Apple Silicon M1 MacBook Air (Late 2020) Unboxing

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I borrowed an M1-powered MacBook Air from my relative for this unboxing.

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If you have been paying attention to the recent MacBook Airs, this unboxing is going to look exactly the same as the ones that came before.

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The keyboard has the only obvious physical change with these few key changes.

Battery life

I have not taken out the power adapter from the box yet, but have already installed the 11.0.1 update. It took more than 20 mins, and I noticed the battery percentage did not change even after the update has been completed. After playing with the MacBook Air for more than an hour in total, the battery percentage only dropped like 2-3%. Take note that I did not push the MacBook Air hard, nor did I do any benchmarks since those are all over the internet already, but this thing is fast and snappy! And the battery life is incredible.

The state of iOS apps on Apple Silicon macOS

It appears more than just a few developers have chosen to block their iOS apps from appearing from the Mac App Store, either because they already have a macOS version and obviously they want to make money from those, or they are just bent on not giving macOS users access to their apps. Possible reasons could be because their apps are “not ready for macOS yet”, or maybe because they will lose out on a lot more tracking info if users chose to use their apps instead of their websites. Whatever it is, none of the third party apps that I use on a daily basis are available on macOS, and that sucks. Maybe Apple was wrong to give the developers that choice in the first place. Developers who are lazy and want more money but do not want to do the extra work.

However, from recent reports it seems that you may actually be able to install iOS apps not available on the Mac App Store by executing their .ipa files directly. Worth a try I guess.

Conclusion

These are definitely the best Macs to have came out of Apple in probably the last two decades. Going Intel in 2006 might have allowed a lot more people to be exposed to Macs, but it also took away the uniqueness Macs have over the rest of the computing industry, with their RISC processors. With the M1 Macs Apple has regained its uniqueness and advantage over the rest of the traditional computing industry, and do not expect them to slow down anytime soon. Very soon the pathetic PC whiners are just going to claim that their old AF x86 platform architecture is superior because they say so, just like stupid Android people who still think they have the most powerful phones just because some manufacturers have to use massive cooling solutions for their shitty designs. Well idiots will be idiots and there are so many idiots in the PC industry that it is not even funny.

Should you buy an M1 Mac now?

The usual answer applies – buy only if you need a computer now. If not there will always be faster Macs in the future. If you have been waiting, especially for a MacBook Air, I think this is a good time to purchase it. The MacBook Pro, maybe not, since there are rumors that a 14-inch one is coming next year.


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MacRyu is the Mac Blog by Singaporeans and for Singaporeans. It was started in April 2007 as a side project of the then President of the Official Mac User Group of NUS, Ryu, and grew to become possibly one of the most popular Apple-related sites based in Singapore. MacRyu hopes to provide you with more Mac-related info, thoughts and stuff, from the Singaporean perspective.

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