If a students needs Logic Pro for 3 months for a class then they can get it (with the other apps) for $9 total ($6 if you count the free month). That makes more sense than a one time fee of $200. On the other hand, if you're planning to use the software for over a decade like yourself then $200 is very cheap.
Of course predictions about the future are not present reality.
It’s not set in stone, but it’s supported by the times this has happened before and by trends in Apple and in tech. “Nothing will ever change” is a prediction, too, and one much less supported by evidence.
If just the news of the deal boosts Disney stock enough to pay for the deal, then yes. Or if it boosts OpenAI valuation because they now have Disney IP enough to pay off on Disney's investment, it is basically Disney producing content indirectly.
Beyond Hacker News, I haven't seen anyone actively asking for AI features. People have been complaining about Siri for over a decade but it's not like users are turning against Apple because it isn't using an LLM (yet). Rather, it seems like users are increasingly wary of AI features being shoehorned into products they were already using.
Apple originally planned to power Siri with ChatGPT under the hood. They quickly saw that other models, including open-source ones, were closing the gap fast.
A few months ago, MCP-style tool calling seemed like the clear standard. Now even Anthropic is shifting toward "code-mode" and reusable skills.
For Apple, reliable tool calling is critical because their AI needs to control apps and the whole device. My bet: Apple's AI will be able to create its own Shortcuts on the fly and call them as needed, with OSA Script support on Mac.
One of the reasons I'm heavily biased towards actual Mac native apps is that supporting callback URLs and Shortcuts unlocks so much of what I might ask of an AI tool already. Ironically I often ask AI assistants for line by line steps to create Shortcuts when I need them because actual Shortcut naming and properties can be quite obtuse.
Sadly, much as I love AppleScript, I think Apple giving it any love at this point in time is likely to be a pipe dream. Much more likely they're just going to try to beef up Shortcuts support across the board.
Users aren't really asking for AI features, but they may be asking for features that require AI.
As Google integrates Gemini into their Google Assistant and Google Home products, if it starts to become leaps and bounds better than Siri, customers are going to start wondering why Apple is falling behind. If Apple can't achieve those things without AI and that could cause problems. Customers aren't saying "I want AI features", but they are indirectly asking for them because the features they want require AI to do what they expect.
(I realize Google and Apple have a deal happening to have Gemini integrated into Siri so this isn't the best example, but I think it illustrates the point I'm trying to make)
I'm in that boat - I'm basically fine without AI features. I can think of a couple of hypothetical things that would be nice though - a smart and functional Siri - I never use it at the moment, and maybe a locally hosted LLM that could look through my documents so I can ask where's that spreadsheet with the housing costs etc.
?? Both normies and tech people seem to have been clued in that AI is a shoehorned in feature that companies focus on instead of fixing existing functionality, and that comes with a siphon that exfiltrates all your data for AI companies to train on.
The people I know in real life, besides those that work in tech and use it for code assistance or for generating never-reviewed archival transcripts of meetings, mostly just laugh at AI foibles and faults and casually echo doomer-media worries about job replacement as a topic for small talk.
But admittedly, most of those people are established adults who've figured out an effective rhythm to their home and work life and aren't longing for some magic remedy or disruption. They're not necessarily weary, and they were curious at first, but it seems like they're mostly just waiting for either the buzz to burn off or for some "it just works" product to finally emerge.
I imagine there are younger people wowed by the apparent magic of what we have now and excited that they might use it punch up the homework assignments or emails or texts that make them anxious, or that might enjoy toying with it as a novel tool for entertainment and creative idling. Maybe these are some of the people in your "real life"
There are a lot of people out there in "real life", bringing different perspectives and needs.
Nah, LLMs and stable diffusion are being used everywhere by everyone hardcore.
I work at a coworking space. Most of the folks I've worked alongside had active chats in ChatGPT for all sorts of stuff. I've also seen devs use AI copilots, like Copilot and Codex. I feel big old when I drop into fullscreen vim on my Mac.
AI art is also used everywhere. Especially by bars and restaurants. So many AI happy hour/event promo posters now, complete with text (AI art font is kind-of samey for some reason). I've even seen (what look like) AI generated logos on work trucks.
People are getting use out of LLMs, 100%. Yet the anti-AI sentiment is through the roof. Maybe it's like social media where the most vocal opponents are secretly some of its most active users. Idk.
What I meant specifically was that I don't remember anyone complaining about AI features getting in the way or being shoehorned. That particular complaint seems popular only on Reddit or HN.
Most of the people I've talked IRL to aren't against AI as a rule, but have grown tired of poorly implemented AI features, especially if they're used as marketing fodder. In my experience, shoehorned AI features have landed themselves in a category similar to that of bundled crapware and useless single-app hotkeys on cheap laptops.
Those of this group who use AI mostly ignore poor rebadges and integrations like MS Copilot and just use ChatGPT and Claude directly. They prefer it to remain intentional and contained within a box that they control the bounds of.
