Vlad Savov, writing for The Verge:
When Apple redesigned the MacBook Air in 2010, it created one of the best machines to ever carry its Mac label. That new laptop was a revelation: extremely thin and light, like the original Air, yet also powerful enough for most tasks and equipped with a long-lasting battery.
When it was released, the MacBook Air was absolutely groundbreaking.
For years, the MacBook Air has been a standard-bearer, the role model for every Windows ultrabook, but 2015 has not been so kind to its leadership position. Apple introduced the new 12-inch MacBook and updated the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro, both directly competing with the Air, and for those not umbilically attached to OS X, Dell’s XPS 13 offered a compelling Windows alternative. And this week there’s the looming threat of the iPad Pro on the horizon.
When the new 12-inch MacBook was announced, I saw that as the death knell for the MacBook Air. But I did not see the iPad Pro as a MacBook Air threat until I read this.
Apple is not a company that can be accused of doing things thoughtlessly, and the decision to leave the Air’s display at the lower quality and resolution must be taken as a deliberate one. In other words, Apple is comfortable with keeping the Air as a technological straggler in its lineup. That leaves us with a choice of two most likely scenarios: either the Air is destined for a future overhaul and its first redesign in five years or it has no future at all. There’s not enough room in Apple’s lineup for a MacBook, a MacBook Air, and a MacBook Pro — the MacBook is Apple’s ultraportable machine of the future and the MacBook Pro is the do-it-all laptop of today. The MacBook Air’s position seems tenuous already, and if the alleged iPad Pro does indeed materialize, then we may as well bid adieu to the Air entirely.
Hard to argue with this logic.
“There’s not enough room in Apple’s lineup for a MacBook, a MacBook Air, and a MacBook Pro”
…and an iPad Pro
A coworker shared this with me a few days ago. I wrote this reply, which seems valid now:
Apple is not just quietly neglecting the MacBook Air; Apple has built the MacBook as the MacBook Air’s replacement. It just doesn’t do the complete job right now, so buy whatever you need. For now. I don’t think Apple will leave that ambiguity in the product lineup any more than it has to. I think Apple might have even explicitly introduced the MacBook as the future of the consumer laptop, though I’d have to find the video stream to be sure.
Right now the MacBook has roughly the same features as the original MacBook Air, before Apple started adding features to the MacBook Air. Imagine a year or two from now when the MacBook Pro has one or more USB-C/Thunderbolt ports, and Apple has upgraded the MacBook’s sole USB-C port to a USB-C/Thunderbolt port. Apple releases a new Thunderbolt Display that connects via USB-C instead. MacBook with Thunderbolt Display doing port replication and power? YES PLEASE. The MacBook Air is neither road warrior like the MacBook nor desktop replacement like the MacBook Pro. It’s a weird compromise. It just doesn’t belong, unless Apple wants the three tiers permanently.
And, meanwhile, there’s the iPad Pro nipping at its heel.
I could go on and on about this, but yeah: The MacBook Air is on death row and working through its appeals. It’s gone in 2016 or maybe 2017.
The MacBook Air still has a place in Apple’s Line-up for one reason: Budget Laptop. The introductory 11-inch air at $899 is $400 cheaper than either the 13-inch pro or the low-end MacBook. It may not be the best of breed, but don’t underestimate how many of these things they sell.
The MBA has battery life of the gods and the MB has a processor that is really underpowered compared to the MBA. I’m a MBP user, but the MB is a different machine — whether or not the MBA goes the way of the dodo.
Amen 10E6. I’ve got a few Thunderbolt displays at work and home, but am uncomfortable going with a new MacBook until/unless Apple comes out with a new Thunderbolt-like display for the USB-C connector. “USB-C Display” doesn’t exactly fit Apple Marketing-ese very well though. 🙂
I suspect any such display would be 4k. Lightning, Thunderbolt are taken. Unless they redefine Thunderbolt, or add a ‘2’ to it. …
I iPad Pro as a MacBook Air replacement doesn’t make sense to me still, since iOS is simply not as full featured as MacOS X. At least not to my tiny brain.
