Greetings again from the Mancave™;
Am thinking of getting an M4 Air as it’s the only one without fans in, which for sound/fourier analysis is a blessing. We will not go into that here, just explaining that this is not about money, am aware there’s better to be had, am after an Air model regardless.
Am bothering you because i’ve never had a Mac; ever. And Apple being Apple (we ‘lock’ features out on this version, available only on Ultra, etc.), there may be stuff i haven’t stumbled on, the kind that makes a difference, right purchase or not.
So for the M4 Air specifically, anything you guys can share? Software/features-wise?
Think “you can’t do that on Airs, only on ‘X’ other variant”, think stuff not explicitly mentioned by Apple that you’d find out about the hard way.
Anything at all, i’d be much obliged.
While i no longer have a mac myself i grew up with them, and had a few over the years. My mom still uses them and loves her m2 macbook air. I have used it a few times, and its definitely an impressive device, in terms of battery life, sound, and temperature. Having come from an x86 macbook pro she did not really notice any drawbacks or changes, and it is definitely an upgrade in terms of performance.
I guess i would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone, assuming your ok with the apple ecosystem. I think the question in terms of should i get a more powerfull model is, do you do something that takes more power, than the air has to do in a specific time frame. (its not that the air cant do anything so much as the higher end products do it faster). Talking about things like heavy or daily video editing code compiling, actual workload task.
Oh also look at the port differences, thats the other physical big difference do you need those other ports.
All in all the air is meant for general everyday home use. I would not call it a high-power work device.
I may have been overly broad in my phrasing it (not everybody has the patience to read, so i try condense), but i was specifically after software features or related stuff; think heavy tweaker, nothing stays stock, i want control, gonna modify extensively, 100%, etc; what if any wall could i possible run into?
Example of Apple being Apple:
You cannot even control fan speeds unless you have a Macbook Ultra, lol… something so basic, simple and available from a million free software suites the planet over? Something already baked in MacOS? They take the extra step -after they’ve put it in- and lock it out on cheaper models, because segmentation.
To state the obvious, this doesn’t concern me -Mac Airs don’t have fans-, am mentioning it because if they do that, who knows what else they lock you out off, you know?
Just software stuff a heavy tweaker would find fault with if they couldn’t access/do on such a cheap Apple model, Apple being Apple. If any.
(i may not have ever had any Macs, but am fairly into it, both in Windows and Linux. So statistically speaking, much more advanced than your mom, your having used her as an example i mean)
While i don’t know the answer for sure on all the different apple sillicon models, i can say for sure on all the old x86 models there was 3rd party software like Macs Fan Control that let you control the fans, i don’t ever remember apple building control into the os for this. I would assume someone has made the an equivalent fan control for the arm apple silicon models.
Also not aware of software of many software lock outs for features, so much as segmentation due to hardware. Apples has treated its macs in a much different way compared to its iPhones, and tablets. I think you will find with Mac OS most limitations are simply on every model due to apple doing the whole walled garden that is tightly controlled. Although this is why i both love and hate MacOS and why its a good fit for my mom.
Maybe someone else can come up with an example of model segmentation by software on their laptops that i’m not aware of.
I don’t know of any such things. MacOS is more or less as configurable as windows, I would even say a bit more in some points if you know applescript and bash.
Take a look at some of my favourite tools / tweaks (all OSS):
If reasoning’s required, old fart’s only got the one desk! So hobby/work aside, whatever device’s on there, i need be capable of doing everything else i’ve been doing thus far, so, here we are.