I talk to tons of people in real life who are deeply troubled by the AI-pocalypse. I was at a dinner party just the other day where out of the blue (wasn't me, I swear!), the conversation turned to the horrors of genAI and its negative effect on our society.
Sure. When I have a night of poor sleep or anticipate one, I usually take 6 grams of BHB salts in the morning on an empty stomach. You can work your way up to a maximum of 12 grams, but I would advise caution since it can cause diarrhea. I would start by buying the cheapest product (nutricost) you can find online; if it costs more than $80 for ~300g, then you're probably getting ripped off. I noticed that I have very lucid dreams and experience strong hypnagogic jerks when I take this supplement.
Here is some literature that I've perused to support my experimentation with BHB salts:
Meditation is also extremely useful for this. In breath-based meditation, you focus your mind on your breathing and try to eliminate thoughts. Obviously your mind gets bored and you begin to think of other things. Once you recognize that you're losing focus, you simply return to your breath. Over and over. Over time, you gain the ability to view your thoughts and emotions as easily disposable. It takes time but you can actually recognize that you're being affected by emotion, able to let go of thoughts, and be more present in the moment.
Most of their profits come from software or ecosystem lock ins. So while they do profit off of each Mac sold, if those sales don't translate to more iCloud subscriptions, app purchases, or iPhones then it really doesn't make financial sense for them. Even if they only had 3 people and a PM dedicated to Linux support, that's still roughly a million dollars a year for a nebulous promise of "slightly more hardware sales." It sucks but it's the reality of the situation.
I'm personally failing to see how "welcoming everyone" directly correlates to a company neglecting polish and detail. A cynical read of your comment is that DEI-style programs are lowering standards when, in actuality, the issue most likely lies in poor management and a corporate structure that rewards buzzy work over polished work. I'm not saying that was your implication, by the way; just that "everything's bad because we allowed other people to join" is a slippery slope.
You should wait until next Fall if you don't really need to replace your M1 Max. Rumors say that Apple's going to redesign the Macbook Pros next year with an OLED screen.
I would rather buy the last refresh of the old design. Waiting for a redesign is risky, as some redesings are just bad (like the touchbar MBP). And Apple is opinionated enough that it often refuses to admit its mistakes and sticks to them for years.
The butterfly switches break easily and replacing the entire keyboard because of it is a pain. I held on to my 2015 intel MBP for ages waiting for them to address that.
I had one for a few years. The keyboard was bad, and there was no physical escape key. There were lot of accidental clicks with the touchbar, as it had a different logic (touch to use rather than press to use) than the other keys, or the function keys on every other keyboard. And I was using USB-A and HDMI adapters all the time, as the laptop lacked essential ports.
The first M1 MacBook Pros had both the touchbar and a decent keyboard. I love mine so long as the driver running the touchbar doesn't crash, which it does sometimes necessitating a reboot. My main problem is how few programs actually ever made good use (not just some use) of the touchbar.
As for the dongle issue, that went away when I upgraded to a USB-C monitor at home and USB-C equipment at work. I can dock to a monitor or plug into a projector to give a presentation and charge with the same cable. At this point I don't want an HDMI port, and I'm kind of sad that the next laptop will probably have a dedicated charging cable.
I travel quite a bit. HDMI remains useful, as most monitors / TVs / projectors I encounter still don't have USB-C input. USB-A is also somewhat useful, as I charge various devices from my laptop to avoid dealing with too many international power adapters.
The most common ports I need are roughly: 1. USB-C; 2. HDMI; 3. USB-A; 4. second USB-C; 5. third USB-C; 6. second USB-A; 7. DisplayPort; 8. fourth USB-C.
I still have both 13" and 15" Touch Bar MacBook Pros from 2016, and the keyboard is hands down my favorite laptop keyboard to type on since the Lenovo X220. The new ones aren't _bad_ but not as nice. The physical escape key doesn't matter to me, I have had it mapped to caps lock forever.
I also used to use the Touch Bar for a status display for things like tests, it was honestly great. Do not miss the battery life and performance compared to my subsequent Apple Silicon laptops, but definitely miss the keyboard.
I think it’s because of the non optionality of it. If you could have gotten every but sans/includes the touch bar people could have simply made their choices based on preference.
In the end they reverted because they were not willing to make it optional. They also never released a touch bar keyboard for desktop, which would have made it more useful perhaps
My 2019 MBP has a touch bar and a physical escape key, so at least some models did have one. I agree not having it would make the touch bar way worse. As it is I don't mind it.
i also found that weird when I got it but I got used to it quickly. It's not my main work machine but I use it for a couple of hours every evening and stopped thinking about it. I do sometimes accidentally bring up Siri when I mean to hit the backspace key.
