10 years ago two hours of battery life would have been a big deal. I mean, 5 hours vs. 7 is
huge! But, 18 vs. 20? Not so much.
I've been looking at MacBooks Pro and MacBooks Air for years. They sit on the display table and there they are, doing their thing. Customers look them over, the boss looks them over, the techs look them over. None of us—whereby "none" I mean "zero" as the word is defined—can tell the difference in screen brightness, even when the two are sitting right next to each other. It's pointless—unless you're a professional photographer sitting in a dark room with trained eyes.
The TouchBar has just never been … anything. It seams like it should be, but it's not. It just doesn't work unless the whole keyboard is that. Otherwise, it's … dumb. I hate to watch myself type that—especially since I totally get what Apple was thinking and wish it would have evolved further, but it didn't. At the same time, I think the function keys are tired and old and only used by a smidgen of the population.
Most people (I would suspect the number approaches 95% or higher) never touch those keys other than to adjust the volume or brightness. "F1" etc. has little use outside of creative software, which most folks never touch. So, again, the Function row's existence is there to satisfy the minority, even though the TouchBar is a better use of the space for the majority of people.
And that brings us back to the fan. It's the
only difference in there that any buyer should consider, and it's the
only one I discuss in any detail with a prospective customer. And it's an easy sale toward the Air. The vast, vast majority (99%) of our customers have no need for the fan. They're emailing, Word-ing, listening to music, browsing (social media
), and checking out the 587 blurry pictures they took in the last 30 minutes. In other words, their workflow could be accomplished on a decent used machine for a few hundred bucks. The M1 Air is absolute overkill for what they're doing. But, hey, if they want to unload an extra $300 (we stock the 8-core/7-core; no need to waste $50 bucks on that GPU either) I'll be happy take their wasted money. Whatever.
