“Apple has been trying to kill the MacBook Air for a few years now — ever since the 12-inch MacBook was first released—but has never managed to finish it off,” Jason Snell writes for Macworld.
“A whole bunch of features that Apple views as old-tech liabilities — MagSafe charging, USB-A ports, an SD card reader, the new ‘butterfly’ keyboard mechanism, and of course the lack of a Retina display — don’t seem to have fazed MacBook Air buyers,” Snell writes. “Instead, I keep hearing that the MacBook Air is one of Apple’s best selling computers. Certainly the $999 price tag is a huge reason why, and it’s a price the $1,299 MacBook and $1,299 13-inch MacBook Pro (without Touch Bar) haven’t been able to approach.”
“Anyway, Bloomberg reported last week that Apple is readying a low-cost replacement for the MacBook Air, a report that makes a lot more sense than the earlier report that Apple was going to update the Air itself,” Snell writes. “So, is this it? Is it the swan song for the MacBook Air? And if so, what will replace it?”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Soon, we’ll be welcoming the 13-inch MacBook (late 2018) into this world and saying goodbye to the MacBook Air.
b/c I really appreciate the Mag-Safe feature. Of course I am, because we already know luddites bemoan the loss of the earphone port in the iPh. It’s curious though, because at the time of the floppy disappearance, I couldn’t have cared less.
b/c I really appreciate the Mag-Safe feature. Of course I am, because we already know luddites bemoan the loss of the earphone port in the iPh. It’s curious though, because at the time of the floppy disappearance, I couldn’t have cared less.
Luddite.
I realize that Apple probably wants to narrow down the Mac laptop line to two brands (MacBook & MacBook Pro), but there are a lot of people who would love a MacBook Air with a Retina display. I think Apple should take a cue from the smartphone branding by releasing the aforementioned MBA + Retina, and calling it a MacBook SE.
The name would let customers know that it’s a limited model, and it would also give a large part of the customer base what they want. I’m really not interested in the revamped MacBook.
The problem is that the “Macbook SE” would outsell all other Macs by a country mile, throwing dirt in the face of Apple’s plan to shove a port-less, fanless, form-over-function future down our throats. Expect a 13” version of the 12” Macbook (with the same low-power processors) with 2 USB-C ports, mushy keyboard and traditional function keys (replacing the “Macbook Escape” that hasn’t been updated). The screen will be great, but knowing Apple, if they hit $999, it will be with a paltry 128GB SSD.