Posts tagged with "macbook air"

Logitech’s Casa Pop-Up Desk Elevates Your MacBook for More Comfortable Computing

When I’m sitting at home in my office, the ergonomics are perfect. I have a comfortable chair with plenty of back support, my keyboard is at the right height, and my Studio Display is at eye level. The trouble is, that’s not the only place I work or want to work. As a result, I spend time almost daily using a laptop in less-than-ideal conditions. That’s why I was eager to try the Logitech’s Casa Pop-Up Desk that debuted in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand last summer and is now available in North America, too.

Logitech sent me the Casa to test, and I’ve been using it on and off throughout the past 10 days as I work at home, away from my desk, and in various other locations. No portable desktop setup is going to rival the ergonomics of my home office, but despite a few downsides, I’ve been impressed with the Casa. By making it more comfortable to use my laptop anywhere, the Casa has enabled me to get away from my desk more often, which has been wonderful as the weather begins to warm up.

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The M3 MacBook Air: Two Displays, Faster Wi-Fi, and Better Performance

There’s not much to say about the M3 MacBook Airs that Apple revealed earlier this week. Last year’s M2 redesign was universally praised, and this year’s M3 version one-ups it with support for two displays, faster Wi-Fi 6E, and performance improvements, thanks to the M3 processor.

But, as Jason Snell of Six Colors explains, that’s okay:

The truth is, unless you’ve been waiting to plug in a second monitor to a MacBook Air, this upgrade isn’t going to blow anyone away—and that’s okay. The chips keep getting faster, 2022’s MacBook Air design refresh remains great, and the 15-inch model offers a large screen for people who don’t need MacBook Pro prices or features. The MacBook Air is Apple’s most popular Mac, and now it’s even better.

One additional tidbit from Jason about the exterior design that I found interesting is the new coating on the midnight MacBook Airs:

The single change to the exterior of the M3 Air to previous versions is a new fingerprint-resistant anodization seal on the dark “midnight” models, which do show fingerprints more than the others. This is apparently the same approach that Apple took with the Space Black M3 MacBook Pro.

Be sure to check out Jason’s full review for more details on the screen resolutions supported by the new Airs and benchmark tests.

MacPad: How I Created the Hybrid Mac-iPad Laptop and Tablet That Apple Won’t Make

Hello, MacPad.

Hello, MacPad.

It all started because I wanted a better keyboard for my Vision Pro. I had no idea that, in looking for one, I’d accidentally create the hybrid Apple computer of my dreams.

As I quickly discovered after working on the Vision Pro daily, you can get by without an external trackpad, but a keyboard is necessary if you want to type something longer than a passcode. That’s where my journey began: if I wanted to write and edit articles on the Vision Pro, what would the best keyboard-trackpad setup be?

Over the past few weeks, I’ve tested all the options at my disposal. I started with an Apple Magic Trackpad and Keyboard, which I then placed inside a Twelve South MagicBridge (it was too uncomfortable to put on my lap for longer stretches of time). Next, I tried using different types of “trays” for these two accessories that offered a laptop-like layout (comfort was better, but lack of palm rejection was an issue). I even attempted to revive an old Brydge keyboard and use it with the Vision Pro, but, alas, third-party trackpads aren’t supported on visionOS at the moment.

Eventually, I settled on the solution that I should have known was coming for me all along: the best keyboard and trackpad combo for a Vision Pro is a Mac laptop. So I started using my MacBook Air every day, taking advantage of Mac Virtual Display and Universal Control to get work done with the Vision Pro in a mix of classic desktop apps and new visionOS experiences. I’ll write more about this soon, but, so far, it’s felt powerful and flexible in a way that iPadOS hasn’t made me feel in a while.

But something kept nagging me.

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Apple Introduces New M3 MacBook Airs

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Apple has unveiled new 13- and 15-inch MacBook Airs that feature the M3 processor, Wi-Fi 6E, support for two external displays, and up to 18 hours of battery life.

The M3 chipset features an 8-core CPU, up to a 10-core GPU, and up to 24GB of unified memory. Apple says that makes the new Airs up to 60% faster than the M1 Air and 13x faster than the fastest Intel-based Air, but they do not compare it to the M2 Air. The M3 MacBook Airs also include Apple’s latest media engine, which supports AV1 decoding for video streaming services.

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

Apple provided other points of comparison between the new M2 MacBook Airs and the M1 and fastest Intel models based on tests conducted in January:

  • Game titles like No Man’s Sky run up to 60 percent faster than the 13-inch MacBook Air with the M1 chip.

