John Gruber, Daring Fireball:
For most of the modern era at Apple, the company’s Mac portable lineup has been simple, dating back to Steve Jobs’s 4-square product matrix in 1998. iBooks and PowerBooks. Then, in the Intel era, plastic MacBooks and aluminum MacBook Pros. Lower-priced for consumers, higher-priced for pros.
The original MacBook Air threw a monkey wrench in this simple lineup, though. When it debuted in 2008, the MacBook Air was a premium portable, starting at $1799 with an 80 GB hard drive, and going up to $3098 for a version with a faster CPU and 64 GB of SSD storage. It was a different type of premium portable than a MacBook Pro, focused on a remarkably svelte (for the time) form factor. When Steve Jobs revealed that first MacBook Air by pulling it from a manila envelope on stage at Macworld Expo, there were gasps.
And:
This is one of those columns where I started with one idea, but in the course of writing it, drastically changed my mind. I find none of these scenarios satisfying, but I started out with the idea that the one thing Apple wouldn’t do is simply update the MacBook Air, as we know it or very similar, and just give it a retina display. I’ve been saying this for a few years now, that I saw the future as just MacBooks and MacBook Pros, and that the MacBook Air remained in the lineup only until the 12-inch MacBook could drop in price.
But the more I think about it, the more I think that something along the lines of the “just put a retina display in the MacBook Air” scenario seems the most likely.
These callouts are just snippets from an unusually long Daring Fireball column. When the MacBook Air came into being, it represented a huge change, filled a hole in the market. But the MacBook and MacBook Pro have taken advantage of the technology and material science gains MacBook Air brought to the market.
What will a new MacBook Air look like? Good question. Gruber’s take does a nice job exploring the tree of possibilities.
All they really need to do: same basic design as the current MBA, SAME KEYBOARD, retina display, 16GB option
Ideally, they’d also make the bezel smaller (via either a larger screen or a smaller footprint), include usb c instead of thunderbolt 2, and make it in different colors
Either way, it would put a serious dent in MBP sales.
In that case, wouldn’t it be easy (and lazy) to “simply” strip the MacBook Pro Escape battery, keyboard and display, add a couple more USB 3 ports, and call it a Mac mini?
That’s what nearly every Mac Mini has been going back quite a while – either a headless Macbook, or (more recently) a headless 13″ Macbook Pro.
Apple seems to be very proud of their new keyboards, alas. My guess is they’re going to take the Macbook Pro Escape and remove the “pro” – cheaper processor, less storage for the base model, USB-C instead of Thunderbolt. Possibly also put it on a diet, if the processor is less hungry then they can slim the battery down. And then they will sell that for $999.
ETA: as for the Mac Mini, I’d be extremely surprised if they revise the form factor. It doesn’t sell well enough to justify the engineering time. OTOH, if they’re trying to make it be headless desktop alternative for professionals, they might have to revise it at least a little to improve its cooling. The current form factor seems to be thermally limited to whatever you can cram into a 13″ Macbook Pro, and Apple might be wanting to make it able to handle the same CPUs and GPUs as the 15″ MBP.
Either way, it’s going to get latest gen processors, latest gen thunderbolt, maybe rip out the USB-3 and put in USB-C. My guess is that there will continue to be a $500-ish base model, but all the attention and love will go to the step up models – which will get quad core (more if they improve the cooling), and maybe discrete GPU. Will any model of mini have upgradable RAM or storage? Probably not.
They’re too proud of their new keyboards. They’re too invested in all the improvements and “improvements” they’ve made to the current round of Macbooks.
read the DF post. Gruber covers this as well as the issues with it.
I’d like to see the Macbook Air take on the Chrome Book segment. “Air” can mean “Cloud”. There isn’t enough differentiation from the Macbooks now (IMHO), so why not focus on something that will take a big bite out of Chromebook sales? I have an iMac on my desktop and an iPad Pro when I need portability. If I needed a lightweight laptop, I’d get a maintenance-free Chromebook …because I can’t get a Mac equivalent.
I really think what they do with the Air etc is dependent on their strategy for laptops. The line needs to make sense more than it does now. Like John, I assumed that the Air would go away when the 12″ MacBook was salable for $999. That could still happen but the reports we’re hearing would have to be incorrect.
The question is whether they want a clear demarcation between Pro and non-Pro in the line names etc or whether they don’t really care about that and want to simply make a line that has a variety of power and features and let people decide not on some arbitrary Pro/non-Pro designation but on the features.
I actually bought a $200 Chromebook to use while my Mac was in the shop. It’s… OK. (it;’s a Samsung 3). You can run Linux apps on them now which helps and they’re fine for anything web app based. If I were going trekking etc and wanted something that was actually pretty functional but which I didn’t care if it got broken… I’d take that.
