Instant on NOT instant

[KnightWRX]

But then again, I'm just another one of those countless people "bashing" Apple, right?

gwsat uses a MBP to rip CDs from iTunes. A 1200$ piece of equipement to do what a 79$ one could do on his MBA. You're not even close to the level of Apple love he has. You couldn't understand how much this thread has hurt and others him personally.

Don't worry about it, if you even question Apple or anything, you're "popping off" and have "attitude problems" with some people around here. Just don't sweat it. This thread was 100x better than all the "2GB or 4GB" or "Is the MBA enough for me ?" we've had in the last 4 weeks. Seriously, a little diversity in the forum doesn't hurt, except of course when it questions Apple! And especially if we get to discuss things like the power management modes of the new MBA, how dare we discuss some technical aspect of the product, it should just work and we shouldn't have to discuss these things.

 

[silverblack]

5 seconds on startup is less of a big deal than the progressive thrashing that occurs if a system runs out of memory and begins paging to disk (yes, even an SSD). Also, another reason for purchasing more RAM to avoid paging to disk is that it creates less wear and tear on the SSD. SSD performance degrades over time if there is too much writing and re-writing.

Please don't turn this into another thread about why we all need 4 GB. We have enough of those already. I was merely pointing out that many people here clearly value the importance of making their MBA fractions of second faster with the best possible specs. Yet, OP started a discussion on the 5-sec wake up received comments like "get a life" or "OMG...".

 

[gwsat]

gwsat uses a MBP to rip CDs from iTunes. A 1200$ piece of equipement to do what a 79$ one could do on his MBA.

If you can't appreciate the advantage of having an old but serviceable computer on a footstool in front of you copying CDs while a compact and lightweight MBA is used for email, surfing the Web, and whatever else you need, unencumbered by the clumsiness of an external drive, it's clear I have been unable to educate you.

You disagree with me, I get it, as I assume everybody else does by now. Now can we move on to more fertile fields? It's likely other posters have become as tired of your questioning of my judgment as I have.

On the issue of whether the MBA's Instant On feature's occasional failure to function as advertised is a big deal, though, we agree that it isn't. As you observed, the reason it happens is the MBA's 30 standby capability and that's a reasonable tradeoff.

 

[vraxtus]

Amazing this thread is still getting responses!

 

[mrdobo]

gwsat uses a MBP to rip CDs from iTunes. A 1200$ piece of equipement to do what a 79$ one could do on his MBA. You're not even close to the level of Apple love he has. You couldn't understand how much this thread has hurt and others him personally.

Don't worry about it, if you even question Apple or anything, you're "popping off" and have "attitude problems" with some people around here. Just don't sweat it. This thread was 100x better than all the "2GB or 4GB" or "Is the MBA enough for me ?" we've had in the last 4 weeks. Seriously, a little diversity in the forum doesn't hurt, except of course when it questions Apple! And especially if we get to discuss things like the power management modes of the new MBA, how dare we discuss some technical aspect of the product, it should just work and we shouldn't have to discuss these things.

Definitely appreciate the confirmation that this forum isn't quite completely dominated by people so unwilling to hear any wrongdoings by Apple. Like you stated, I agree we've gotten a lot of great feedback in regards to why this 5 sec delay exists and ways around it. I'll be moving on now lol.

 

[nicoritschel]

gwsat uses a MBP to rip CDs from iTunes. A 1200$ piece of equipement to do what a 79$ one could do on his MBA.

Oh god, there is no hope with these people.... I should have asked this somewhere where the entire forum population is not comprised of brainwashed apple-loving sheep.

 

[mrmister]

I think no one would make a big deal about "instant on" if Steve hadn't crowed about it in the introduction...and the way he spoke about it made it sound much more revolutionary than it actually is. It's nice, but it isn't instantaneous.

 

[emx620]

I'd a fairly new owner of the 2010 MacBook Air and would like to comment on this. I'm incredibly happy with the way the Air performs coming out of hibernation - you open the lid, it automatically resumes (you don't have to push any buttons), and it is able to restore up to several gigabytes of data from a DRIVE to RAM, all in a matter of a few seconds. And it can keep a 30 day standby time! I come from using a laptop where you have to press the power button to snap it out of hibernation mode, and it still takes 30-60 seconds to get back into Windows.

Honestly, instant is kind of relative when you think about it. We're sitting here complaining that instant takes 5 seconds coming out of hibernation, but when resuming from sleep, it's still not INSTANT -- it takes like a second and a half from when you open the lid. I guess what I'm saying is, no, the Air does not come out of hibernation in a matter of milliseconds (hey, milliseconds still wouldn't be INSTANT would it?), but it beats any other laptop out there hands down. If we had this kind of technology 10 years ago, I think we would be blown away by what has been achieved in the MacBook Air.