…but Intel has just announced the successor to the current MacBook processors, right? I would guess WWDC if not earlier will see an upgrade, but no mention of OS X for this Fall. Maybe an announcement before the holidays to deal with Mac hardware. This would make Gruber very happy. 🙂
I think they’ll probably just call it Thunderbolt 3.
http://www.macrumors.com/2015/06/02/intel-thunderbolt-3-usb-c-displayport-1-2/
What’s in a name? MacBook. MaBook Air. Whatever.
For sure, the MacBook’s form factor is the future of Mac laptops. I like the logic that Apple will continue with the Air name but won’t significantly enhance the feature set.
The MB is the equivalent of the MBA when the MBA was first released. The MBA made a few compromises to become the machine it is today that the MB probably won’t.
It’ll take longer, but the MB will get there.
Historical prices of first 4 generations of entry level MacBook Air and retina MacBook Pro.
MacBook Air
January 2008: $1,799 for 1.6GHz, 2GB RAM, 80GB hard disk, 13.3″
October 2008: $1,799 for 120GB hard disk
June 2009: $1,499 for 1.86GHz
October 2010: $999 for 1.4GHz, 2GB RAM, 64GB flash, 11.6″
13″ Retina MacBook Pro
October 2012: $1,699 for 2.5GHz, 8GB RAM, 128GB flash
February 2013: $1,499
October 2013: $1,299 for 2.4GHz, 4GB RAM, 128GB flash
July 2014: $1,299 for 2.6GHz, 8GB RAM, 128GB flash
As for MacBook, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Apple cuts the price by $200 on the next update ($1,099), which probably will see just the CPU upgrade (and possibly iSight to 720p). It will eventually fall to $999 or perhaps even $899, replacing MacBook Air completely.
“Get there”… Where? Always to where the MBA was a couple of years before, probably. The two lines use entirely different category, based on power consumption. As I say, I’m a MBP man, but the MB will only catch up to the MBA if Apple opts to neglect the MBA. They could fill the MBA shell with that terraced battery and give it a retina screen and the MBA would still have battery life of the gods. It would also have a keyboard that more people like. There is such a thing as too thin, and I’ve met several people who think MB has entered that territory.
If the fanboy idea of an ARM-based Mac is ever to happen, wouldn’t this lower-priced, low-power laptop be the first place it does?
I think Apple is planning to push iPad Pro as the harbinger of the ARM-based transition for Macs.
I don’t recall who said it on Twitter, but the quote makes sense to what Apple is doing: “iPad+iOS is becoming more of a Mac faster than a Mac becoming iOS+ARM”. iOS 9 alone bought a lot of nice improvements to make iPad far more useful than it was before. If they keep on it, it should become a very powerful tablet OS in a few years but they’re taking their sweet time to do it right the first time, rather than bundling everything in at once.
Apple’s a chess master carefully planning its move for the next 20 years. They have several technologies in development that if you combine them all at once right now, it looks as if they want ARM+iOS to be more powerful than the Mac+OS X and get rid of OS X.
Look at how carefully they keep wording “desktop-class” for its CPU and now the new storage controller in the iPad Pro. Pair that controller with the future Thunderbolt controller that can fit inside iPad Pro and you can now have an even more powerful system with a Document Picker that replaces Finder and it would work with the externally connected drives plus cloud storage services.
exactly ma thoughts. osx will be replaced by ios. not yet, but perhaps in 5-10 years, the mouse based os will become obsolete. i know its hard to believe. as a grafic designer i could imagine having a big itablepro where i can move my pictures, text and elements into a layout, doing precise work with stylus and typing with my voice (he siri write this…). thats the future.
The MacBook Pro is certainly NOT the do it all laptop. My 2010 MacBook Pro has a 2TB drive with tens of thousands of photos and videos. Any current MacBook would require me to split my data into libraries… Some of which I could carry with me, others which I’d have to store and carry separately. There’s no doubt that an SSD is superior in performance, but the decision to move to the thinner form factor prevents me from popping in a multi-terrabyte HD and using a cheaper, smaller SSD as a boot drive and for commonly used apps.
The whole market for laptops and tablets (well, iPads really) is flat or slowly receding. The smart phone is now used for the majority on internet activity and is generally upgraded on a 2 year cycle. Laptops/tablets that you now have are fine and you likely don’t need a new one. The upgrade cycle is now 5 years or even higher.