  • Enhancing an image with AI using Photomator’s Super Resolution feature is up to 40 percent faster than the 13-inch model with the M1 chip, and up to 15x faster for customers who haven’t upgraded to a Mac with Apple silicon.

  • Working in Excel spreadsheets is up to 35 percent faster than the 13-inch model with the M1 chip, and up to 3x faster for customers who haven’t upgraded to a Mac with Apple silicon.

  • Video editing in Final Cut Pro is up to 60 percent faster than the 13-inch model with the M1 chip, and up to 13x faster for customers who haven’t upgraded to a Mac with Apple silicon.

  • Compared to a PC laptop with an Intel Core i7 processor, MacBook Air delivers up to 2x faster performance, up to 50 percent faster web browsing, and up to 40 percent longer battery life.

In its press release, Apple also says the M3 MacBook Air’s 16-core Neural Engine and CPU and GPU machine learning accelerators make it the best laptop for AI, too.

Source: Apple.

Source: Apple.

The new 13-inch MacBook Airs start at $1,099 ($999 for education customers). The new 15-inch models start at $1,299 ($1,199 for education customers). Both models are available to order today in midnight, starlight, silver, and space gray, with deliveries and in-store availability beginning Friday, March 8th.

In addition, Apple has dropped the price of the 13-inch M2 MacBook Air to $999 ($899 for education customers).

Can You Use a Headless MacBook Air with a Vision Pro?→

Luke Miani (who runs a great YouTube channel I’ve been following for a while) has created the sort of beautiful monstrosity I would absolutely consider for my own workflow: he was able to remove a display from an M2 MacBook Air and use the remaining “macOS slab” as a fully functioning computer for the Vision Pro’s Mac Virtual Display mode.

If the sentence above doesn’t make any sense to you, go watch the video first:

The idea of using headless MacBooks has been around for a while, but I was wondering if it’d find new life with the Vision Pro and the ability to virtualize a Mac display or use Universal Control with it. Which is why I’m very glad that Miani tried this first and confirmed that, yes, a headless MacBook Air totally works as a very expensive Vision Pro accessory.

The reason I’m so fascinated by this project is that I find the current keyboard/trackpad setup on the Vision Pro lackluster. If you don’t want to use a Mac in the middle, your best bet is to get an accessory like a Twelve South MagicBridge to hold a Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad together. However, as I shared earlier this week, that accessory’s form factor is not ideal for lap usage:

I’m waiting for two different “trays” that promise a laptop-like configuration, but as I’ve been told by others online, those don’t fix the fact that the desktop Magic Trackpad doesn’t offer the sort of palm rejection features typically found in Mac laptops.

Which brings me back to Miani’s wonderfully weird and amazing experiment: what if the input portion of a Mac laptop could become a more portable and accurate input method for the Vision Pro, with support for Mac Virtual Display when needed? What if a keyboard computer (Apple II says hi) could be used with the Vision Pro or docked at a desk with a Thunderbolt hub and external monitor?

Realistically, Apple should make this kind of accessory and I’m so surprised that their answer for people who want to work solely on a Vision Pro is “buy the keyboard and trackpad from a few years ago that still have a Lightning connector”. I’m not going to do this to my own MacBook Air. But you have no idea how tempted I am to try.

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The Magic of the M2 MacBook Air→

Stephen Hackett writing on 512 Pixels about the M2 MacBook Air:

There’s something about the design of this machine that I can’t escape. The footprint is pretty similar between the two notebooks, but in my backpack, there’s a huge difference. Don’t get me wrong: I am thrilled that the MacBook Pro has beefed up to be a better computer, but I’m drawn to the clean, simple look of the Air. I know the Pro is a better match for my workflows, but the Air can do everything I need — if just a little bit slower. And I don’t care about that speed difference any time I pick up the Air to take it with me. Something about it just clicks with me in a way I didn’t anticipate.

I completely understand where Stephen is coming from on this. On paper, the MacBook Pro’s advantages are undeniable, but they’re also expected. It’s a bigger, heavier ‘pro’ computer with fans, after all.

In contrast, the M2 Air feels like magic, despite the M1 version that preceded it. The performance boost from the M2 SoC and features like a bigger, brighter screen and a higher memory option are part of it, but so, too, is the fact that the new Air even looks like a MacBook Pro. Yet, the M2 MacBook Air is still the svelte, silent laptop that it replaces, which feels improbable if not impossible. Like Stephen, the MacBook Air has captured my heart, and I don’t see myself switching to a different Mac laptop anytime soon.