 

[gwsat]

I'd a fairly new owner of the 2010 MacBook Air and would like to comment on this. I'm incredibly happy with the way the Air performs coming out of hibernation - you open the lid, it automatically resumes (you don't have to push any buttons), and it is able to restore up to several gigabytes of data from a DRIVE to RAM, all in a matter of a few seconds. And it can keep a 30 day standby time! I come from using a laptop where you have to press the power button to snap it out of hibernation mode, and it still takes 30-60 seconds to get back into Windows.

Honestly, instant is kind of relative when you think about it. We're sitting here complaining that instant takes 5 seconds coming out of hibernation, but when resuming from sleep, it's still not INSTANT -- it takes like a second and a half from when you open the lid. I guess what I'm saying is, no, the Air does not come out of hibernation in a matter of milliseconds (hey, milliseconds still wouldn't be INSTANT would it?), but it beats any other laptop out there hands down. If we had this kind of technology 10 years ago, I think we would be blown away by what has been achieved in the MacBook Air.

If, but only if, you don't have to rely on an Airport Internet connection when you first take your MBA out of sleep mode, it is, indeed, instant on. A lot of us, though, frequently open a Web page the first thing after waking up our MBAs. Unfortunately, it takes us 7 or 8 seconds between the time we raise the lids until the Airport connection is completed. This isn't an MBA problem, it's an Airport problem. The Airport card in my MBP takes just as long as the MBA does to reestablish its Internet connection when it first wakes up.

 

[iRun26.2]

If, but only if, you don't have to rely on an Airport Internet connection when you first take your MBA out of sleep mode, it is, indeed, instant on. A lot of us, though, frequently open a Web page the first thing after waking up our MBAs. Unfortunately, it takes us 7 or 8 seconds between the time we raise the lids until the Airport connection is completed. This isn't an MBA problem, it's an Airport problem. The Airport card in my MBP takes just as long as the MBA does to reestablish its Internet connection when it first wakes up.

How do you know that you are connected again? Mine looks to only be taking one to two seconds (the scanning antenna lines all turn on) if I understand correctly what you are talking about. I wonder if part of your problem could be your wireless modem's fault.

 

[TheRealDamager]

By having a decent sense of perspective, and being able to distinguish things which actually warrant the slightest bit of care from those which don't? (oops, I meant 'fanboy', rabble rabble)

Complaining about a 5 second boot time because 'it's not instant like they said'. Wow. I've seen it all.

I'm a relatively new Apple user (well, over the past year), and have purchased a number of imacs, laptops, ipads, etc.

I'm continually amazed at the level of "nitpickiness" in the Apple userbase. I think it's partially a result of the premium price of the products, but users are insanely more critical about the slightest perceived imperfections than other brand users that I've interacted with. The slightest imperfection sends some user into a massive tailspin. I've never seen anything like this....

 

[TheRealDamager]

Just one last post here from me.

If the lack of < 5 sec instant on is an issue for anyone, then that's cool. No issue with you having that opinion.

I'm just feeling really, really good about using the computer equipment from a company where the overarching topics on a widely used user forum are about whether "instant on" is 5 secs or 1 sec, and whether the computer "creaks" when you pick it up. This is a really good place to be as a computer user.

 

[gwsat]

How do you know that you are connected again? Mine looks to only be taking one to two seconds (the scanning antenna lines all turn on) if I understand correctly what you are talking about. I wonder if part of your problem could be your wireless modem's fault.

When the Airport connection to the wireless router has been established the curved bars in the wedge shaped Airport icon on the MBA, and MBP too, are solid black. When I first open either the MBA or the MBP the bars move, changing from gray to black for several seconds before becoming solid black.

My wireless router is a Time Capsule, which is an Airport Extreme by any other name, of course. I have a combination 802.11n/802.11g network setup. I have also extended the network with three Airport Express units. For whatever reason, it takes my setup 7 or 8 seconds to reestablish an Airport connection and other posters have indicated that it happens to them, too.

My wireless network has proved to be fast and reliable so I really don't worry much about the short delay between opening the MBA and its Airport connection being made because in the greater scheme of things it's not very important, at least not to me.

 

[iRun26.2]

...When I first open either the MBA or the MBP the bars move, changing from gray to black for several seconds before becoming solid black.

... For whatever reason, it takes my setup 7 or 8 seconds to reestablish an Airport connection and other posters have indicated that it happens to them, too.

...

I'm sorry, but I am confused. In your first paragraph you mentioned a time of 'several seconds' and, in your second paragraph, you mentioned '7 or 8 seconds. Are these times of the same event or is there another delay that I am not familiar with?

On my 11.6" MBA, when I open the cover, it takes maybe two seconds before my WiFi connects. Then, I can immediately refresh a web page. I do not feel there is any noticeable delay on my system.