I think Apple (like other manufacturers) is trying to figure out what will get buyers to upgrade. One the one hand I think they are trying to build a product that they themselves like, on the other hand they don’t know if an iPad Pro or a MacBook will trigger upgrades or new buys. I suspect that they are struggling, albeit less so, than other manufacturers.
Agreed on the outcome but right now, for me, the Macbook is the odd duck. It compromises on performance and expandability but has that retina screen. It’s a little lighter than the Air but by going for marginal weight savings it misses the chance to adda a LOT more battery life. (Sorry but saying the Air doesn’t fit a road warrior niche is silly – it’s 2.5 lbs and it’s very hard to credibly claim that the extra 8 oz is a real handicap)
It would be a lot more compelling if I was trading off CPU performance for, say, 14-18 hour battery life (by keeping the current Air profile in the new size with the stepped battery design). As it is, the Macbook is a year too early for all but people who want the thinnest, retina mac on the market. I think we will end up where you predict, but in 2-3 years, not 1-2.
So not hard to argue with this article that was 100% pulled from the author’s ass. There is not a single data point used to come to this conclusion.
Apple’s notebook sales look something like this:
The Air is not in trouble.
Also, the MacBook Pro is not in trouble because it is the only Mac notebook with what I call “endurance.” If you open up a Logic document or Final Cut document on a MacBook Air or MacBook, within a few minutes of work, you will force the MacBook Air or MacBook CPU to step itself down to a very, very low speed in order to stay cool in its tiny enclosure. Your Logic or Final Cut will become unusable fairly quickly. The MacBook Pro exists in order to provide a Mac notebook that doesn’t do that. The MacBook Pro can run Logic or Final Cut for hours at high CPU speeds because the major difference between it and the other notebook models is MacBook Pro has a giant cooling system in it to keep it cool under load. So MacBook Pro is required in the lineup to make music and movies or iTunes Store. It doesn’t have to sell more than it does.
The Mac that is most in the target of iPad Pro is the MacBook, duh. Both iPad Pro and MacBook have Retina Display, compromised keyboard compared to other Apple products, and other compromises made just to make the device as small as possible. So the user who walks into an Apple Store saying I need the smallest device, even if it has to run slower, or do less, or have other compromises, is going to be comparing iPad Pro to MacBook.
My friend uses a MacBook Air and she looked at the MacBook but the keyboard was no good. She was like, if I don’t have a real keyboard, why have a Mac at all? Why not just use an iPad with an accessory keyboard? And then she goes, “where the fuck are the USB ports?” Ha ha ha ha ha. And she does enough work with photos that she would have noticed how slow the MacBook is. It is slower than her current 3 year old Air that she is replacing because modern software asks it to do too much.
Also, I don’t get why the author thinks there is no room for all 3 notebook lines? It is very easy to see the split: MacBook Pro for people who need a ton of CPU along with a cooling system so that CPU can be available under load, MacBook for the entirely opposite people who need the smallest possible Mac without caring about all the compromises like bad keyboard and no ports and the CPU begins to sweat at the thought of resizing 2 photos in a row, and then MacBook Air for everyone else. For like literally 80% of users. For so many users that the MacBook Air has to wait to get Retina because of what the switch would do to Apple’s Mac margins. MacBook Air is not last with Retina because it is the least popular Mac but because it is the most popular.
One thing with the MacBook that seemed bizarre to me is the designers seem to have forgotten that even the most casual user these days runs a ton of encryption. For example, if you sign up for $5/month automatic online Backblaze backups and turn on encryption, your computer will work harder than you have probably ever seen to encrypt everything you make and upload it to Backblaze. I know you are not supposed to make a lot of stuff with MacBook, but I shudder to think of what it looks like attached to a Backblaze account. Not only is it hitting the CPU hard, but also the wireless, and it can’t sleep. So the casual user’s CPU needs are going up in ways that aren’t obvious.
The problem with bringing up the original MacBook Air is that the original MacBook Air was by far the worst Apple notebook since 1996–forward. It was terrible and it hardly sold. Not only did Apple have to service mine 3 times under warranty (2 HD replacements, one mobo replacement) but it also died right after the AppleCare expired and they repaired it again, and then right after that I put it on eBay and sold it, and when I gave it a final inspection before shipping, the battery had swelled and distorted the enclosure and I ended up selling for $100 for parts.