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M2 MacBook Air Ordering Begins July 8th With Deliveries Starting July 15th

The M2 MacBook Air, revealed by Apple during its WWDC keynote, now has order and release dates. When the new MacBook Air was announced during WWDC last month, Apple simply said the laptop would be released in July. In a press release today, the company said it would begin taking orders on Friday, July 8th at 5 AM Pacific Daylight Time, with deliveries beginning on July 15th.

The new M2 MacBook Air features Apple’s next-generation SoC, a 13.6” Liquid Retina display, a 1080p FaceTime camera, a four-speaker system, MagSafe charging, and up to 18 hours of battery life. The new model comes in four colors: midnight, starlight, silver, and space gray. Pricing starts at $1,199 and $1,199 for education customers. For more details on the M2 MacBook Air, be sure to check out our WWDC overview of the laptop and episode 280 of AppStories.

The M2’s Unique Combination of Unified Memory and GPU Performance May Reveal Apple’s Videogame Ambitions

As I mentioned on AppStories, I’m intrigued by what Apple is doing with the Apple silicon GPU and memory and what it could mean for gaming. Although no one has had a chance to put the M2 through its paces yet, AnandTech does an excellent job of putting the facts and figures from Monday’s keynote into perspective, explaining what it means for what will undoubtedly be a multi-tiered M2 chip family like the M1 family.

With the M2’s memory, Apple’s SoC picks up where the M1 Pro, Max, and Ultra left off. Like those higher-tier M1s, the M2 uses LPDDR5-6400 memory that supports 100GB/second of memory bandwidth, which is a 50% increase in bandwidth over the M1. The M2 also supports up to 24GB of unified memory, a 50% increase over the M1 Air.

That memory is paired with a GPU that can be configured with up to 10 cores, two more than the top-tier M1 Air. According to Apple, that 10-core GPU delivers a 35% increase in performance.

However, it’s the combination of more, higher-bandwidth memory and a more powerful GPU that should make a significant difference in the M2 Air’s performance of graphics-intensive tasks like rendering game assets. As AnandTech explains:

Apple’s unconventional use of memory technologies remains one of their key advantages versus their competitors in the laptop space, so a significant increase in memory bandwidth helps Apple to keep that position. Improvements in memory bandwidth further improve every aspect of the SoC, and that especially goes for GPU performance, where memory bandwidth is often a bottlenecking factor, making the addition of LPDDR5 a key enabler for the larger, 10-core GPU. Though in this case, it’s the M2 playing catch-up in a sense: the M1 Pro/Max/Ultra all shipped with LPDDR5 support first, the M2 is actually the final M-series chip/tier to get the newer memory.

We won’t know more until reviewers put the new M2 MacBook Air through their paces, but the M2 Air appears to be a significant step forward compared to the M1 model. As one of Apple’s most popular Macs, that’s important because it sets a performance benchmark that game developers need to target if they want to make a game for the majority of Mac owners.

During the keynote, Apple showed off two games running on the M2: No Man’s Sky, an older but frequently updated game, and Resident Evil Village, a game that arrived on the PC and consoles just last fall. Resident Evil Village especially caught my eye because it’s such a recent release. It’s just one game, but it stands in contrast to others that have been used to demo gaming on the Mac in the past.

It would be a mistake for anyone to pin their Mac gaming hopes on the scant details we have so far. However, the keynote made it clear to me that Apple has gaming ambitions beyond Arcade, and its unique SoC architecture has moved Macs one step closer to that becoming a reality.

You can follow all of our WWDC coverage through our WWDC 2022 hub or subscribe to the dedicated WWDC 2022 RSS feed.

M2 MacBook Air and MacBook Pro: The MacStories Overview

Yesterday during their WWDC keynote event, Apple unveiled the updated M2 Apple Silicon chip. While the M2 might not be quite as revolutionary of an upgrade as the M1 was over previous Intel chips, it’s still a very solid year-over-year improvement which continues to boost Apple ahead of the competition.

Debuting with the M2 inside are the all-new MacBook Air and the upgraded 13” MacBook Pro. While the MacBook Pro has very few changes other than the new processor, the MacBook Air sports a completely new industrial design. Let’s take a look at Apple’s latest entires into the Mac lineup.

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