Macbook Air M1 Long term review (software developer perspective)

[gradi]

My complaint with Apple is that they do a really bad job of communicating with users about not just this specific issue, but bugs in general. A public bug database where people could see at least some of the comments made by their engineers would do wonders - it would let us know whether they're aware of a given problem, what they're able to do to fix it, and when and in what form relief will come. One of the bad legacies of Steve Jobs is that under his guidance Apple became super obsessed with secrecy. They don't want to do anything which might tip people off to future plans, and public bug databases are one of the ways for such information to leak, so Apple does far less of that kind of thing than other companies.

The monitor and Bluetooth problems are very reminiscent of another Apple problem. Remember this one? In 2015 I bought an ipad air 32gb with iOS 8.4.1, but it had major problems getting and keeping a wifi connection. Apple support was useless. They kept telling me that I was the only person in the world who had ever reported a problem. I did some searching and discovered this had been an ongoing problem since iOS 8 and it continued with iOS 9. Has it ever been fixed? I sent the ipad back.

Apple iOS 8.4 Hit By Return Of Crippling Bug

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2015/07/24/apple-ios-8-4-old-foe/

Welcome to the nightmare Apple can’t wake up from. After promising to fix the functionality stripped from iOS 8.4 in iOS 9, Apple’s iPhone, iPad and iPod touch software has now been hit by an old foe…

WiFried is back with a vengeance. The bug makes any form of Internet access a nightmare by repeatedly dropping WiFi connections and slowing speeds to a crawl and Apple Support Communities has now started receiving WiFried complaints from frustrated users running iOS 8.4.

Apple iOS 8.4.1: Should You Upgrade?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2015/08/20/apple-ios-8-4-1-should-you-upgrade/

iOS 8 has a notorious history for troubled WiFi, but those who hadn’t experienced previous issues are now finding iOS 8.4.1 is causing new problems.

WiFried: iOS 8 WiFi Issue

https://medium.com/@mariociabarra/wifried-ios-8-wifi-performance-issues-3029a164ce94#.51yu8i51y

Apple customers report devices crashing on iOS 9 update

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/apple-customers-report-devices-crashing-ios-9-112600600–finance.html

iOS 9 users reporting Wi-Fi connectivity problems

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/ios-9-users-reporting-wi-fi-connectivity-problems-how-fix-them-1520656

iOS 9 brings its own share of inherent bugs and post-update issues such as persistent Wi-Fi connectivity problems like any other major iOS update. Some of the recently reported issues include inability to connect to a Wi-Fi network, unexpected error messages with incorrect password entries, intermittent connection issues and/or extremely slow connection speeds.

Broken Wi-Fi in iOS 9

http://www.gottabemobile.com/2015/10/22/ios-9-problems-fixes/

We’re already seeing complaints about broken Wi-Fi in iOS 9. This isn’t at all surprising given that Wi-Fi problems are among the most common iOS problems.

Apple customers report devices crashing on iOS 9 update

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/apple-customers-report-devices-crashing-ios-9-112600600–finance.html

Apple Releases iOS 9, Update Failures Anger Users

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2015/09/16/apple-releases-ios-9/

 

[oz_rkie]

My complaint with Apple is that they do a really bad job of communicating with users about not just this specific issue, but bugs in general. A public bug database where people could see at least some of the comments made by their engineers would do wonders - it would let us know whether they're aware of a given problem, what they're able to do to fix it, and when and in what form relief will come. One of the bad legacies of Steve Jobs is that under his guidance Apple became super obsessed with secrecy. They don't want to do anything which might tip people off to future plans, and public bug databases are one of the ways for such information to leak, so Apple does far less of that kind of thing than other companies.

This. Agreed. All these issues would be much less painful if the end user had some sort of communication from Apple. One can perfectly understand that its impossible to test a new chip with every random monitor out there, but Apple could easily list monitors that HAVE been tested and known to work well (similar to how nvidia maintains a list of gsync certified monitors). Clearly Apple is aware of these issues, but they don't care that (some) users can just throw thousands of dollars at a new laptop only to find they now have to play monitor lottery in order to use their apple device. And while I applaud Apple's genuine no hassle 14 day return policy, it does not always work, since many times the issues may not present in those 14 days.