It was only when Apple made the MacBook Air into a “real” notebook that it sold. They added a second USB, more power, SSD in all, and dropped the price 50%.
So if MacBook is a replacement for MacBook Air, that is going to happen in 3–5 years. The MacBook has to both get much better and its accessory USB-C devices have to begin to exist. It is irrelevant now. A user who needs a notebook today is getting screwed by lack of Retina on Air, which is by far the most popular Mac. If MacBook replaces Air, it will have to become more like the Air, so it is just semantics. It is not surprising to say that a 2018 Air would be smaller than a 2015 Air. Smaller is expected. But MacBook is way too many compromises for most users. Air is totally mainstream. Those users cannot be expected to use dongles to hook up an iPhone to their Mac, which you still have to do to Restore it, which I just had to do to my iPhone. Those users can’t be expected to know not to run Backblaze all day in the background because their CPU can’t hack the encryption load.
The problem with Apple today is they are now just another tech company, and that means their designers design for other designers, and engineers design for other engineers. That makes tech bloggers and enthusiasts happy also. But real people get left behind dealing with unreliable software and confusing lineups of products and missing ports they need and buying the most popular Mac notebook and it still doesn’t have Retina in 2016.
Even your reimagined future MacBook is about half the speed of yesterday’s MacBook Air, has significantly less battery life.
The problem is, I see very regular users around me who have more than doubled their CPU requirements in the past couple of years by adding something like Backblaze that works in the background doing really strong encryption and uploading of backups. They go from being really happy with their MacBook Air to wondering why their MacBook Air is often hot, and why their battery is draining more quickly than usual. And that is all down to the fact that they are running more and more stuff in the background.
So I think this is all just a semantic game. In the future, the MacBook and MacBook Air lines may or may not converge. But if they do, the MacBook will have to become much more like the current Air. Apple and Intel will have to put the same CPU from Air into MacBook, and 3rd party devices will have to embrace USB-C in a really big way. That is all very far off.
So how does this help my friend who needs an Air right now but is disappointed that it doesn’t have Retina? The answer is: she is screwed because Apple prioritized MacBook over Retina MacBook Air. That is another symptom of Apple loss of customer-focus and their new focus on letting designers design for other designers and engineers engineer for other engineers. So I can buy a MacBook with Retina, no CPU, and I can program in the new Swift language. But my friend who has run a MacBook Air since 2011 and now wants one with all the same features plus Retina is left looking at the gold metal and Retina she wants on MacBook and the CPU and battery and ports she wants on MacBook Air and there is not notebook choice for her today, even though Apple has 3 notebook lines.
So that is why I am sort of offended by this whole article and discussion. We shouldn’t be talking about how great it is that the Air might be replaced by the MacBook in some future day. The real issue is why is today’s MacBook Air, Apple’s most popular and useful notebook by far, making up literally 80% of Apple’s notebook users, the most-behind of all of the notebooks?
Why aren’t we talking about how the new Retina MacBook Air (not MacBook) is everything 80% of today’s notebook users want instead of talking about how tomorrow’s MacBook might be everything that 80% of tomorrow’s notebook users want? I think that is a fail on Apple’s part. The MacBook is completely unexciting as a preview of the future because we expect the future to get smaller and lighter and have new ports. We expect the future to have more colors and fashion choices. NONE OF THAT MATTERS TO ME RIGHT NOW WHEN I AM TRYING TO BUY A NEW AIR FOR WORK AND I CAN’T GET RETINA.
Yes, the new Intel processors will be faster than their predecessors. The problem is, that won’t fix what is wrong with MacBook. Today’s MacBook is too slow to run today’s Mac software, and tomorrow’s MacBook will be too slow to run tomorrow’s Mac software.
A key thing to understand is that aside from some truly pro apps like Logic and Final Cut and Adobe Creative Suite, almost all Mac software is made to run on Air, because most Macs are MacBook Airs. If your new Mac is slower than a 3 year old Air, you will always find that Mac to be slower than what the developer of your software expected. At least for the next few years.
