappeared from broadcasts.

[lillecarl]

Black bars?

[meindnoch]

If you try using a 60hz screen after a 120hz one, it will feel very sluggish and choppy. As long as you don't get used to 120hz, you'll be fine with 60hz.

[brk]

I've never really felt this way, and have used all kinds of screens of various resolutions, sizes, technologies, etc. For 99% of the typical use cases (chats, email, doom scrolling, etc.) there just is not a big enough perceptible difference for most buyers.

Screen refresh rate arguments are starting to have hints of audiophile discussions.

[hnuser123456]

I flatly will not buy any monitor, laptop, phone, tablet, or TV with a refresh rate below 120hz. I had 120hz 1080p over DVI-dual link in 2010. I can accept graphically demanding games going down to ~50 fps, but for UI interactivity and navigation, I'll take 120hz+ only.

[mvanbaak]

And there you are, watching a movie on that 120p+ tv. You do k ow the movie is only 24p right?

[meindnoch]

Going 60hz → 120hz: "Meh, I guess it's smoother? Whatever..."

Going 120hz → 60hz: "WTF? Why is it so choppy? Am I accidentally in low battery mode?"

It's similar to going back to non-retina displays after getting used to retina resolution.

[volemo]

What conclusion do I draw from this? “Stay away from high refresh rate screens not to spoil myself” :D

[forty]

The good news is that human brain is amazing and will probably revert to reasonable perception if you use your non retina 60Hz screen for long enough :)

[what-the-grump]

I have an iPhone pro, a 120hz LG, and a MacBook Air. At no point has the MacBook felt choppy…

I switch between various refresh rates daily, it’s barely noticeable.

[Jcampuzano2]

Yeah I think when they say non-tech people they mean a subset of people who know a bit about refresh rates (example being avid PC gamers for instance), but I'd still say the vast majority of people cannot tell 60 to 120. That or its not something they think about.

Certainly if they had both side by side they may be able to notice a difference, but in everyday use it makes no real difference to the vast majority of people. Anecdotally even though I do use Android myself, everyone around me still think iPhones look the smoothest (albeit most of them have never even touched a quality phone running android)

[smallmancontrov]

They don't know the words but they definitely notice it. "Why is it so smooth/rough?"

[Ataraxic]

It's one of those things where once you have used it, you will notice it. Given most iOS users aren't swapping between pro and non pro models, it's not something you think about.

[pishpash]

Just tried ProMotion vs. 60Hz on MBP, no/very little difference I can see. Sure it's just me but for me all the claims here are way exaggerated/psychological, almost like audiophiles being able to "hear" stuff that doesn't exist in a blind test.

[mort96]

It's baffling to me that some people claim to not see the difference. It's literally light and day to me. It's like someone looking at a low DPI screen and a high DPI screen and not being able to tell the difference.

[jofzar]

Yeah I move a window and it's immediately noticable. I'm jealous of people who can't tell.

[klausa]

As one of the upthread comments mentioned, this is something that probably varies with sensitivity between people.

But I am quite confident I'd be able to tell 60/120hz with a 100% accuracy within 5s of being able to interact with the device.

Probably under a second on an iPhone, ~2s on a Mac with a built-in display and slightly longer on iPads and bigger displays. Add ~2 extra second if I'm using a mouse instead of a trackpad.

It is _that_ noticeable to me.

[nicoburns]

I'm generally ok with 60Hz (the difference isn't that significant to me). But I can definitely see the difference in a head-to-head comparison with fast moving content. The easiest way to see it for me was to move the cursor around quickly. With 60Hz there are much more visible "jumps" between positions. With 120Hz it animates much more smoothly.

[Toutouxc]

In this case it really is just you. I can tell a high-refresh-rate display from across the room. I can tell if someone’s iPhone is a Pro even if the person is sitting five meters away from me on a moving bus.

On the other hand, my MacBook has a 120 Hz display and both my iPad Mini and iPhone Mini are 60 Hz, and even though the difference is night and day, I don’t really MIND using them. It’s just not that cool.

[fsckboy]

>Yeah I think when they say non-tech people they mean a subset of people who know a bit about refresh rates (example being avid PC gamers for instance)

no, he didn't say that. he said they comment on the difference between apple and android (their perception). you have to take that as a given.

that "it's because refresh rate" is his hypothesis, so yes argue that, but not by changing his evidence.