 

[virgin71]

My use case
I am a full stack developer and my main use case comprises of using mainly these programs - Sublime, iTerm, Sourcetree, nodejs, npm and pnpm, docker desktop for mac, slack, discord, signal, local WP, TrackingTime, terminal (few instances), transmit, outlook, and a lot of browser tabs opened via opera, chrome and safari. I also use Fusion 360 from time to time (while all other open). I'm on Air M1 8/256. That comes with no problems. I use my Air's display and in office Samsung 4K via HDMI, Samsung 4K via USB-c and at home XUB2492HSN via USB-C with charging. I had no problems with that sets. I can understand that some displays got issues.

As I can understand you are complaining about your set. You are saying it's Air M1 review, but it is not. It's just a troubleshooting about your set. That's it.
I am not saying Air M1 is awesome and best of all. It works. For me, it works like it should. I have no problem, but that does not mean nobody does. Your problems, are your problems. It's why that is not a review.

 

[dmccloud]

My use case
I am a full stack developer and my main use case comprises of using mainly these programs - Sublime, iTerm, Sourcetree, nodejs, npm and pnpm, docker desktop for mac, slack, discord, signal, local WP, TrackingTime, terminal (few instances), transmit, outlook, and a lot of browser tabs opened via opera, chrome and safari. I also use Fusion 360 from time to time (while all other open). I'm on Air M1 8/256. That comes with no problems. I use my Air's display and in office Samsung 4K via HDMI, Samsung 4K via USB-c and at home XUB2492HSN via USB-C with charging. I had no problems with that sets. I can understand that some displays got issues.

As I can understand you are complaining about your set. You are saying it's Air M1 review, but it is not. It's just a troubleshooting about your set. That's it.
I am not saying Air M1 is awesome and best of all. It works. For me, it works like it should. I have no problem, but that does not mean nobody does. Your problems, are your problems. It's why that is not a review.

This closely mirrors my use case for my M1 MBP. I currently only have an MSI XF243Y connected as an external monitor, although I do occasionally use my iPad as a third display via what was once called Sidecar. I do occasionally run into slight issues with lag when editing videos in FCP, mainly 4k or higher resolutions, but on the development side I have not had any issues from a performance perspective. Right now, I use a HyperDrive USB-C dock to connect my external HDD, monitor, and some other hardware to the Mac, and I haven't had any of the monitor issues others have reported. In fact, I have significantly more issues with my Windows machine also connected to this monitor.

As far as the RAM is concerned, whether you need just 8GB or need to jump up to 16GB or more is a matter of personal opinion rather than some sort of observable fact. One of my colleagues borrowed my Mac for a couple of days to see if it would be worth getting one himself. When he brought the Mac back, he asked how much RAM I had in the machine, and was in disbelief that it was "only" 8GB. So in both his use case in mine, 8GB of RAM was more than enough to meet our needs and usage.

 

[oz_rkie]

My use case
I am a full stack developer and my main use case comprises of using mainly these programs - Sublime, iTerm, Sourcetree, nodejs, npm and pnpm, docker desktop for mac, slack, discord, signal, local WP, TrackingTime, terminal (few instances), transmit, outlook, and a lot of browser tabs opened via opera, chrome and safari. I also use Fusion 360 from time to time (while all other open). I'm on Air M1 8/256. That comes with no problems. I use my Air's display and in office Samsung 4K via HDMI, Samsung 4K via USB-c and at home XUB2492HSN via USB-C with charging. I had no problems with that sets. I can understand that some displays got issues.

As I can understand you are complaining about your set. You are saying it's Air M1 review, but it is not. It's just a troubleshooting about your set. That's it.
I am not saying Air M1 is awesome and best of all. It works. For me, it works like it should. I have no problem, but that does not mean nobody does. Your problems, are your problems. It's why that is not a review.

Here are some formal definitions of what a review might mean, which might help -

review​

noun​

a critical appraisal of a book, play, film, etc. published in a newspaper or magazine​

a formal assessment of something with the intention of instituting change if necessary​

​

My review, was just that. My Review. It was a list of positive AND negative experiences I had over a period of just over 1 year, so that others might draw from it their own conclusions IF they wanted to. That's all.


There was literally no trouble shooting in my original post. Trouble shooting implies asking going back and forth trying things out to solve an issue. I merely described my own issues over the past year. I know I would've appreciated if such a review existed before I originally purchased the product. Would've helped me for sure knowing that my monitor had compatibility issues. And this was one of the main reasons for posting this, just in case it helped others with same/similar monitors. And as for the note about RAM, I have no idea what your notion of 'complaining' is, but there was no complaining in my post. It was just an observation to give others a ballpark figure of what kind of RAM usage they might expect if they used similar programs to mine. I literally categorized it under 'considerations', not under cons/negatives.