The CPU needs of users are up. People who switched from MacBook Pro to MacBook Air 3 years ago did much, much more CPU-intensive stuff over the past 3 years than they would have imagined. They tasked their computer with a ton of background stuff like encrypted backups and iCloud syncing that they weren’t expecting. We are moving into the 4K video era, which is “Retina video” — every movie gets 4x bigger in area (a 4KTV is like 4 HDTV’s arranged in a grid.) Even a quick iMovie edit of a short 4K video clip is a major computing task.
Of course the notebooks should always get smaller. But if the current MacBook replaces the Air one day, it will only be because Apple/Intel were able to fit the Air guts into a MacBook enclosure. In other words, the Air will always be the Air (a notebook optimized for everybody and used by 80% of Mac notebook users) but it may one day steal the smaller enclosure of today’s MacBook as the Air gets naturally smaller.
So this is all BS in my opinion. What the author of this article is saying is that there will not be a MacBook Air with Retina, and that all MacBook Air users will have to wait for Retina until they can adopt MacBook. If that is the case, then we would be talking about perhaps the greatest scandal in Apple history. Because MacBook Air is the single most popular Mac, and its CPU and battery are minimum for most notebook users, who are buying a notebook to use for a full day of work. They can’t go to MacBook because it has too little CPU, too little battery life, doesn’t have a real keyboard, and doesn’t work with their 3rd party accessories. I know many people who have to plug a USB key into their Mac to login to their VPN and do any work. They have been running an Air for years. Now, they want the same Air again, but they want 1) Retina, 2) more CPU, 3) more battery. That is it. That is all they want. They don’t want smaller size or no ports. They want the same all-around universally-usable MacBook Air notebook with a better display and enough CPU and battery to match up with the additional load that the last 3 years of software has asked their Mac to do that it wasn’t doing prior to 3 years ago.
I have friends who have put off Mac purchases they would have otherwise made because they are waiting for MacBook Air Retina. They looked at MacBook and are still waiting. If that wait is 3–5 years while they wait for MacBook to grow up into an everyday notebook, they are going to be very, very disappointed.
By next spring, there likely will be an updated Macbook that fixes some of the first one’s deficiencies (better performance and Thunderbolt 3 support via the USB Type C connector). And there will be the MacBook Pro, likely with an external redesign that puts it even closer to the current Air’s size weight.
The Air may continue on as a low cost zombie product (like the unibody 13″ that Apple seemingly sold forever), but its time in the sun is over. Great machine for its time though; I’m typing this on one.
Quit shouting and buy a 13″ MacBook Pro. That’s the Retina solution if the MacBook doesn’t meet your needs.
https://goo.gl/YdfwyU&ewep
I don’t think you told the real story. The real story is not that the new MacBook Air replaced the old MacBook Air, but rather that the new MacBook Air replaced the old plastic MacBook.
Look at this:
2008: original MacBook Air $1799, MacBook $999
2011: new MacBook Air $999
So the new MacBook Air actually replaced the plastic MacBook, not the original MacBook Air. That is why when the new MacBook Air was released, the old MacBook was immediately retired.
So the reality is, the original MacBook Air that the new MacBook is being compared to was a GIGANTIC FAILURE. The machine is gone, the tiny iPod hard drives are gone, the drop-down door over the USB port is gone, the super-slow CPU speeds are gone, and most of all, the price point is gone.
What you have today in the MacBook Air is a rebooted $999 notebook. Originally, Apple took the MacBook Pro and just wrapped it in plastic to make it a cheaper, $999 notebook. Later, they left on the metal and stripped out parts that most users really did not need, like a cooling system (because they don’t run timeline apps like Logic that need constant CPU pegging and appropriate cooling).
So when you look at MacBook Air today, you should not see the features or the heritage, but rather the great mass of everyday computer users who use MacBook Air. They are “plastic MacBook users.” Most of them do not even know that the new MacBook exists. They don’t know what USB-C is or how to use it. They don’t even know there is a dongle for it. They will expect their next Mac’s keyboard to be the same or better than the last, not worse-but-smaller. They have added encrypted background backups and iCloud syncing to their CPU requirements over the past few years, and they are about to add 4K video over the next few years. They need much more CPU and battery than they have today, not less.
The original MacBook Air was a rich person’s 2nd notebook, and so is the new MacBook. In a world that has A9-based iPhones, iPads, and even iPad Pros, the current MacBook is a rich person’s 2nd notebook. In other words, the same mistake as the original Air but even worse now because of iPad Pro and all the syncing and backups we do all day long on battery.
