Win10 users looking for a new OS? Apple $599 MacBook can't come at a better time

https://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10-users-looking-for-a-new-os-apples-599-macbook-cant-come-at-a-better-time/

by walterbell • 11 months ago

24 38 11 months ago

willio58• 11 months ago

As someone who's converted (unintentionally) a few people from Windows to Mac machines, I will say for most people there's less barriers these days. Lots of people use these machines as glorified Chromebooks anyway. So it really comes down to price, if they like how it looks, etc.

hangonhn• 11 months ago

Glorified Chromebook at this price point can be a game changer for some enterprises. We do use Chromebooks for our line employees but for our engineers, etc. we use Macbook Pros. I'm sure our IT would appreciate it if we standardized on all Macs.

spogbiper• 11 months ago

Why not just turn their existing PC into a Chromebook then? ChomeOS Flex works pretty well in my experience. https://chromeos.google/products/chromeos-flex/

bena• 11 months ago

As a developer, I like Mac OSX. It seems to be a fair compromise. It has a decent window manager, the finder is excellent, and if I need to I can drop into a terminal and do what I need to.

stronglikedan• 11 months ago

The cool thing about Win10 is that I can do all that as well, but with third party tools of my choosing. Not saying OSX is limited - just saying I can do the same in Win10, in multiple ways. I work with both, and will always choose to work with Win over Mac.

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.

jmkni• 11 months ago

I have a base m2 macbook air I got a while ago for travelling, and I regularly use it for coding.

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

hellojesus4• 11 months ago

Do you get any pushback from users when it comes to the forced apple id to be able to use the computer or do updates?

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.

wmf2• 11 months ago

I don't think an Apple ID is required for updates. It's easier to skip the Apple ID than it is on Windows.

wappieslurkz• 11 months ago

You can absolutely install, run and update macOS without an Apple ID.

cosmic_cheese5• 11 months ago

A nice side effect of Apple entering this price range is that it might raise the bar for what people find acceptable in laptops at that price.

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.

bestouff• 11 months ago

Is it, really ? Even Apple has to cut corners somewhere to reach that price.

cosmic_cheese5• 11 months ago

Not necessarily. They’re saving quite a bit from using their own SoCs which they’re also shipping in iPhones and iPads, both from massive economy of scale as well as from not having to make money on each SoC sold (unlike e.g. Intel or Qualcomm).

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.

AstroBen3• 11 months ago

They don't necessarily need to be profitable on their base model with the amount they make from upgrades and the backend

crazy5sheep• 11 months ago

Apple is too greedy, it's a joke to have 256GB as a storage option nowadays

AstroBen3• 11 months ago

256GB is fine for me. I prefer external storage for large files

forinti• 11 months ago

I can live off 256GB on a notebook (I run Linux), but 4GB of RAM would be ridiculous and I still see notebooks from various makers being offered with 4GB.

hellisothers• 11 months ago

256 is plenty, I only had 256GB on my last work machine and was able to maintain 4 different checkouts of our entire (large) codebase and still tons of space for caches.

boombapoom2• 11 months ago

I'm not pro windows or pro mac. I am pro let me do what the fuck I want to do. Cutting support for win10 is an abomination of a policy. I could see cutting support for windows 9 though....

hellojesus4• 11 months ago

Windows 10 support was cut to force everyone into tpm 2.0 machines. It was about control and the deprecation of general computing devices.

boombapoom2• 11 months ago

this is an arm based processor.... how compatible is that with most the stuff that macbooks run?

kstrauser2• 11 months ago

Approximately 100%. All MacBooks have been ARM based for years now.

cosmic_cheese5• 11 months ago

Yep, the greater bulk of Mac apps had proper ARM builds just 1-2 years after the first M1 devices launched. Third party Mac devs don’t drag their feet on arch transitions.

redwall_hp• 11 months ago

Macs are around the five year mark for a full ARM transition. Remaining Intel Macs are right on the edge of not receiving software updates anymore, and the Rosetta translation layer already has a scheduled wind down.

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.)

lousken• 11 months ago

how is the linux experience on the mac these days?

wmf2• 11 months ago

It's OK on M1/M2 but doesn't work at all on M3/M4.

politelemon• 11 months ago

This is an advert/promotion, not a good HN submission.

notfried• 11 months ago

A new M4 Air is now $799 at Amazon, and a new M1 Air is $599 at Walmart. So it's not like $999 is really the starting price if you spent a minute to search outside of Apple's Online Store.

AstroBen3• 11 months ago

Yeah I just picked up an M4 air for $799. Feels like insanely good value there. A year ago the equivalent was >$1000?

kstrauser2• 11 months ago

Note that the Walmart M1 is a 2020 model. It's still great for lots of uses, but I wouldn't compare its price against a 2025 model.

evanjrowley• 11 months ago

If their cost cutting measures include releasing this with a FHD/1080p screen, I would support that.

I'm looking for a fanless laptop with a FHD display that can be easily mirrored to cheap XR/VR glasses.

cosmic_cheese5• 11 months ago

It’s unlikely that it’ll feature a screen designed to render at 1x UI scale. They haven’t shipped “normal” DPI screens for a long time now and macOS type rendering is designed around that.

mistic92• 11 months ago

I don't get who would even consider buying macbook even cheap one (not enough storage, not enough ram) when using Windows. Hardware is great but mac software is very low quality.

gxonatano• 11 months ago

That's a really weird headline. Looking for new software? Buy new hardware!

Meanwhile, you can install Linux on your existing laptop for free.

Win10 users looking for a new OS? Apple $599 MacBook can't come at a better time

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