[cosmic_cheese]

I switch between refresh rates ranging from 60hz and 240hz every day and while I certainly notice the difference, unless I’m running games I adjust and forget about it in seconds. While VRR 120hz+ on all Apple device screens would be nice it’s not exactly a dealbreaker… it’s not like rendering my IDE with 2x+ extra frames changes much of anything.

[minton]

I run Windows daily at work on a 60Hz display. I recently got my son a gaming PC complete with a 144Hz monitor. I was genuinely confused why Windows itself “felt” so much better. Just dragging windows around seemed like magic. It’s not that the UI is lagging on my machine, it’s more the smoothness of things when they move around. It makes everything seem faster, despite us timing various things and finding no actual performance differences.

[jofzar]

In seriously surprised you can't tell, it feels significantly smoother for me to see a high refresh rate display. 60hz just looks sluggish/slow and wrong to me now. I had a side by side of the same monitor (was at a lan) and was watching my friend play and couldn't understand why his game looked so laggy untill I realise he had high refresh rate off. Turned on 144hz and it was so much better

[aardvark179]

That may have very little to do with refresh rate itself, and far more to do with the image processing and latency introduced by the monitor in different video modes.

[alpaca128]

On smartphones you interact with the UI in a more direct way, which probably makes the input latency even more obvious.

For me 120Hz is noticeable immediately when scrolling, though I also don’t find it important enough to warrant a higher price aside from gaming.

What I find more important is a high pixel density, though on phones that’s less of an issue as with PC screens - I have yet to find one comparable to the ones in current iMacs.

[seanmcdirmid]

It just feels more "fluid" and real, and then you get used to it and 60Hz feels jittery. I have an iPad pro, and its honestly made me consider going with an iPhone Pro (I still have just the non-pro model), although not quite yet. However, I notice a huge difference between scrolling on my phone and scrolling on my ipad.

Its the same thing about retina vs. the previous resolutions we had put up with. Yes, you don't need them for text, but once you get used to it for text you don't want to go back.

[pitkali]

For me, the crisp text was the reason retina became a must.

[declan_roberts]

They definitely are not. Not even most tech power users understand refresh rates let alone can easily spot the difference.

Still a nice to have, which Apple recognizes.

[klausa]

I actually call BS on the "not-being-able-to-tell".

I will give you that most people outside of this websites audience will not be able to _tell_ it's because of the refresh rate.

But I am quite confident if you take most of 120hz iPhone users phones out of their hand, turn on low battery mode, most will be immediately able to tell that something _feels_ off.

[stringsandchars]

> I actually call BS on the "not-being-able-to-tell".

I actually call BS on your BS.

I don't believe that people are standing with two phones in their hand - an Android and an iPhone - and comparing them the way that people here are suggesting. I don't think I have ever seen anyone do that IRL, and I don't believe anyone actually does it.

People go to the Apple Store to get their iPhone or to some other store to get their Android phone, because they are interested in either platform, and absolutely not thinking about hopping from one to the other based on some imperceptible screen-refresh 'smoothness'.

[klausa]

That's... not what I said at all?

The only claim I made is that if you toggle between 60/120hz on people's devices, they will be able to tell the difference.

[jjcob]

i used an android phone for a year with a 90 fps display. When I switched back to an iphone, it felt slow to me. i couldn't tell what the problem was, the brand new phone just felt sluggish. a year later when using my partners iphone pro, i realised that the sluggishness must be because of the refresh rate.

i think once you get used to 90 or 120 fps, then 60fps will just feel choppy. no need to compare them side by side.

[whynotminot]

Have never heard anyone in my life that isn’t an engineer comment on Pro Motion. Not even in an accidental sort of “hmmm why does my phone just feel faster” kind of way.

This is a feature that really only matters to the Hacker News crowd, and Apple is very aware of that. They invest their BOM into things the majority of people care about. And they do have the Pro Motion screens for the few that do.

Even I — an engineer - regularly move between my Pro Motion enabled iPhone and my regular 60Hz iPad and while I notice it a little, I really just don’t see why this is the one hill people choose to die on.

[electrograv]

You have to understand that your own perceptual experience is not identical to that of all other humans. Without recognizing that, we will inevitably end up talking past each other endlessly and writing each other off as { hallucinating, lying, exaggerating, etc } for one of us claiming to perceive something important that the other does not.