 

[macmac30]

I upgraded from a 2019 16" MBP with i7 to a 16" MBP M1 Pro. I use it 99%+ in clamshell mode. I have a Samsung 49" G9 curved monitor (love it). I had zero problems with the Intel MBP connecting to the monitor with USB C. With the MBP M1 Pro, the monitor was basically unusable with USB C. Initially, I had to unplug the USB C cable from the MBP and replug it to get it to wake up. Once awake, I would get annoying flickering when I would scroll certain parts of certain pages in Safari. I would set the Display to 120hz in Display / System Preferences but it seemed to always jump back to 60hz when I would check. I had to resort to using HDMI and that worked well but was slower. It would wake up when I clicked my mouse or tapped the spacebar and no flickers. Fast forward to the latest MacOS 12.3 betas and I'm back to using a USB C cable with no problems waking up and no problems with flickers. I have also been religiously updating the firmware on this G9 monitor (fw 1015.2 currently). You may be thinking that these monitor firmware updates are solving the problem. They may be helping but they only come every 2-3 months and in between that timeframe, I am updating to the latest MacOS betas weekly and seeing improvements in using USB C vs HDMI. So, your mileage my vary, but my setup is pretty reliable now (thank God - that was a long road that my spouse would not put up with!!!)

Well...after using MacOS 12.3 Beta 5, I take back everything I said above. Flickering is back with a vengeance, Hertz setting keeps changing from 120 to 60-120 variable. Super, super annoying. I have no idea how Apple does their development, but it seems like they have several different versions of MacOS with all the features in various states of maturity. Some builds have better display capabilities, others not so much.

 

[januarydrive7]

... Apple could easily list monitors that HAVE been tested and known to work well (similar to how nvidia maintains a list of gsync certified monitors).

A possible downside to this is that Apple does not maintain firmware for any of these monitors --- there's no easy way to say "Mx works with monitors [x_0, ... x_n]" which will continue to hold as monitors are updated, or some edge case (custom color profiles, etc.) shows it's actually not the case.

 

[Krevnik]

Well...after using MacOS 12.3 Beta 5, I take back everything I said above. Flickering is back with a vengeance, Hertz setting keeps changing from 120 to 60-120 variable. Super, super annoying. I have no idea how Apple does their development, but it seems like they have several different versions of MacOS with all the features in various states of maturity. Some builds have better display capabilities, others not so much.

The more you touch a bit of code without guardrails (unit tests, integration tests, manual testing plans, etc), the more likely you might cause a bug in related code. At least in my neck of the woods, we look at these sort of regressions pretty harshly because of the sort of volatility it causes end users.

That said, regressions in beta builds are not considered the end of the world and we won't hold up a beta build if we find one prior to shipping the beta, but is still a warning that we need better guardrails.

 

[gradi]

A possible downside to this is that Apple does not maintain firmware for any of these monitors --- there's no easy way to say "Mx works with monitors [x_0, ... x_n]" which will continue to hold as monitors are updated, or some edge case (custom color profiles, etc.) shows it's actually not the case.

Over the years I have owned several monitors and I have owned several computers. I never once was concerned when I bought that they wouldn't work together. I have swapped monitors among computers. No problems. It just works. Same as my mouse and keyboard. It just works.

 

[januarydrive7]

Over the years I have owned several monitors and I have owned several computers. I never once was concerned when I bought that they wouldn't work together. I have swapped monitors among computers. No problems. It just works. Same as my mouse and keyboard. It just works.

Another great point --- there shouldn't need to a be a list of "officially supported" basic peripherals. Hopefully any hardware-specific issues contributing to the apparent disconnect are resolved with M2 variants, and any software-specific issues provide patches for the grievances users have with M1.

 

[ArkSingularity]

As far as the RAM is concerned, whether you need just 8GB or need to jump up to 16GB or more is a matter of personal opinion rather than some sort of observable fact. One of my colleagues borrowed my Mac for a couple of days to see if it would be worth getting one himself. When he brought the Mac back, he asked how much RAM I had in the machine, and was in disbelief that it was "only" 8GB. So in both his use case in mine, 8GB of RAM was more than enough to meet our needs and usage.

I'm a full stack developer running on an 8GB machine as well. Many of my coworkers are using 16GB machines, and mine generally performs equally well during builds despite very heavy memory usage. I was rather shocked, I've run three VMs, XCode, NodeJS builds, iOS simulators, Docker, and multiple Chrome windows all at the same time without grinding my system to a halt. My old Intel Mac would have crashed hopelessly on the same workload.

