Egg Freckles

Ars Technica reports the new M2 MacBook Pro’s 256GB SSD is only about half as fast as the M1's SSD.

Sustained disk read speeds run by Max Tech using the BlackMagic Disk Speed Test showed a drop from about 2,900MB/s in the M1 MacBook Pro to 1,446MB/s in the M2 MacBook Pro. Write speeds dropped from 2,215MB/s in the M1 Pro to 1,463MB/s in the M2 Pro, a smaller but still significant drop.

The culprit appears to be the NAND flash configuration. Both YouTubers took the bottom off of the new MacBook Pro and discovered that the 256GB versions use just one 256GB NAND flash chip, whereas the M1 MacBook Pro uses a pair of 128GB flash chips. On drives with more physical NAND chips, SSD controllers use a process called interleaving to read data from and write data to multiple physical chips at once. Use fewer chips, and you can limit your peak performance.

The Pro in Apple's product lines hasn't stood for professional in some time.

Back in the day of translucent plastics and PowerPC processors, Apple used to differentiate its pro line of PowerBooks by crippling the video hardware in its consumer line of iBooks. Starting with 1999's PowerBook G3 (Bronze Keyboard) Apple's PowerBooks could extend their Mac OS desktop to a second display, while all models of iBook were restricted to display mirroring only. This restriction turned out to be superficial; reversible in the iBook's Open Firmware. Which makes sense considering the lowliest iBook contained video hardware superior to the earliest PowerBooks that supported extended desktop. Still the restriction of display mirroring was enforced on all of Apple consumer computers, iBooks, iMacs, and eMacs, until the introduction of Intel CPUs in 2006.

Flash forward to 2020, and Apple is holding back the hardware of its consumer laptops again. This time by limiting external display support of the M1 MacBook Air to a single display, while the previous 2018 Intel MacBook Air supported two external displays. For some the lack of dual external display support could be excused on account of the M1 being the first Apple Silicon to make its way into a Mac. A limitation that was rectified a year later with the introduction of the M1 Pro, and M1 Max MacBook Pros which support two and four external displays respectively.

Flash forward again to 2022, and the release of the M2 MacBook Air shows that limiting the external display capabilities of Apple's entry level laptops in 2020 was not a fluke. You read that right, the new MacBook Air with M2 processor only supports a single external display with up to 6K resolution at 60Hz[^1] no matter how much memory you configure it with. If your workflow calls for dual external displays, skip the M2 and go with either the 14 or 16 inch 2021 MacBook Pro with M1 Pro or M1 Max processors.[^2]

[^1]: Same as the 2020 M1 MacBook Air. [^2]: Either that or an active display adapter like the WAVLINK USB 3.0 Universal Laptop Docking Station is in your future.

Apple just announced the "all-new 2022 MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip."

Apple's newest notebook comes with a larger 13.6" Liquid Retina display, 1080p FaceTime HD camera, three-mic array/four-speaker sound system, in a streamlined chassis that resembles the 2021 MacBook Pro but available in two new mediocre colors.[^beige] At the heart of the 2022 MacBook Air is the new M2 chip which boasts 18% percent faster compute, and 25% faster graphics than the previous M1; while containing the same media engine found in Apple's larger M1 Pro/Max notebooks.

Available in July, the 2022 MacBook Air is the Mac I would get provided you are not a video editor, 3D graphics professional, or need two external displays.[^budget] Just be sure to get a model with at least 512 GBs of storage, 16 GBs of RAM, and in anything but Space Grey.[^colors]

Power Adapter

As for the choice between the 35W Dual USB-C Port Compact Power Adapter and 67W USB-C Power Adapter, get the adapter with the higher wattage. The 67W USB-C Power Adapter can charge the 2022 MacBook Air's battery 50% in 30 minutes, and you can always charge another device by way of one of the MacBook Air's two USB Type-C ports.

AppleCare+

I don't buy AppleCare+ for my computers, and you shouldn't either. Unless you need the 24/7 expert technical support from Apple there are better extended warranties out there.

Dongles

You are going to need a USB-C to USB Adapter, but you can do better than Apple's $19.00 option with a single port. Personally I like AmazonBasics USB 3.1 Type-C to 3 Port USB Hub with Ethernet Adapter, but other models with more ports, SD card slots, and video out are also available.

Price

Dongles aside my custom 2022 MacBook Air would cost $$1,699.00. Just don't forget about the $120 off educational discount.

