15-Inch MacBook Air Demand Reportedly 'Weaker Than Expected' So Far

[Lihp8270]

For me, the 15” air is the ideal machine, or at least should be.

I don’t have sustained loads that would warrant the pro with fans, and living with pets the lack of fans means less maintenance.

However, I do need more storage and memory, when I spec an air with the storage and memory I need it’s within the price range of a 14” pro that I wouldn’t need a custom build for, and now it doesn’t seem so tempting.

The other thing holding me back to switch back to Mac for home use is the monitor situation.

I have a relatively nice ultrawide 1440p display I use for work and gaming. But text isn’t great from MacOS. So I’d have to budget for a replacement, and since I work on a Windows laptop not only is the ASD expensive alongside a 2k laptop, it’s also not ideal with no windows control.

So for me the 15” air hasn’t been a must buy, not because of the machine but because of the other line ups and the display situation.

 

[Bodhitree]

The MacBook Air is definitely what I was looking at to replace my iPad Pro. Whether I’d go with the portability of a 13” model or the bigger screen of a 15” model is up in the air though.

For the time being I am using my stepfather’s unused 7th gen iPad.

 

[Yebubbleman]

Touch Bar is the only reason I haven't upgraded to a 14" pro thus far

I'm a fan. At least, of the physical escape key version. And I know it's a divisive feature. But, my overall impression is that more people hated it than liked it.

 

[unchecked]

What difference is there between Windows and MacOS in terms of memory management?

Not much now. ASUS and Intel are now starting to do the same thing as the Mac but calling it another fancy name “System on Module”.

 

[Steve121178]

Another misjudgment like the 14 plus? Too many options in the lineup?

Cost of living here in Europe is spiralling out of control. People would rather use their money on food & energy than pointless gadgets they don't need. It's why iPhone & Mac sales are tanking in this region along with all tech and fancy toys.

 

[D-a-a-n]

The lineup is a bit of a mess at the moment.

13 Macbook pro (with Touch Bar)
13 MacBook air
14 MacBook pro
15 MacBook Air
16 MacBook pro

Remember when all we had was:

- iPhone
- iPad
- MacBook
- MacBook Pro
- Mac Pro
- Mac Mini
- iMac

 

[borgusio]

Having an 12" ultra petite MacBook would have been very attractive because of the iPhone/12" MacBook pairing potential similar to how I love carrying around a iPad mini 6 with a iPhone 14 pro. Both take up hardly any room and are light enough to go anywhere.

This 15.5" MBA was like expecting to get a much cheaper 16.2" MBP for a lot of people. I totally get the attraction, but then it's not as light and compact as the 13.6" MBA which form factor works better when you are mobile., and riding in planes/trains, busses with tighter spaces, hauling your stuff in a bag or backpack.

I have still two macbook12 that I use here and then and lend to friends where in need. It is now the second friend in one month that used one of those who went on the second hand market to buy one.

I was surprised because nowadays are fairly slow, but the form factor is still an eye catcher. My 2017 used is still priced at 70% of the price new 6 years ago!!

Besides, the 12 with thin bezels would be a more 13ish size which would be PERFECT!

When I travel I take both the mb12 and mba13 with me as the mb12 is so lightweight that I always say "why not"? And I find myself taking the 12 in the airplane, even though slower, as well as using it as second screen for the 13.


Launching a 15 instead of 12 was a very poor decision by apple

 

[alexonline]

I have the 13.3 MBA Air M2... I would have definitely considered the 15-inch model if it was available at the time, but I've been loving the ultra portability of the 13-inch M2 MBA, and it's more than good enough for me. Yes, I got the 24GB / 1TB model, so this would have been even more expensive were it a 15-inch model, but I just didn't want the extra weight of the Pro models...

A friend has also upgraded from a 2015, 15-inch MBP to a 16GB / 512GB M2 MBA 15-inch, and the new MBA is soooo much nicer and better... and totally silent, none of this endless wheezing of the Intel 15-inch fan...

 

[frisnit]

It’s the screen size I’ve been waiting on and even bought an M1 MBP 13 as a stopgap when it was released. But I didn’t bite on this despite waiting effectively 4 years for it. Base price is solid but it’s just too expensive once you add the £400 to make it usable for development by making it 16Gb/512Gb. That brings it into refurb MBP 14 pricing, which has a far better package but too small a screen for coding (for me). So I’m now stuck again, waiting to see if they ever add a MBP 15 or see if the M3 power/battery changes make the next MBA more worth buying.
I’ll lose my touchbar either way, that’s a shame, useful for various apps

 

[MacRazySwe]

How is $2499 almost double $1700?
Which ever way you spin it, that's $700 more for a lap top twice as good in every sense and an inch bigger screen

Which ever way you spin it, you’re wrong. The MBA 15” starts at $1299. I’m talking USD.