Apparently the Apple-silicon Macs perform RAM compression in hardware now. The A14 started doing this in the iPhone, and if this is true, it explains why there appears to be significantly less overhead in RAM compression than there used to be. Offloading it from the OS would save thousands of CPU cycles spent on context switches and decompression that would have been required on the older Intel macs.

 

[tris_h]

Thanks for the honest review.
I'm also a js developer and I wanted to ask for your review about storage. Are you using 256GB? Is that enough for a js developer?

 

[oz_rkie]

Thanks for the honest review.
I'm also a js developer and I wanted to ask for your review about storage. Are you using 256GB? Is that enough for a js developer?

Hey, yep. I've never had any issues with storage even with just 256 gb. I have a couple dozen medium to large node (js/ts) projects and a few dotnet core projects and have bunch of apps and IDEs (vscode, jetbrains rider, xcode) and still have around 60gb of free space. Although having said that I use this machine only for work so I don't have any personal storage, documents or photos on it. That might be something to consider.

Bigger concern as mentioned in the review is memory usage but storage should not be a concern in most cases. Especially for us developers where most things live in git anyway and you can pull stuff when you need it and discard it when its not your active project. It will be fairly uncommon scenario (I think) for a JS developer to have so many active projects at the same time that 256gb storage will become a bottleneck.

 

[alien3dx]

Hey, yep. I've never had any issues with storage even with just 256 gb. I have a couple dozen medium to large node (js/ts) projects and a few dotnet core projects and have bunch of apps and IDEs (vscode, jetbrains rider, xcode) and still have around 60gb of free space. Although having said that I use this machine only for work so I don't have any personal storage, documents or photos on it. That might be something to consider.

Bigger concern as mentioned in the review is memory usage but storage should not be a concern in most cases. Especially for us developers where most things live in git anyway and you can pull stuff when you need it and discard it when its not your active project. It will be fairly uncommon scenario (I think) for a JS developer to have so many active projects at the same time that 256gb storage will become a bottleneck.

upon work , we prefer clean git folder , we do hate those branch merge need to ignore or anything. I like the old folder backup style instead git. Easily share , easily revert . The problem mutiple git branch because of each customer want their own way which kinda troublesome sometimes.

** XCode still worst ide to my opinion , keep crashing my intel and m1.

 

[exoticSpice]

** XCode still worst ide to my opinion , keep crashing my intel and m1.

Xcode is much better under M1. Under Intel it was so slow

 

[AAPLGeek]

I'm a full stack developer running on an 8GB machine as well. Many of my coworkers are using 16GB machines, and mine generally performs equally well during builds despite very heavy memory usage. I was rather shocked, I've run three VMs, XCode, NodeJS builds, iOS simulators, Docker, and multiple Chrome windows all at the same time without grinding my system to a halt. My old Intel Mac would have crashed hopelessly on the same workload.

Apparently the Apple-silicon Macs perform RAM compression in hardware now. The A14 started doing this in the iPhone, and if this is true, it explains why there appears to be significantly less overhead in RAM compression than there used to be. Offloading it from the OS would save thousands of CPU cycles spent on context switches and decompression that would have been required on the older Intel macs.

I call BS.

I have an 8GB M1 Air as well and it cannot even a run a SINGLE ARM Linux VM properly. As soon as I try to do anything remotely intensive in the VM, it crashes or the whole things slows down to a crawl.

Apple Silicon isn't magical and people need to stop parroting it.

 

[oz_rkie]

I call BS.

I have an 8GB M1 Air as well and it cannot even a run a SINGLE ARM Linux VM properly. As soon as I try to do anything remotely intensive in the VM, it crashes or the whole things slows down to a crawl.

Apple Silicon isn't magical and people need to stop parroting it.

I don't know about this user but I did mention in my initial review that 8GB is a challenge for development use. It can be ok if your development needs are very light but in most cases you will want to go 16GB as a minimum.

Having said that though, you can still do a fair bit with the 8gb m1 air. I don't know about VMs since I don't use any but even on my 8GB m1 I can run a few light weight docker containers, slack, 1-2 VScode instances with their terminal open and running node projects and the machine is still generally usable. It's usually when you start adding lots of chrome tabs (which you will inevitably do as a developer) you will quickly run into memory issues and when you do run into memory issues, it does get very unpleasant (very unresponsive, frequent beach ball).