As someone who went all in on the 2019 i9 Intel MBP months before Apple announced the M1 MBP, I can tell you this strategy is not always optimal. Years of managing overheating and underperformance due to said overheating has not been fun. Especially when I found out about the benchmarks showing those M1s were running circles around the laptop I purchased, for a fraction of the price
I grabbed a broken 2019 i9 and repaired it. I thought I had fucked up the repair because it kept thermal throttling but after researching a bit and eventually comparing to a known good machine it appears that I did fine and no, it just does that
Apple has had missteps of course, but you can usually buy last year’s model, right?
OLED is much better than other display technology, and they’ve done other OLED screen devices. It would be quite surprising to see them screw this up—not impossible, sure. They could screw up some other design element for example. But, it would be somewhat surprising, right? And OLED is a big change so maybe they won’t also feel the need to mess with other stuff.
Everything I recently researched about display technologies, mini LED has no image retention/burn-in issues, and renders fonts better compared to OLED. It seems you want OLED for media (and mobile, since you often alternate entire screens), IPS for work, and mini LED as a more expensive compromise without burn-in, that does text as well as IPS, and media almost as well as OLED. I wonder why would they even want to use OLED on work screens with lots of static content, did something major change about the tech such that it doesn't suffer these issues anymore?
I think OLED burn in has been mitigated fairly well recently. At least, I have a Linux laptop from 2021 that I use for work as well as fun, no particular care taken to avoid it, but no burn-in so far.
Font rendering, hard to say, I think it’s just preference.
Terminals look very nice with actual-black backgrounds.
I have a Samsung QD-OLED monitor from 2023 which has very noticeable burn-in at low brightness levels. This is from the era of "OLED burn-in has been solved," and it's soured me on OLED monitors since I do photography as a hobby and don't want burn-in affecting how I see images on my screen. I think it's fine for televisions, but I don't like it for PC use where I have static windows on my screen for a long time. I even used dark mode and still got burn-in pretty quickly, for example where it draws the border between side-by-side windows (so, a vertical line down the middle of my screen). Once I noticed that, I started resizing my side-by-side windows so their border isn't in the same place every day, but the damage is done.
Comments like yours make me feel justified that potential burn-in issues were why I stuck with an IPS panel when I purchased a new monitor earlier this year.
My past monitors have lasted me 5-7 years in the past, and I only upgraded for size (once) and gsync (also once).
I don't want to be forced to buy another one just because of burn-in.
Interesting. Since I use the pretty barebones Linux config (i3wm) and haven’t tried to avoid static elements, I have a lot on my screen. But, I tend to keep my screen fairly dark just for comfort. It is also 1080p, and not super high dpi, I wonder if bigger pixels are less fragile.
The notch is bigger than it should be for sure, I would've loved for it to be narrower. But I don't really mind the trade-off it represents.
You could add half an inch of screen bezel and make the machine bigger, just to fit the web cam. Or you could remove half an inch of screen , essentially making the "notch" stretch across the whole top of the laptop. Or you could find some compromised place to put the camera, like those Dell laptops which put the camera near the hinge. Or you can let the screen fill the whole lid of the laptop, with a cut-out for the camera, and design the GUI such that the menu bar fills the part of the screen that's interrupted by the notch.
I personally don't mind that last option. For my needs, it might very well be the best alternative. If I needed a bigger below-the-notch area, I could get the 16" option instead of the 14" option.
I don't have a problem with the notch, I have a problem with the icons not showing in the status bar and there isn't a *** way to show them. It's so difficult to add a overflow button that shows the hidden icons?
My REDMAGIC Android phone is like this too and I love not having a stupid notch cut out of the screen. I've hated them since the very first time I saw a iPhone X. Can't believe such a ridiculous design defect infected Macbooks too :/
It's not visible at all. The camera is just placed behind the screen.
OLED screens are inherently transparent, there is just a light-emitting layer in them. You put your camera behind the screen, and either make the few pixels on top of the lens go black when it's on, or you use a lot of software to remove the light that comes from the screen and clean up the picture.
They have the solution with the web cam near the hinge that I mentioned. I had a couple of Dell XPS laptops like that. It's fine if the webcam is really just an afterthought for you, but it does mean the webcam has a very unflattering angle that's looking up your nostrils.
I use my webcam enough these days to take part in video meetings that it'd be a pretty big problem for me.
Checkout the Dell XPS 13 9345, webcam is on top but with thinner bezels than a Macbook, it's got a Snapdragon ARM processor for good battery life, OLED screen, upto 64GB RAM, and is smaller and lighter than a Macbook Air
Snapdragon X Elite 2 processor will be out next year for the refreshed model
You're looking at the wrong laptop, the Dell XPS 13 9345 has a ~88.6% screen to body ratio, the Macbook Pro 14 M4 2024 has a ~84.6% screen to body ratio.
The weight is the big one for me - only 2.5 lbs vs 3.4 lbs
Remember the Dell has an 18 month old processor, X Elite 2 coming out next year.
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