 

[mr.bee]

A new product announcement 8-10 months before the M3 upgrade. They know what they are doing

 

[GooseInTheCaboose]

Did apple forgrt that people like the Airs for their ultraportability?

 

[El Szomorito]

There are multiple problems with this machine:

1. Every other manufacturer prices their smaller laptops higher. 15" is the cheap entry level, not the premium option. Apple tried to piss in the wind, unsuccessfully it seems.

2. Arrived too late to the M2 party. A significant portion of the people who'd buy a 15" basic machine will wait for the M3.

3. If the basic version is not enough for you, it's a no brainer to go for the 14" pro. Same ram and ssd only costs $300 more, with a better cpu, better display, a fan and two external display support. The extra 1.1 inch the air has can't compare to that.

 

[jeffkempster]

Give us that M3 chip and demand will go up.

Exactly. If it came out last year I would have bought it, but now I will wait for the M3.

 

[El Szomorito]

The number of people who need 2 external monitors on a thin and light laptop is in the low single digits in percentage.

It's 2023, and screen real estate is your most valuable resource. The only local job the basic m2 is not enough for is probably video editing, for everything else either the m2 is already sufficient or even M2 Max is lacking. Those workloads will run in the cloud, making your machine a glorified thin client. The reality is, that the people needing extra computing power on their desk is the minority now, even among professionals.

 

[Yebubbleman]

What difference is there between Windows and MacOS in terms of memory management?

On Intel and PowerPC Macs: it's just memory compression. You use 10GB of data in 8GB of RAM by compressing it down to 6GB of RAM. Crude example, but that's more or less the gist.

On Apple Silicon Macs: You have memory compression, but also all of the computing parts (on the SoC) get immediate access to the data in RAM and therefore, that data doesn't have to make excess trips (e.g.) between RAM and the CPU and then back to RAM and then to the GPU, making the speed at which data is accessed and moved substantially faster.

Otherwise, RAM is still RAM.

Did apple forgrt that people like the Airs for their ultraportability?

Have you interacted with a 15-inch MacBook Air in person yet? It's not that much heavier than the 13-inch version. Yes, those cute "designed for 13-inch and 14-inch laptops" bags will be too small for it. But, it's still relatively light.

 

[cocky jeremy]

Too many stupid options now. M1, M1 Max, M1 Xtreme, M1 Ultra, M1 SuperMegaFast, M1 SuperDuperFast. Like, WTF is even the fastest? I feel like we're doing toilet paper math at this point. How many Megaultras rolls equal 1 extreme roll?

 

[AppleTO]

Remember when all we had was:

- iPhone
- iPad
- MacBook
- MacBook Pro
- Mac Pro
- Mac Mini
- iMac

Okay, expect there were three different sizes of MacBook Pro and two sizes of iMac.

 

[AppleTO]

Too many stupid options now. M1, M1 Max, M1 Xtreme, M1 Ultra, M1 SuperMegaFast, M1 SuperDuperFast. Like, WTF is even the fastest? I feel like we're doing toilet paper math at this point. How many Megaultras rolls equal 1 extreme roll?

In some ways, I guess it’s kind of like:

M1 = i3
M1 Pro = i5
M1 Max = i7
M1 Ultra = i9

But with all the same single core (and way more annoying names).

 

[senttoschool]

It's 2023, and screen real estate is your most valuable resource. The only local job the basic m2 is not enough for is probably video editing, for everything else either the m2 is already sufficient or even M2 Max is lacking. Those workloads will run in the cloud, making your machine a glorified thin client. The reality is, that the people needing extra computing power on their desk is the minority now, even among professionals.

I'm a professional software engineer and even I only use one large giant monitor. I have a 16" MBP M1 Pro.

The number of people who require dual monitors AND whose work can be done on an Air is very small. Very small.