So I think the thrust of this article is really wrong. I think the reason the Air does not have Retina yet is not because it is unpopular or obsolete or going away or the users have to wait for that feature until some future vague time when they can adopt an entirely different Mac model, but rather the total opposite: the Air is getting Retina last because it is the single most popular Mac and the change to Retina is going to be a huge mainstream thing and is going to hammer Apple’s margins for a few quarters and maybe impact their stock price. So they are going to put Retina in MacBook Air when Retina is super-cheap.
So this is the worst of the Apple Press. Totally ignoring Apple’s failure to meet the needs of 80% of their current notebook users, while shining on and on about how great it is that one day Macs will be smaller and lighter (how can I write “duh” in the largest letters possible?) but still meet the needs of 80% of some future people who need notebooks. Who cares about those future people? I have a ton of friends who are happy MacBook Air users and are waiting on the Retina MacBook Air right now to make their next Mac purchase. I showed them the MacBook. They didn’t like it. They liked the gold color and the Retina and that is all. They want the gold color and Retina in a MacBook Air. Not 3–5 years from now when they are totally wireless users, but today, when they need a new MacBook Air.
Also, I don’t take it for granted that 5 years from now there will be a MacBook or a MacBook Air. I wouldn’t be surprised if the future Apple line went iPhone, iPhone Plus, iPad mini, iPad, iPad Pro, MacBook Pro. And as much as it can be fun to speculate about the future, I think what is being offered here is basically just excusifying for Apple’s failure to put Retina into its most popular Mac. Even in 2016 it looks like they will be selling non-Retina MacBook Airs to 80% of their notebook buyers. That is a failure that is not mitigated by the fact that at some future point, many years from now, Air users of today might be able to switch to the MacBook line. It is a pretty poor excuse for selling an 11-inch, low-res, non-touch panel on a $1000 notebook in 2016.
Not sure how many they’d sell, but a modern take on the “luggable workstation” would be an interesting machine: something in the 6 pound range with a 16 or 17″ retina screen, a big CPU, scads of battery, maybe even a fusion drive.
On one hand, yes, ARM-based low-end Macs might be in the product pipeline already. At the 9/9 event, Phil Schiller said that the iPad Pro is faster than 80% of all laptops shipped within the last year. And its GPU is more powerful than 90% of all laptops shipped within the last year. So power isn’t an issue. And the 64-bit data path is already there.
On the other hand, no, it makes no sense. I doubt Apple would want to bother with an OS X-based ARM machine (and fat binaries all over again for “universal” Intel/ARM apps.) The iPad Pro, with Smart Keyboard, should be able to just kill off the MBA as-is.
The current MacBook Pro Retinas are 3.5 and 4.5 pounds respectively for the 13″ and 15″ models. If Apple can’t find a way to stick a 2.5 inch drive and SSD into a slightly thicker form factor without using more than half a pound, I’d be stunned. Or maybe I’m thinking two narrowly? Is there no other way to exceed 1.5 TB storage without having to spend over $2000?
It may simply be that there’s too narrow a market for this to be a concern for Apple. I mean, very few people need more than 1.5T internal storage on a laptop and Apple seems to be betting on people moving more and more things to the cloud.
“So the user who walks into an Apple Store saying I need the smallest device, even if it has to run slower, or do less, or have other compromises, is going to be comparing iPad Pro to MacBook.”
Not if they have any sense. The question is what software do they need to run? iOS isn’t OS X and vice versa.
“And she does enough work with photos that she would have noticed how slow the MacBook is. It is slower than her current 3 year old Air that she is replacing because modern software asks it to do too much.”
Then by your own logic she should be looking for MORE power than the Air, i.e. the Macbook Pro.
I would really like an Air with a retina screen. It’s currently in a really tight sweet spot (for me) of portability vs power vs price, but it needs a better screen. I suspect I’ll end up with a 13″ MPB, but I’m not sure I want to lose the weight or shape of the MBA, which are close to perfect for me. If it weren’t for the fact I spend most of my life in Xcode I’d be looking at a Dell XPS 13, but they’re no Air either. Fingers crossed for a more MBA-like Pro update in spring…
people said the same about the Air.
