At the ‘One More Thing’ event, Apple unveiled a slew of new products with the most crucial of them being its own ARM chip for Macs. The hardware powered by the M1 chip includes the new MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and the Mac mini. While Apple didn’t announce any major design overhauls, there are a couple of subtle changes in the design of the MacBook Air powered by the M1 chip. Apple has imposed new duties on various Function keys on the device.
The functions on top of F-keys have been pretty inconsistent across manufacturers and models. Now, Apple is giving them new functionality. The development almost went unnoticed until Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman pointed it out on Twitter. He noted that three Function keys are getting new duties. Instead of the Launchpad on the F4 key, the new MacBook Air powered by the M1 Apple silicon is assigned to Spotlight.
Similarly, the F5 and F6 keys that hosted the keyboard brightness controls have been changed to Dictation, and Do Not Disturb functions. To access these functions, you’d earlier have to go into Settings or press a keyboard shortcut combo. Personally, I use the keyboard brightness controls vie Function keys so I’m not very amused with the latest development.
The new MacBook Air powered by the M1 chip comes in the same three colors (silver, space gray, and gold). While the overall design remains the same, it is now a fan-less build. It comes equipped with a 13.3-inch Retina display with a resolution of 2560×1600 pixels. Apple notes that the P3 color gamut gives “wide color results in an even more vibrant, true-to-life Retina display.” Moreover, the new device can last up to 15 hours on wireless web browsing and a maximum of 18 hours on video playback. Here’s all you need to know about the new MacBook Air.