It would be no different than arguing about whether we need all three primary colors (red, green, blue) with someone who is colorblind (and unaware of this). Or like arguing whether speakers benefit from being able to reproduce a certain frequency, with someone who is partially or fully deaf at that frequency. And I truly mean no disrespect to anyone with different perception abilities in these or any other domains.

Recognizing that large differences exist here is essential to make sense of the reality - that something that seems completely unimportant or barely noticeable to you, could actually be a hugely obvious and important difference to many others (whether it’s a certain screen refresh rate, the presence of a primary color you cannot perceive but others can, an audio frequency you cannot hear but others can, or otherwise).

[whynotminot]

This is why I led with this part, unrelated to my own perception:

> Have never heard anyone in my life that isn’t an engineer comment on Pro Motion. Not even in an accidental sort of “hmmm why does my phone just feel faster” kind of way.

I would also argue the crowd that insists everyone needs Pro Motion is doing exactly what you accuse me of -- assuming their needs and perception must also be everyone else's. When clearly the market has said otherwise, given Apple's success for many, many years with 60Hz screens.

[electrograv]

> I would also argue the crowd that insists everyone needs Pro Motion is doing exactly what you accuse me of -- assuming their needs and perception must also be everyone else's.

I am not seeing this alleged crowd of people insisting that everyone needs 120hz/ProMotion. This seems to be a red herring.

I am seeing a crowd of people (including myself) saying that we experience 120hz/ProMotion as a huge improvement over 60hz, so much so that we will never buy a product without this ever again (so long as we have the choice).

I furthermore claim that while not everyone is a member of this crowd (obviously), it represents a sufficiently large share of the device-buying population to justify steering billions of dollars of hardware and software industry to support this, which evidently has happened and increasingly continues to happen.

If this crowd were an insignificant minority as you seem to imply, then 120hz displays would be a fad that fades away in all but the most niche markets (e.g. pro gaming), and yet we’re seeing precisely the opposite happen — 120hz displays are growing in popularity by expanding broadly into increasingly non-niche consumer device products everywhere, from laptops to tablets to phones.

> When clearly the market has said otherwise, given Apple's success for many, many years with 60Hz screens.

Arguing that the market doesn’t want/need it now because Apple succeeded without it in the past, is completely absurd — just as nonsensical as trying to argue that computers don’t ever need any more memory because they sold just fine with less in the past.

[whynotminot]

Well I guess if you don’t see it it doesn’t exist.

Apple sells Pro Motion displays. If it matters to you, you can buy them. They aren’t refusing to serve this market, they just don’t prioritize it with their lower cost products.

[0x457]

120Hz on Android IMO is: try once, say "damn that's smooth" and then disable to save battery life.

I only ever used Pixels as android phones, so my experience is limited to that.

[Tarball10]

120Hz on Snapdragon/Mediatek Android phones works great with little impact to battery life. Pixels are hobbled by the poor power efficiency of their Tensor chips.

[rizzaxc]

genuine question; why would you do that lol? phones easily get full day battery nowadays, and flagships get 2 day battery if your usage is anything but insane

[0x457]

The only way any phone gets more than 1 day of battery is when you don't use it. In which case, why you care that if it's 120 or 60hz.

I'm back to iPhone now tho, so I get a full-day-ish with pro-motion under a normal usage.

[presentation]

I don’t think I have a non technical friend who is ever comparing Android phones and iPhones, let alone noticing screen differences

[turtlesdown11]

>I’m not surprised iPhones are struggling to obtain new market share

Apple has >80% of the total operating profit in the smartphone market. The new entry level phone went up in price $200. Why do you think they do/should care about market share?

[overstay8930]

Their stock price is currently suffering because of how poorly iPhones are doing in places with real competition (i.e. China), the iPhone 16 when put side by side with Chinese phones just makes the iPhone look like a cheap knock-off. Even 90hz would fix most of these problems (and the panel is more than capable of it).

They're fixing it on the iPhone 17 because of the above reasons, but it shows how badly their market research teams are doing that they even remotely thought it was acceptable on the 15, let alone the 16.

[turtlesdown11]

> poorly iPhones are doing in places with real competition (i.e. China)

ah yes, a country famous for capitalist competition

[wordofx]

> but even non-tech people I know are wondering why Android phones run smoother than iPhones.