Note that providing support for two monitors isn't free. Apple Silicon chips dedicate a lot of transistors (much more than AMD/Intel chips) to display controllers because Apple wants to keep the power requirements of external connections down. If Apple supports more than one external display on the M2/M3, then they'd have to reduce the number of transistors for the CPU, GPU, neural engine, etc. An extra display controller is the equivalent of 3 performance CPU cores in terms of space.

Source: https://social.treehouse.systems/@marcan/109528880850349638

The author is the main developer for Asahi Linux, which is the project to make Linux work on Apple Silicon.

 

[El Szomorito]

I'm a professional software engineer and even I only use one large giant monitor. I have a 16" MBP M1 Pro.

The number of people who require dual monitors AND whose work can be done on an Air is very small. Very small.

Note that providing support for two monitors isn't free. Apple Silicon chips dedicate a lot of transistors (much more than AMD/Intel chips) to display controllers because Apple wants to keep the power requirements of external connections down. If Apple supports more than one external display on the M2/M3, then they'd have to reduce the number of transistors for the CPU, GPU, neural engine, etc. An extra display controller is the equivalent of 3 performance CPU cores in terms of space.

Source: https://social.treehouse.systems/@marcan/109528880850349638

The author is the main developer for Asahi Linux, which is the project to make Linux work on Apple Silicon.

Good for you. And I saw 90% of developers using two displays, personally I prefer one larger in landscape and one smaller in portrait mode.

We are not talking about three monitors. We are talking about two external displays. It's as simple as allowing a second external display when the laptop is in clamshell mode. That's when the arguments about transistor count go out the window.

 

[El Szomorito]

Obviously Apple does not want to cannibalize its own sales

Then what do they think? That there are millions of people who haven't bought Macs yet beacuse they don't have a 15" version? That's nonsense. Of course expanding the product range will cannibalize sales. It's about consumer satisfaction, not higher volumes.

 

[Ethosik]

Exactly.

Exactly what? 256GB is for the applications and it still performs well with 8GB of RAM.

 

[Crow47]

With really great PC laptops like these coming out, with upgradable storage and user replaceable batteries, you have to really love Apple to buy a MacBook these days:

• LG Gram Style 14, weighs just 0.99 kg (2.2 lbs). $1500 for 16GB + 512GB, 14" 2.8K OLED @ 90Hz, haptic trackpad, integrated fan and better Cinebench R23 multi-core score than the M2.
• Lenovo Yoga Air 14s, 1.35 kg (3.0 lbs). 32GB + 1TB, 14.5" 2.8K 600 nit OLED @ 90Hz, 7840U with similar battery life to M2 and better performance. Coming out in China first in a few days.
• Lenovo T14 Gen 4 AMD, 14" 2.8K OLED, 7840U, 1.38kg (3.0 lbs).
• Zephyrus G14, Razer Blade 14, ZenBook, Framework 13... and many others.

The competition is getting intense. It's time for Apple to stop releasing heavy laptops with old display technology, the notch, and outrageous RAM and SSD upgrade prices, and thinking they will sell like hot cakes.

Windows PC laptops have jumped the shark in terms of UX and robustness of the hardware. Modern Standby (S0 Sleep) is a disaster and my mind boggles at how such a half-baked feature ever made out of committee into consumer devices.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're uninformed; each and every one of the laptops you've listed have very serious compromises. Enjoy your dodgy trackpads, flexing chassis, and Windows OS that does everything except let you work. You call these repairable (Framework notwithstanding)? Have fun ordering and waiting weeks for dodgy replacements on AliExpress. I can spill coffee all over my Mac right now, take it to an Apple store, and get a replacement in under 60 minutes.

If all you care about are specs on a web page, then please, go ahead and purchase one of the laptops you've mentioned. The rest of us will be on our Macs, happily getting our work done with as little disruptions as possible.

Source: Enterprise IT support and hardware enthusiast, I work and have worked with laptops from every PC manufacturer for the last 15 years. I'm on a Mac because at the end of the day it lets me do my work.

 

[TallManNY]

I happened to walk by (and then into) an Apple store yesterday. I looked at the 15" Airs in person for the first time. If I were in the market for a laptop, it would likely be what I would buy. But that said, I did not love the look of them compared to the 13" Airs. Sitting on the Apple tables, the 13" looked like something that would be great to drop in a bag and go out the door with, would be great to set up on a airplane seat tray table, and would be more than sufficient for my office tasks. I was surprised at my more emotional reaction to the two devices. The 13" looked cute and sleek and efficient. The 15" looked ungainly and excessive. Just my two cents.