TLDR; quit at this:
nonsense. Apple has very significant strengths that allow it to do things other tech companies can’t, which is why their vertically integrated hardware is untouched by rivals. resulting in a tech company that:
…just another tech company (like Acer or Levano)? get real.
we’ve already answered your question, you just don’t like the answer. but one more time for the stubborn — because the Air isn’t long for this world. as we speak Apple is working on the laptops that are replacing it. deal.
or, start your own computer company in your garage. worked for the Steves.
MB is apples ultra portable. what software is it “too slown” for? not pro software, since you wouldn’t use an ultra portable for pro use cases.
I think your problem is you’re trying to use the wrong tool for the wrong job. good luck.
TLDR. it’s clear you’re just an angry “WHY IS APPLE SO STUPID WAAAAH” troll.
No, because there wasn’t anything in the lineup close to the first Air. What they said was that it wasn’t capable enough for the very high price. That’s not what I’m saying at all.
To me, the new Macbook just makes tradeoffs that I don’t see the value of. Presuming you’re OK with the step down in performance and the single port, all you get in return for the 8 ounces of lessened weight is a retina screen and thinner case but the battery life is the same or less than an Air (depending on which Air).
Instead, why not keep the same Air case, add more stepped battery? If you want to claim that the Macbook is a better road warriors than the Air the saved weight isn’t a compelling argument but 50-100% more battery life would be.
This will all work out in ~3 years, of course.
ARM won’t ever happen unless there’s some very significant reason for it to (technological or business). The switch to Intel was pulled off incredibly well but it still meant lots of work for Apple (the compatibility layer) and for the Apple software community.
Doing architecture switches like that is a huge risk and… where’s the gain? The gain in moving to Intel was that it was becoming increasingly obvious that PPC wasn’t going to keep up in performance terms (and others stuff). The ARM switch would bring… what? Battery life? If Apple cared about significantly increased battery life, put the Macbook CPU in an Air case, increase the stepped battery to fill it and you have, easily, ~15+ hours of battery. Instead, they shrank the case which says to me that they’re fine with initial battery life in the 7-10 hour range.
anything with “Air” in the title will soon be gone for the simple reason that all the products by apple will be slim and the “low” end will be taken by the iPads:
iPad-> iPad Pro-> Macbook -> Macbook Pro
the interesting bit will be to see if Apple’s A-series processors overtake the intel processors in the Macbook’s and if iOS and OS X ever actually merge.
I have two old MacBooks still in service, one of which I’d like to eventually replace with a fan-less, SSD MBA at some point when I’m ready to upgrade the Pro Tools Express software I’ll be using. It’d be helpful to have a quiet Mac in a booth with me for voice recording instead of having to banish the older one with a long cable.
Unless forthcoming MacBooks simply assume the physical form of the MBA, they won’t be at all useful to me. I don’t give a damn about having a retina display if the thing won’t stay quiet while running for several hours.
If anything, I think the MBA is the “ultraportable machine of the future,” and the new MB is simply a bump in the road on the way to getting there.
Apple is redesigning MacBook Pro, which will no doubt get slimmer and lighter.
Power is an issue, though. Schiller didn’t say the iPad Pro was more powerful than a single laptop in its own lineup (though the MacBook’s performance is so low, it might be in that group). There’s an awful lot of underpowered machines being sold for rock bottom prices. Those 80-90% of laptops probably cost ⅓ to ¼ the iPad Pro.
The MBA can run Photoshop (and Modo and Maya and ZBrush, too, but probably no one uses it for that). The iPad can’t. There’s been a lot published recently about devs not wanting to build complex pro-level apps for iOS because they can’t get a return on investment in a world where people go nuts at the thought of paying $20 for an app. We’ll see. I’ll be buying an iPad Pro. But will I ever see anything like ZBrush or Modo or Maya on it?
We sure do get spoiled 😉 6 pounds isn’t luggable. I carry a 6 pound MBP around all day and it’s no big deal. The first portable Mac was 16 pounds. THAT was luggable. Also that 16 pounds was misleading since battery life back then meant to almost certainly had to carry the brick too.
There’s a way, but I suspect Apple would eye that space and say, “Hey let’s fill that space with battery.” Right after they said, “Trim that space and make it lighter. There’s enough battery already.”