Things that never happened.

Lot of reasons to dislike. iPhone but this story isn’t true in the least.

[wlesieutre]

Rumored to change next year

https://www.tomsguide.com/phones/iphones/iphone-17-just-tipp...

Would be nice if the laptops followed suit

[petesergeant]

> I’m not surprised iPhones are struggling to obtain new market share. They just look like old and slow phones to most normal people now

Literally the only people I know with non-iPhones are:

* People who can't afford one

* People who want a folding screen

* People who are conceptually anti-Apple

Apple have over 50% market share in the US, talking about "struggling to obtain new market share" seems bizarre.

[jghn]

* People who have been left behind by Apple's push towards phablets

[nordsieck]

> People who have been left behind by Apple's push towards phablets

It's my impression that Apple really tried to service this market - that last model was probably the iPhone 13 mini. I assume that there just isn't enough demand for smaller phones to justify the effort to develop them.

I was honestly hoping that we'd get a small phone as the iPhone SE 4. But it seems like that's not to be. At least, if the 16e is the closest we'll get to an SE in the near term.

[momoschili]

yup, I bought a 13 mini and was happy that Apple was one of the companies that supported this form factor. That being said, the 13 mini sales numbers speak for themselves and I understand why this kind of phone isn't released every year. I'm holding out that Apple recognizes that most of the users of the 13 mini aren't serial upgraders and will continue refreshing the segment every 5 years or so

[alwillis]

> I'm holding out that Apple recognizes that most of the users of the 13 mini aren't serial upgraders and will continue refreshing the segment every 5 years or so

I loved my iPhone 13 mini for the 3-years it was my daily driver. But yeah, the mini line is probably dead.

[jghn]

Yeah I'm holding out that they've decided to just refresh the small form factor on a slower cadence. I also have a 13 mini, we'll see how long I can hold out.

[tcmart14]

I was curious about the SE4 since I had an SE2 and Verizon let me trade in the SE2 for the SE3 for free. Based on the rumors of what the SE4 was going to be, we did get an SE4, it was just rebranded as the 16e. The rumor was they were gonna get rid of the button and go with the more recent iPhone style and such. I wonder if they will rebrand the Apple Watch SE as an Apple Watch 10e or something along those lines.

[wlesieutre]

Unfortunately the 12 and 13 mini were badly timed when stores closed for COVID. Actually holding one of them to use it is really what sells the smaller size, IMO.

I have my 12 mini still but it’s showing its age. Probably have to suck it up and get a big phone next upgrade.

[ndiddy]

Where do they go? Apart from random Chinese vendors like Unihertz who sell low-spec devices and you're lucky if you get one version update, the smallest Android phones I've seen are Samsung Galaxy phones, which are about the same size as an iPhone 16. Asus and Sony used to make small phones, but they've stopped in the last couple of years in favor of making phablets.

[yellowapple]

* People who like being able to run software outside of the hardware vendor's walled garden

[petesergeant]

Interesting, although in my head I’d class that in the same way as the folding screens; iPhones that don’t have the dimensions you want, one way or another

[gjm11]

I have an Android phone. I could afford an iPhone, I don't care about folding screens, and my laptop is a MacBook Pro. I have an Android phone (1) because a substantial fraction of what I do on my phone is browsing the web, and Android lets me run Firefox which has markedly better ad-blocking, (2) because the phone I had before this one was an Android phone (mostly for reason 1, as it happens, but that's not particularly important here) and switching is inconvenient, and (3) because one of the reasons why I could easily afford an iPhone if I wanted one is that I have always preferred not to spend money for which I don't get substantial benefit, and it doesn't look to me as if iPhones are so much better than Android phones as to be worth paying a premium for.

This may be partly because I'm not in the US; my impression is that "people who can afford iPhones buy iPhones so if you don't you're impoverished or weird" is much more a thing in the US than in Europe.)

(I also thought "struggling to obtain new market share" was a weird take, and ditto "just look like old and slow phones". I am not disagreeing with that part of what you posted.)

[RandomBacon]

* People who like to think differently and customize their phones without relying on jailbreaking.

[petesergeant]

That tiny proportion fits nicely into conceptually anti-Apple

[RandomBacon]

Not necessarily. There is some overlap, but not 100%.