[^beige]: Starlight is just sparkly beige. [^budget]: On a budget? You can still get last year's MacBook Air; starting at $999. [^colors]: It is a shame the 2022 MacBook Air doesn't come in the same colors as the 2021 M1 iMacs.

Last week Richard Moss, author of The Secret History of Mac Gaming, tweeted:

Mini vMac author Paul C. Pratt has been MIA for the past year, and after numerous failed attempts to check that he's okay the folks at E-Maculation are worried something might have happened to him. If you know him, or you have a lead, please chime in

Paul C. Pratt's dedication to early 68k Macintosh emulation and software preservation is well known. In my opinion the Mini vMac collection of early Macintosh emulators, targeting the Macintosh 128K, 512K, 512Ke, SE, Classic, and SE FDHD are some of the best emulators ever produced. And while Macintosh II emulation remains a work in progress, one of the most remarkable aspects of Paul C. Pratt's efforts has been his venerable build system and its multitude of configurable options.

I hope for the sake of himself, his friends and family, Paul C. Pratt is alive and well. His site the [Gryphel Project] has not been updated since April 4th, 2021, and if you are reading this Paul we are all very worried about you.

Swinsian[^1] is a native music jukebox app for the Mac. It displays songs in customizable columns with a browser just like iTunes did before it became a music store, video player, iOS app organizer, social network, and streaming service.

With Swinsian you can make smart playlists. You can edit tags on multiple tracks at once. You can shuffle songs. There is a 31 band Graphic Equalizer, and real-time search. Swinsian even syncs your music with classic iPods, and streams my music over AirPlay. In short Swinsian is everything you expect from "Classic iTunes" running on a modern Mac.

In addition to being a great iTunes replacement, Swinsian has some powerful features for managing a large music library.

FLAC

Unlike Apple Music/iTunes Swinsian plays FLAC. "Digital audio compressed by FLAC's algorithm can typically be reduced to between 50 and 70 percent of its original size and decompresses to an identical copy of the original audio data." FLAC is free software, with royalty-free licensing that is best used for making archival copies of your CD music collection. Swinsian supports FLAC metadata tagging, album art, and fast seeking. It even plays back FLAC albums ripped as a single file with an accompanying cue file.

Watched Folders

Swinsian's Watched folders allow you to manage music stored outside of your Swinsian library. A Watched folder can be any directory on your computer, removable storage, or local network share. With Watched folders, you get to choose which songs get automatically copied to your Swinsian Library, and which songs play from their watched location.

With Watched folders:

• Store your music collection on a local server and access the songs as if they were saved in your local Swinsian library.
• Keep half your music on your computer and the other half on external USB storage and access it from the same Swinsian library.
• Watch a Dropbox folder you share with your family, and Swinsian will copy/move new tracks into your library automatically as songs are added or modified.
• Import new songs and playlists from Apple Music each time Swinsian is opened.

If your music collection is too large to fit on a single volume but you want to manage it all from one library, there is no better remedy than Swinsian's Watched Folders.

Metadata

One of the reasons I own all of my music and store it locally, is that I am very particular about the metadata I associate with it. I don't want Apple Music changing my music's metadata automatically without my consent.

Swinsian makes managing your music's metadata easy with helpful tools like an always visible Tack Inspector, and multitrack Find and Replace with Regex support. Tags can be edited on music stored locally or in a remote Watched Folder. For albums ripped with cue sheets, Swinsian will attempt to update the cue file. Album art can be embedded or stored as an accompanying folder/cover image file.

Swinsian makes finding duplicates easy by giving you control on how closely to match a track's title, artist, album, duration, and file size. Finally your library statistics including your favorite artists, tracks, genres, and albums sorted my play count are all available from a glance using Swinsian.

Perfect?

Swinsian isn't perfect, and development has slowed in recent years. The latest Mac OS features like Dark Mode are not yet implemented. As of today Swinsian is an Intel app and requires Rosetta 2 to run on Apple Silicon Macs.

Despite its setbacks I still consider Swinsian a Mac-Assed Mac app due to a thoughtful feature set and adherence to Apple human interface guidelines. If like me you value your music collection and want a way to access it beyond the limited confines of your MacBook SSD, then Swinsian is for you. Please consider purchasing a copy today, if not for yourself, then as a way to support Swinsian's continued development and ensure I never have to launch Apple Music ever again.

[^1]: Swinsian Old English: To make a (pleasing) sound, make melody or music.