But the Pixelbook and really nice Chromebooks, while VERY nice are also edging up on $1000 and at that point it makes no sense to get one. I can do everything a Chromebook can do and more on a Mac. If the Chromebook is sub-$500 that’s a fine tradeoff. IF it’ $1000 I don’t see any reason to save the money (if you do) and go CB vs MacBook
Chromebooks are just netbooks — cheap, limited devices that nobody wants. Thus they sell well to education. I don’t know a single person who’s bought one for personal use (note that even you admitted you don’t own one).
Apple doesn’t play that game.
Respectfully, I think that viewpoint is about 3 years out of date, more if you think Chromebooks are like netbooks. High-end Chromebooks are a great experience and more people are using them than you’d think. With a good network connection and Office360 or iCloud, the experience is hard to beat for a lot of mobile work requirements.
Edit: I’m likely going to get one in the next few months. I would have already if not for the iPad Pro. A Chromebook is a WAY better option than a tablet keyboard for those times when you need to bang out a Word, Excel, Pages, or Numbers document.
still dont know anyone who’s bought one for personal use (im a techie in IT), nor anywhere in public.
the fact that they can’t run good software — native apps, not web apps — is a problem.
like i said, Apple’s game isn’t in making cheap netbooks. and yes, an inexpensive web-centric machine for running web apps is a netbook.
All those reports are pretty vague. To me it doesn‘t make sense to have a 12“ macbook 13.3“ macbook air and 13“ macbook pro „escape“ with overlapping tech specs and price points. All three of them haven‘t been updated for a while, so maybe one of them is going away. Perhaps the rumors concerning the air getting a retina display at a similar or slightly higher pricepoint and of a new „entry level“ air don‘t mean the same machine. Maybe the 12“ macbook is getting it’s internals and ports updated, will be rebranded as „air“ and sold for $999 (or even $899 – but then it’ll keep the old internals and ports) and the 13.3 inch air will get a low power cpu and be a little more expensive than the existing air but still cheaper than the „escape“.
Pretty confounding rumors this time, makes the guessing game more interesting. And again, like in the last two years, not a lot yet about the new watch, which I‘m mostly interested in (apart from the new mac mini and mac pro which won‘t arrive too soon. I hope, they share a similar design, maybe even be parts of the same modular system).
[[To me it doesn‘t make sense to have a 12“ macbook 13.3“ macbook air and 13“ macbook pro „escape“ with overlapping tech specs and price points]]
The macbook pro escape has the exact same screen as the rumoured revised macbook air – 13.3″.
If we ignore the marketing labels, Apple issued a new premium ultraportable a few years ago (the macbook no suffix) and a new line of “pro” notebooks in the last couple of years. Their mainstream consumer notebook (which is called the Macbook Air and which used to be their premium ultraportable before getting a new job) has been languishing for years and that’s what they are alleged to be updating this fall.
Apple’s Mac product grid still exists, it just has six slots now instead of the original four – desktop and laptop both have a pro line, a mainstream line, and a “tiny” line. The desktop pro line is confused and muddled with a headless version and an AIO version. The laptop line isn’t really muddled, it just has a muddled nomenclature.
The MacBook Air is dead, just as the iPad Air is. “Air” was great when it was distinguishable from other sized devices. It’s not anymore. It’s completely unnecessary.
iMac and iMac Pro
iPad and iPad Pro
Soon:
MacBook and MacBook Pro
Mac [headless] and Mac [headless] Pro
They’ll have a tablet, all-in-one, laptop, and desktop for consumers and pros. It’s that simple and obvious.
yeah, but still – if it’s not “ultra-portable” it will be just as portable as the mbp 13,3 “escape” and have a lower class mobile cpu and integrated graphics like it. or they could make it ultraportable, using a low-power cpu, essentially making it a slightly bigger macbook.
the linup up to now only makde sense because the air is older and thus cheaper than the macbook. and don’t forget the ipad pro, that sits in the same price, is faster than the macbook and current air but does not run osx – but still gets marketed as a laptop-replacement.
So maybe the rumoured device is a larger screened no-suffix macbook? with the 12″ macbook getting a price drop to $999 and the Air goes away?
I want a 15 inch MacBook. I don’t understand why screen size has to be a “Pro” feature.
This is logical but Apple doesn’t always go logical. Time will tell.
11″ and 13″ MacBook
13″ and 15″ MacBook Pro (all models with Touch Bar)
crazy idea, ditch the air. just go back to the MacBook and MacBook Pro. just add a second USB-C port so folks can attach a drive and power that’s really the only thing that makes the MacBook totally suck