Imagine how big Apple would/could be if they embraced open hardware. They do have a moat here. macOS is so bloated, I hate it, but the hardware is just so much better than anything else.
They are the only laptop company who makes a fanless laptop that never gets hot to touch with long batery life. I'm still on my m1 air with the smallest configuration you could get at the time. Yet it's somehow capable of matching my T14 i7 with 32gb og ram for most of the work I do, and it does it without getting hot or having it's fan sound like it's a fighter jet taking off. To be fair my t14 is a corporate windows machine, so it's not like it's a fair fight.
I'd love to replace it with something like a framework or a tuxedo, but they all get hot to touch. Maybe I'm in the minority, but a laptop not heating up when you turn it on is one of the most important things for it. It doesn't matter much for work, because it'll sit in a dock anyway, but I rarely use my m1 air at a table.
I was required to use a Macbook Air in my last job. I hated small things like the window management, the keyboard lack of delete, home, etc keys. There were ways to work around this. Cold aluminium in an aircon office though was no fun, and the keyboard lacked travel.
For I came from almost a decade on Debian. I had become used to the ways of GNOME, I enjoyed GNOME 3 even and had no gripes about systemd.
Now I am in Windowsland. This is hell. I have no filesystem and cloud works the exact opposite way it should pretending we all see the same thing. I cannot email an attachment without closing - why is this? The concept of a shared folder has changed to everyone sharing their 'personal drives' while having no user-facing audit on what is shared with whom and via what link. Somehow a 4-digit pin is as authorative as a password to everything but a network printer that demands passwordy login. At the sane time, windows lacks handy preset printing like mac or linux - its there but buried, like everything in windows, thus not handy. The sleep key wakes the laptop and bypasses all login security. Copilot cannot be turned off unless done so by an organisation admin. At the same time, trusty fallback productivity tools like VBA fail as there is no filesystem - productivity workers are cripled using their 'everything looks like a nail if all I have is a windows hammer tool'. Teams still isn't as good for simple chat as Windows Communicator was a decade and a half ago and there isn't another option in the windows stable in sight. A 10th gen Intel chip gets overpowered by this all every hour or two. Possibly triggered by Adobe Acrobat - software that no one needs - trying to install a further part itself again.
Corporate Windows is a horror. How did it get so bad?
Are you sure about ESC? I looked at MacBook Air pictures on DDG, and they all had an escape key in the upper left. I've never seen a Mac without one. If you're using it for VI, Ctrl-[ is also ESC (and avoids stretching your fingers).
For delete, if you mean delete-under instead of delete-before (what the key labelled "delete" does), Fn-Delete is delete-under.
Home/End are either Cmd-Up/Down (doc begin/end) or Opt-Up/Down (line begin/end) (I haven't used a PC in a while, so I can't remember what Home/End do)
On a Mac keyboard, Home is Fn+Left arrow, End is Fn+Right arrow, Page up is Fn+Up arrow and Page down is Fn+Down arrow, and as you said, Delete is Fn+Backspace. The Fn key is at the bottom left of the Mac keyboard, which is diametrically opposed to the top right position of the Backspace key. You need to use your two hands to produce any of these combinations. Also, the arrow keys are half the size of the other keys.
Obviously, this is not a problem for most Mac users. Personally, I've used a MacBook Pro for more than a decade, and I eventually found that so annoying that I bought an external keyboard with full size arrow keys and dedicated Del, Home, End, PgUp, PgDn keys.
MacOS is a lovely desktop OS, even now. I stress "desktop" because you can use a proper full-sized keyboard with Home/End, PgUp/PgDn, Ins/Del, etc and they all do exactly what they should. Apple has built in keymaps for PC keyboards for all the localisations so that I get UK English on a PC keyboard, and then I can swap Cmd and Ctrl so Linux keystrokes work as I expect as well.
And a proper external wired mouse, with 5 buttons and a scroll wheel.
It's lovely.
I sold my Magic Mouse, Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad, and may their new owners enjoy them. I am happy I never need to touch the damned things again. I have a centimetre of key travel and a big fat mechanical click, and it's lovely.
It's laptops that are the pain. There, you have no choice. When I travel with this MBA I take a Lenovo USB keyboard and a cheapo 3rd party Bluetooth mouse, but I still need to fsck around with hubs and external power adaptors and so on and it's a pain. The all-day battery life sort of makes up for it. Sort of.
sscaryterry · · focus · HN ↗
palata · · focus · HN ↗
I mean, the "so much better" in my experience is really the battery life.
Quothling · · focus · HN ↗
I'd love to replace it with something like a framework or a tuxedo, but they all get hot to touch. Maybe I'm in the minority, but a laptop not heating up when you turn it on is one of the most important things for it. It doesn't matter much for work, because it'll sit in a dock anyway, but I rarely use my m1 air at a table.
throwaway202528 · · focus · HN ↗
For I came from almost a decade on Debian. I had become used to the ways of GNOME, I enjoyed GNOME 3 even and had no gripes about systemd.
Now I am in Windowsland. This is hell. I have no filesystem and cloud works the exact opposite way it should pretending we all see the same thing. I cannot email an attachment without closing - why is this? The concept of a shared folder has changed to everyone sharing their 'personal drives' while having no user-facing audit on what is shared with whom and via what link. Somehow a 4-digit pin is as authorative as a password to everything but a network printer that demands passwordy login. At the sane time, windows lacks handy preset printing like mac or linux - its there but buried, like everything in windows, thus not handy. The sleep key wakes the laptop and bypasses all login security. Copilot cannot be turned off unless done so by an organisation admin. At the same time, trusty fallback productivity tools like VBA fail as there is no filesystem - productivity workers are cripled using their 'everything looks like a nail if all I have is a windows hammer tool'. Teams still isn't as good for simple chat as Windows Communicator was a decade and a half ago and there isn't another option in the windows stable in sight. A 10th gen Intel chip gets overpowered by this all every hour or two. Possibly triggered by Adobe Acrobat - software that no one needs - trying to install a further part itself again.
Corporate Windows is a horror. How did it get so bad?
prewett · · focus · HN ↗
For delete, if you mean delete-under instead of delete-before (what the key labelled "delete" does), Fn-Delete is delete-under.
Home/End are either Cmd-Up/Down (doc begin/end) or Opt-Up/Down (line begin/end) (I haven't used a PC in a while, so I can't remember what Home/End do)
loicd · · focus · HN ↗
Obviously, this is not a problem for most Mac users. Personally, I've used a MacBook Pro for more than a decade, and I eventually found that so annoying that I bought an external keyboard with full size arrow keys and dedicated Del, Home, End, PgUp, PgDn keys.
lproven · · focus · HN ↗
And a proper external wired mouse, with 5 buttons and a scroll wheel.
It's lovely.
I sold my Magic Mouse, Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad, and may their new owners enjoy them. I am happy I never need to touch the damned things again. I have a centimetre of key travel and a big fat mechanical click, and it's lovely.
It's laptops that are the pain. There, you have no choice. When I travel with this MBA I take a Lenovo USB keyboard and a cheapo 3rd party Bluetooth mouse, but I still need to fsck around with hubs and external power adaptors and so on and it's a pain. The all-day battery life sort of makes up for it. Sort of.
mahboi · · focus · HN ↗