Apple has a Mac problem, and not in the way that you think.

Tom wearing an Apple Store t-shirt

Photographed, a very smug Tom in an Apple Store t-shirt. Tom has never worked for Apple.

When Apple announced their transition to Apple Silicon for the Mac, I was genuinely excited.

The premise of essentially having an iPad in a Mac enclosure; great battery life (both in process, and when asleep), instant on, rock-solid performance. What I didn't expect was Apple to deliver this promise to the point where I think Apple genuinely has a problem: they've completed the MacBook.

I think other outlets have articulated this well, perhaps none better than Snazzy Labs. The MacBook Air M4 balances performance, battery-life, and price, perfectly.

Performance

This thing absolute rips at basic tasks. We're currently playing The Sims 4 with 10 game packs and/or expansions on Ultra settings at a frame-locked 60fps. I've only frame-locked to prevent the bottom of the laptop becoming untouchable, it never throttles at 60fps and even manages great on battery.

Battery life

A screenshot of the MacBook's battery life report, showing it has barely breached 50% of energy usage over the previous 10 days, even with 6 hours of screen-on time

Call me controversial, but I think you should be able to close your laptop lid and expect to be able to open it a day later and resume where you left off. Having instant-on is perk enough, but having instant-on and the laptop not die overnight is perfection.

Price

At £899 on sale (in a rather fetching Sky Blue colour), it was an absolute no brainer.

So, how is this a problem for Apple?

If you can buy a Mac this good, which should easily (and hopefully) last 5-6 years, Apple's got a problem.

Perhaps that's naive, because Apple makes nearly-most of its money through Services, and the Mac makes up a very small percentage of total revenue... perhaps we're all just living in Tim's world.