> All that to say: M1 is pretty fast, but the reason the battery life is better has to do with everything other than the CPU cores. That's what AMD and Intel are missing.
Apple is vertically integrated and can optimize at the OS and for many applications they ship with the device.
Compare that to how many cooks are in the kitchen in Wintel land. Perfect example is trying to get to the bottom of why your windows laptop won't go to sleep and cooks itself in your backpack. Unless something's changed, last I checked it was a circular firing squad between laptop manufacturer, Microsoft and various hardware vendors all blaming each other.
> Apple is vertically integrated and can optimize
> Compare that to how many cooks are in the kitchen in Wintel land. Perfect example is trying to get to the bottom of why your windows laptop won't go to sleep and cooks itself in your backpack
So, I was thinking like this as well, and after I lost my Carbon X1 I felt adventurous, but not too adventurous, and wanted a laptop that "could just work". The thinking was "If Microsoft makes both the hardware and the software, it has to work perfectly fine, right?", so I bit my lip and got a Surface Pro 8.
What a horrible laptop that was, even while I was trialing just running Windows on it. Overheated almost immediately by itself, just idling, and STILL suffers from the issue where the laptop sometimes wake itself while in my backpack, so when I actually needed it, of course it was hot and without battery. I've owned a lot of shit laptops through the years, even some without keys in the keyboard, back when I was dirt-poor, but the Surface Pro 8 is the worst of them all, I regret buying it a lot.
I guess my point is that just because Apple seem really good at the whole "vertically integrated" concept, it isn't magic by itself, and Microsoft continues to fuck up the very same thing, even though they control the entire stack, so you'll still end up with backpack laptops turning themselves on/not turning off properly.
I'd wager you could let Microsoft own every piece of physical material in the world, and they'd still not be able to make a decent laptop.
Surprised to hear this. Back in the Surface Pro 4 days, the hardware was great. I made it through college doing 95% of my work on a Surface Pro 4 tablet with the magnetic keyboard and almost always made it through the entire day without having to plug it in.
My wife swears by her surface pros, and she has owned a few.
I've had a few Surface Book 2's for work, and they were fine except: needed more RAM, and there was some issue with connection between screen and base which make USB headsets hinky.
Apple has been vertically integrate for 50 years. Microsoft has been horizontally integrated for 50 years.
That's why Apple is good at making a whole single system that works by itself, and Microsoft is good at making a system that works with almost everything almost everyone has made almost ever.
Also on the HN front page today:
> Framework 16
> The 2nd Gen Keyboard retains the same hardware as the 1st Gen but introduces refreshed artwork and updated firmware, which includes a fix to prevent the system from waking while carried in a bag.
There are some reports of this with Macbooks as well. But my (non-scientific) impression is that a lot more people in Wintel land are seeing it. All of my work laptops, and a few of my personal laptops have done this to me since I started using Windows 10/11.
Microsoft is pushing "Modern Standby" over actual sleep, so laptops can download and install updates while closed at night.
Microsoft is pushing "Modern Standby" over actual sleep, so laptops can download and install updates while closed at night.
Apple has this. It's called Power Nap. But for some reason, it doesn't cause the same problems reported by people here on HN.
I remember a time when this was supposed to be Wintel's advantage. It's really strange to now be in a time where Apple leads the consumer computing industry in hardware performance, yet is utterly failing at evolving the actual experience of using their computers. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who would gladly give up a bit of performance if it were going to result in a polished, consistent UI/UX based on the actual science of human interface design rather than this usability hellscape the Alan Dye era is sending us into.
macOS is a resource hungry pig, I wouldn't bet too much on it making a difference.