 

[gwsat]

I'm sorry, but I am confused. In your first paragraph you mentioned a time of 'several seconds' and, in your second paragraph, you mentioned '7 or 8 seconds. Are these times of the same event or is there another delay that I am not familiar with?

On my 11.6" MBA, when I open the cover, it takes maybe two seconds before my WiFi connects. Then, I can immediately refresh a web page. I do not feel there is any noticeable delay on my system.

It takes Airport clients 7 or 8 seconds after the MBA or MBP lid is opened to complete their connections to the wireless router. As noted earlier, my wireless network serves a combination of 802.11n and 802.11g clients, and is extended by three Airport Express Units, so its relatively slow reconnection speeds to Airport clients doesn't really bother me.

 

[orfeas0]

Here's the improvement, it lasts 30 days when in sleep and still comes up as fast as before. Try lasting 30 days in sleep mode with a MBP.

The OP isn't asking about how much it lasts in sleep mode, he's expressing his consideration that it IS NOT instant as they claim. And he's right. I know it's faster than any other laptop but it's not instant.
To be honest, there can't be any machine with instant-on, let's be realistic.
But if it wakes up from sleep in the same time as a MB/MBP, why call it instant-on? Or why not call the mb/mbp instant-on too?

 

[iDisk]

Anyone else experiencing the following problem? After the computer goes into "deep" sleep (~1+ hour of sleep), it takes around 5 seconds for the computer to return to its usable state. No trackpad or keyboard response for about 5 seconds.

I don't see how this resume-from-sleep is any different from that of my MBP then? Hmmm...

It makes absolutely no sense when Apple markets instant-on?

Nah, my worst problem is definitely the wobble on a flat surface

I couldn't tell you... But what I'm saying is that I see absolutely no improvement over any of Apple's past intel notebooks.

I couldn't care less about 30 days of standby battery life. I bought my computer to use it, not to let it sit around.

In other words, anyone know of a a series of terminal commands to keep the MBA from going into mode 1 sleep? The benefits outweigh the costs for me.

It's definitely not a deal breaker, though. I do find it contradictory to Apple's marketing, as the MBA was "inspired by the ipad". What rubbish. There are no functional differences beside deep sleep and a faster SSD than what had been used previously.

Thank you kind sir

Is it not completely retarded that a MBA with INSTANT on takes more time to wake from sleep than a MBP without instant on?

I'm not here to bash apple. I love apple products. I've probably owned more apple products than many of you, but I'm not going to turn a blind eye to an obvious fault in the MBA.

Obviously 5 seconds is not THAT big of a deal, but it's just principle.

I can't believe how many of you are simply defending apple and the fact that there is blatantly misguiding advertising because of your unconditional over-loyalty and inability to view something objectively.

I get it: 30 days of standby time with a pretty short wakeup time is pretty amazing. However, advertise it as such, don't deceive consumers.

If you've noticed, we've already established a solution to the problem, but anyways, this isn't anything worth returning my computer over. I really love it. A complaint however, is more than justified. Or am I not allowed to voice myself because I don't agree with many of you who will defend Apple till the end? Hmmm...

So deception is okay on a small scale?



Go watch the keynote please.



Not when it takes nearly as much time as waking from a MBP w/ SSD from HIBERNATION....

I don't need the "stop whining" spiel, the MBA is clearly inferior to the last gen product and that is what I am justified in bitching about.

Apple made other compromises with the MBA such as the omission of the backlit keyboard and I feel like my complaint is just as valid. Personally, I don't find the lack of a backlit keyboard to be a problem at all.

Oh god, there is no hope with these people.... I should have asked this somewhere where the entire forum population is not comprised of brainwashed apple-loving sheep.

All your post are yawn....Zzzzzz

 

[iRun26.2]

It takes Airport clients 7 or 8 seconds after the MBA or MBP lid is opened to complete their connections to the wireless router. As noted earlier, my wireless network serves a combination of 802.11n and 802.11g clients, and is extended by three Airport Express Units, so its relatively slow reconnection speeds to Airport clients doesn't really bother me.

I suppose you could get used to the 7 or 8 second delay. It wouldn't qualify as being 'instant' any more, at least in my mind.

 

[gwsat]

I suppose you could get used to the 7 or 8 second delay. It wouldn't qualify as being 'instant' any more, at least in my mind.

The MBA is either "Instant On," or not, depending on whether you need Web access when you first raise its lid. If you don't need Web access when it is first opened then it is, indeed, "Instant On" but if you do need Web access, you are right, it's not "Instant On."

 

[iRun26.2]

The MBA is either "Instant On," or not, depending on whether you need Web access when you first raise its lid. If you don't need Web access when it is first opened then it is, indeed, "Instant On" but if you do need Web access, you are right, it's not "Instant On."

I guess I am kind of a perfectionist. Even though I really don't need to immediately access the internet when I open my computer's lid, I like to know that it is possible (if I really wanted to).