This is Technology Bytes, episode 112 for April 27, 2025.
Technology Bytes is a microcast where I share brief bites on interesting technology.
Enjoy, and here we go.
So this week I’m talking about the M4 MacBook Air that was just recently released by Apple.
So I’m leaving the Kia world and the electric car world and going back to the Mac world, which is probably not a surprise to most that I will probably go between Apple products and my new vehicle as time goes on.
But this past week or somewhere in that time frame, I actually upgraded from an M2 MacBook Air to an M4 MacBook Air.
So a couple things is that the specifications for the base model, which is the one I got, is it’s probably not all that much faster than the M2, but it is a bit faster.
And maybe one and a half, maybe close to two times faster, has the same battery life.
But there’s a couple things that I really like about it.
One is that the base is now 16 gigabytes of memory.
And so I think that’s a big deal.
Other reasons why I upgraded besides the memory is for the camera, because the camera that’s in the M4 MacBook Air is better and they finally got center stage.
So it keeps you centered in Zoom calls and in my case, Teams calls because we are a Microsoft using company that I work for.
And then another reason that I purchased the M4 MacBook Air is for my daughter.
So my daughter has a 2018, 17, 13 inch MacBook Pro base model as well.
And it’s getting a little long in the tooth.
I think it still works, but I knew I wanted to upgrade because I wanted my MacBook Air to match my iMac that I use in the office as well.
And I use them at the same time beside each other with the same keyboard and mouse.
The other thing that I’ve talked about in the past and I just thought an upgrade for my daughter at the same time would be beneficial for her as well.
When I upgraded my iMac to the M4 with the 16 gigabytes of RAM, I gave my old M2 iMac to my son.
And so I thought, well, to be fair as a parent, I should probably do a similar thing for my daughter.
So I have the 15 inch MacBook Air.
That’s what I had previously as well.
And so my daughter has moved up in size, but I think she still likes it.
It’s light, it’s thin, and it’s fast and it will serve her for a very long time.
So the question, I guess, is can I tell the difference between my M2 MacBook Air and my M4 MacBook Air?
I don’t push my computers very hard.
One of the reasons, again, I talked about the memory, I talked about the camera, I talked about the two systems being of similar ilk.
They should react the same in however I use them.
And I really wanted that to be the case.
And if Apple gets their act together with Apple Intelligence, I think both of these computers will run it better than the M2 versions that I had previously.
So can I tell?
Probably not.
In my work environment, there are times where I will open 20, 30 tabs at a time in the Safari browser, and maybe that helps and speeds up the system.
But in day-to-day use, I may have just spent money because I wanted to, not because I needed to, which is often how it works with me and Apple products.
So one more brief story.
When I approached my wife with this idea, of course, I’m like, our daughter needs a new computer.
Hers is really getting old.
Apple put out this new product, and it’s exactly the same as my iMac.
And I had all these non-real reasons.
I mean, they’re real reasons, but they’re not necessary.
And so I told my wife, but then I’m done, right?
I don’t need to get whatever they’re doing next.
Now my match, they are where I want them to be.
I don’t need to upgrade next.
And she’s like, yeah, I don’t believe that at all.
And she may be correct.
And so the question is, can I stop?
Well, it’s really not can I stop because if the finances keep me from doing it, then I stop.
If there’s opportunity to not spend a lot of more money and still be able to keep buying new technology, I probably will do that as well.
But I haven’t upgraded my iPad Pro because I just don’t have the money to do that.
And it is going to work for some time into the future as well.
But we shall see how it goes and see if I can sit on my hands and just take the technology that I have now and use it for as long as I possibly can.
Well, that is all I have for today.
If you have comments, suggestions or questions, you can send them to technologybytes at merrickfamily.com.
As always, I want to thank you for listening to the Technology Bytes microcast.
And I look forward to the next time we are together taking another byte of technology.