[jltsiren]

There are some other common types:

* People who think a phone is a boring generic device, and it doesn't make sense to prefer any particular brand or pay more than $X.

* People who are used to Android and have better things to do than migrating to another ecosystem.

In the past, the lack of proper dual-SIM iPhones was a common enough reason to prefer Android. But it's less of an issue today, as eSIMs have become mainstream.

[alwillis]

So true.

A huge factor in this: 87% of US teenagers have iPhones [1] and that's not going to change anytime soon.

[1]: https://www.barrons.com/articles/apple-stock-teens-iphone-e5...

[lillecarl]

In a highly competitive environment everyone wants to show their blue upper-middleclass bubble.

I think it's sad that something kids can't control becomes such a social anxiety inducing thing forcing parents into buying something they might not be able to afford.

Luckily where I'm from we don't use the "sms app" to communicate

[ragazzina]

>I really wish Apple would make a MacBook Air variant with display quality on par with the iPad Pro or MacBook Pro

>The screen quality is the only reason I currently use the Pro

Well why should they, you already bought the more expensive one.

[electrograv]

I’ve considered trying an ultralight PC laptop with a superior screen. But the sad state of reality is that:

(1) Windows these days feels like a constant battle against forcibly installed adware / malware.

(2) Linux would be great, but getting basic laptop essentials like reliable sleep/wake and power management to work even remotely well in Linux continues to be a painful losing battle.

(3) Apple’s M series chips’ performance and efficiency is still generations ahead of anyone else in the context of portable battery-powered fanless work; nobody else has yet come close to matching apple here, though there is hope Qualcomm will deliver more competition soon (if the silicon’s raw potential is not squandered by Microsoft).

Just because Apple’s competition has been complacent and lagging for many years, doesn’t render irrelevant any feedback to Apple regarding what professional laptop users would like.

[sotix]

> (2) Linux would be great, but getting basic laptop essentials like reliable sleep/wake and power management to work even remotely well in Linux continues to be a painful losing battle.

This comment shows up in every single thread about Linux laptops, but my Thinkpd X1 Nano gen 1 with an intel i5 running arch Linux KDE Plasma had this issue solved out of the box when I purchased it in 2021. The only thing that didn’t work was the 5G modem, but I believe that has been implemented now. Surely 4 years later we can agree that the complaint is outdated right?

[olyjohn]

You don't buy a PC and try to run MacOS on it do you? Then why do people keep buying random laptops and then complaining when Linux doesn't run on it? You buy a laptop from a vendor who designs them to run Linux out of the box.

Also, Apple's power management isn't flawless either. It used to be fantastic, but I've never, ever seen a laptop that has to charge for 15 minutes before you can even boot it from a flat battery. This seems to happen if I leave my laptop powered off for more than a few days. Like, turned completely off, not sleeping with the lid shut.

[electrograv]

> Then why do people keep buying random laptops and then complaining when Linux doesn't run on it? You buy a laptop from a vendor who designs them to run Linux out of the box.

Because:

(1) Laptop models designed to run Linux out of the box are very scarce, with very few options to choose from.

(2) Of the few that do exist, I’ve never seen any even remotely close to being competitive with Apple’s laptops (in terms of hardware quality, and good performance with excellent power efficiency / fanless / thermals / battery life).

Part of that is due to Apple’s monopoly on the superiority of their M series chips. But the rest I assume comes from less R&D investment generally in the Linux laptop space due to it being such a small niche, unfortunately.

[saagarjha]

The whole point of Linux is that it works on random laptops

[stetrain]

Because some people would pay the same price (or even more) as a MacBook Pro to have a great screen in a thinner, lighter laptop that shouldn't cost Apple that much more to make.

Like how the MacBook Air was originally a premium-priced product instead of an entry-level product in Apple's lineup.

[dannyw]

A new SKU (supply management, warehousing, logistics, employee training, etc) is pretty expensive at Apple scale.

The demand has to be there. And MacBook Pros are not that bulky.

[kllrnohj]

how about because it's ridiculous that a $2200 laptop cannot correctly show photos taken by the company's own $600 phone? People mentioned being stuck at 60hz, but it's also one of the few remaining non-xdr displays that Apple offers.

[klausa]

I wish for that machine too; and the price delta between the Macs is why I expect this will never happen. And unfortunately, I'd rather spend the extra bucks than go back to 60hz.

