Right now $600-$700 is where you start seeing much more dramatic corner cutting, with thinner body panels, way more flexing, crummy hinges, “just ok” trackpad/keyboard, etc. A $599 MacBook is almost guaranteed to solidly beat everything else at that price in those categories.
There’s also other tricks they could pull like sharing screen panels and other components with iPads. Heck they might just use an iPad mainboard flashed with different firmware.
Any Mac application will be built for ARM at this point, and anything made for Intel Macs will run seamlessly under Rosetta. And that stuff is mostly limited to developers making Intel Docker images, musicians using some VSTs that haven't upgraded, and games.
This is at least the third major architecture migration for Macs, and they always rip the band aid off and applications have to upgrade or not run. (Motorola to PowerPC, PowerPC to Intel, Intel to ARM.)
I'm looking for a fanless laptop with a FHD display that can be easily mirrored to cheap XR/VR glasses.
Meanwhile, you can install Linux on your existing laptop for free.
willio58•5mo ago
hangonhn•5mo ago
spogbiper•5mo ago
bena•5mo ago
stronglikedan•5mo ago
Maybe if Mac had got their shit together with the keyboard (swapped ctrl and super key) from the start I may have switched. Shame they isolated so many potential users with that boneheaded move.
pulvinar•5mo ago
The command key has always been where it is. And it works quite nicely there, being under your left thumb, allowing you to type common commands from rest position in one stroke.
The Windows/super key came 10 years later, the swapping being Microsoft's choice.
jmkni•5mo ago
At one point I even had to install XCode onto it to release an emergency bug fix for an iOS app while on holiday, and it worked fine (just a bit slow).
It's definitely not a glorified chromebook, really interested to see how the $599 model performs
hellojesus•5mo ago
I recently tried my former m1 air for the first time in a couple years, but the forced apple id to be able to even use the hardware soured my taste. That combined with the $99/year fee for development (vs one-time $35 fee for android) convinced me it wasn't worth my time, and I sold it.
Windows tries to do this, but you can at least bypass it with a pro version and a simple command during setup.
wmf•5mo ago
hellojesus•5mo ago
Edit: I think I remember now. As I was using the terminal it was asking me to allow it to access directories as I was cd-ing into them. That forced use of the mouse was too much, even if there was probably a trivial way to disable it.
cosmic_cheese•5mo ago
hellojesus•5mo ago
The danger is the fun. Ive noticed many games these days disable alt+f4. I consider it the same weird guardrail. The enjoyment is tricking people into doing things, or having a laugh after having been tricked. It's one really good way to make folks learn.
But also it can be bad. I get it. I'm just old.
Citizen8396•5mo ago
If you like danger, you can boot into recovery mode and run csrdisable. Then you can rm -rf / or do whatever else.
Personally, I leave it on.
wappieslurkz•5mo ago