“Hey, so guess what? We took apart the new-for-2014, $100-cheaper MacBook Airs, and found almost nothing new inside,” iFixit reports.
“Our spudgers get misty anytime a new device ends up on the teardown table, but this Air iteration was too uninteresting to warrant a full-blown (or even a half-blown) teardown,” iFixit reports. “The sole change between last year’s and this year’s models: the 100MHz-faster processors—lovely Haswell units labeled SRT16T.”
iFixit reports, “The new Airs are pretty much the same computers as the 2013 models, with the same meh (4 out of 10) repairability. But we didn’t rest on our laurels: we figured we’d create a full set of guides for each. So, that’s exactly what we did.”
Read more, and se the photos, in the full article here.
“The new Airs are pretty much the same computers as the 2013 models, with the same meh (4 out of 10) repairability.”
It seems Apple innovates no faster than its slowest supplier, and the “Supply Chain Genius” isn’t shaking the supply chain very hard. Disappointing, since a higher resolution ~13″ screen would be very welcome.
The MacBook Airs depend upon the CPU’s internal graphics processor (IGPs). Since Intel has just done a minor speed bump on Haswell and not updated the IGPs, Apple has no real choice to go to a retina display for the Airs. Apple is stuck doing a minor speed bump or nothing at all.
Besides, this speed bump is a hold over. Apple is doing this refresh now because 1) it can, and 2) Intel has already publicly announced that Broadwell (the follow on to Haswell, currently in the vast majority of Macs) has been pushed back a few months. So it was either take advantage of the small speed bump or sit and wait until LATE 2014, or possibly early 2015, to do a significantly upgraded MacBook Air. Now Apple can do both.
Can you imagine what the pundits would say if there were a lag of 18 months or more between MacBook Air updates (no matter the reason)? It would be more of the same, “Apple’s not innovating. Apple’s not moving its product lines forward.”, and so forth. It does not matter what the reason. An 18 month lag would cause a negative feeding frenzy in the tech opinion world.
You wanna customize buy a PC.
This wasn’t the purpose of these refreshes. Apple basically cut the price of last year’s Air while slightly boosting the specs. It’s not supposed to be a major refresh or a whole new model.
That comes later this year, with a LOT more fanfare.
“Disappointing, since a higher resolution ~13″ screen would be very welcome.”
I’ll bet Apple is bent on pressuring all of the other laptop vendors with a superior product at a reduced price for this go-round.
$100 cheaper ain’t bad.
Why change what’s already perfect? I guess you could add things, maybe a Touch ID button to make it more secure would be nice. Maybe make the monitor detach and instantly turn into an iPad, that’d be cool. Or leave it at its current state of elegance and tweak up what you can like the slightly faster processor.
Volkswagen sold the VW Beatle for decades with barely any changes to its design, and they sold them like hot cakes. They tweaked it over time with some enhancements, but aesthetically, it was the same.
I mean really, the MacBook Air is about as minimalistic as you can make a machine. It’s their VW of laptops.
Actually the MBA update is $100 cheaper price adjustment, faster processor is bonus.