Apple seems quite content with making 120hz a feature of "Pro" models across the line (iPads, iPhones, Macs).

[torstenvl]

Portability is a pro feature.

The truth of the matter is that Apple does not currently sell a single premium device. Every single one requires serious compromises.

[webdever]

As others have said, they do this on purpose. It's the same with memory. I'd probably switch from a Pro to an Air if I could get 64gig ram (for LLM work) but they'd rather charge me $4800 instead of ~$3200 (guessing the price given the top end 32gig Air is $2800)

It's frustrating because I'd prefer a lighter device. In fact, even the Air isn't that light compared to its competition.

I'd happily pay +$500 ($5300) for Macbook Air PRO if it was effectively the same specs as Macbook Pro but 1.5lbs lighter.

[electrograv]

I have absolutely no problem paying a premium for an upgraded display. The problem is that Apple does not offer that option for the MacBook Air.

The MacBook Pro has an amazing screen, which is why I bought the MBP. But the MBP compromises increased weight (which I don’t want) in exchange for more performance (that I simply don’t need). And we know this compromise is not needed to host a better display, as evidenced by the existence of the iPad Pro.

Don’t get me wrong, the MacBook Pro is a fantastic product and I don’t regret buying it. It just feels like a huge missed opportunity on Apple’s part that their only ultra-lightweight laptop is so far behind in display tech vs their other non-laptop products (like the iPad Pro which is lighter still, just crippled due to iOS limitations).

I would gladly pay even more than the price of my MacBook Pro for a MacBook Air with a screen on par with the iPad Pro or MacBook Pro. Or even for an iPad Pro that runs OSX!

[justincormack]

With the iPads the Pro models are lighter than the Air. So maybe the laptops will end up like that eventually.

[brandall10]

A pro will still be a good 2.5x the speed compared to the Air due to memory bandwidth. It would be rather silly to spring for that amount of memory for that purpose, anything more than say a 14B param model will be painful.

[seanmcdirmid]

I'm not sure a Macbook Air with only passive cooling would be the best machine for running an LLM that would fit into ~40GB of GPU accessible memory.

> I'd happily pay +$500 ($5300) for Macbook Air PRO if it was effectively the same specs as Macbook Pro but 1.5lbs lighter.

You basically want a macbook pro. I don't think it could be that thin with active cooling that such a configuration would require.

[jpalomaki]

It's actually quite crazy that we need to get those bulky pro models just to get the basics like better screens and more memory. The performance between the Air and Pro is anyways pretty much the same, except for long running tasks where pro benefits from active cooling.

Wonder if we are going to see some changes here with the upcoming M5 models.

[jen729w]

How else do you propose they differentiate, given that the internals are essentially identical?

[ProZsolt]

I don't think they really need to. You can have the base model with the same specs, but let me configure it with a better display. I can currently spec up a Mac Mini without any problem.

The second option is to bring back the MacBook brand for entry level devices and use the Air brand for "Pro" devices that don't require active cooling.

[nwienert]

Just make an Air Pro, make the screen good, charge $500 more and take my money.

[kokada]

Hell, I would be happy if Apple at least enabled the virtualization instructions that are already available in the Mx chips inside the iPads, and allowed e.g.: something like UTM in Apple Store with Hypervisor support. It would be a good differentiator between the cheaper iPads running Ax chips vs the more expensive iPads running Mx.

Considering the powerful hardware, the form factor and the good keyboard (I have a used Apple Magic Keyboard paired with our iPad Air M2), if I could virtualize an actual Linux distro to get some job done in the iPad it would be great. But no, you are restricted to a cripped version of UTM that can't even run JIT and because of that is really slow because of that.

[gloxkiqcza]

If Apple offered macOS VM as a (paid) app for iPads I would buy one.

[adultSwim]

This is why I haven't bought an ARM Mac. Air screen is up to snuff and Pro is too heavy.

[r0fl]

Price drop

Double the ram

And yet a complaining comment makes its way to the top. This blows my mind! People will literally complain no matter what

[ProZsolt]

Doesn't matter to me if I still have to buy the chunky Pro to get a decent display.

The current Air is great as an entry level device, but there is an underserved segment here.

[HatchedLake721]

Wait until you hear that the new iPad Air doesn't give permission to run a Kubernetes cluster on it. Happens every year