Apple Announces New MacBook Air With 13-Inch Retina Display and Touch ID

[wriconsult]

Oh, now this is interesting. When the new MBAs were introduced this morning I wasn't aware (as evidenced in my first post to this thread) they were keeping the old model.

Then I looked at the Store and saw they were still offering it at the old $995 price point.

Now, I just checked the Apple store again, and it's now being offered at $849. I'd been putting off the replacement of my ancient polycarbonate MB until today's announcements, wanting to see if Apple would have a better option at the low end of the MacBook range.

Looks like they do. Might have to have a family finance meeting and think about cracking open the piggy bank.
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Isn't there another thread where the merits of old storage media could be discussed at length without cluttering up this one?

Sorry, as a n00b I guess I wasn't aware if this forum is less patient towards subthreads than others I post to, but no matter: I'm done justifying my perfectly valid use case for having a home laptop.

Anyway, you'll see my latest post is right on topic: the "old" model (relevant, since it's still a currently offered machine) just got a $150 price drop sometime this afternoon.

Also UPDATE: the new models are starting at $1149 for now. No idea how long this deal will last.

 

[Glockworkorange]

No DCIP 3....

 

[nickgovier]

.

 

[Zdigital2015]

The 13" MBP from 2017 has wide color gamut/P3. This is not mentioned on the Apple website for the 2018 Air

300 nits brightness and sRGB - https://www.apple.com/mac/compare/r...ir-retina-13&product2=macbook-pro-touchbar-13

 

[zuiram]

Price in Norway, with the EDU discount, for the 16GB/512GB config, NOK 18.883,75 including taxes (that's >USD2300).

Pricey!

But I still want...no...need it!

Buy my non-TB MBP 16GB/1TB instead, for less money. Also Norway.

Hasn’t been touched at all since the last keyboard swap. Comes with the LG UltraFine 27” and the first gen magic peripherals in a Henge Clique (for me a necessity since that machine can’t use the internal keyboard for more than 2 months at my desk before needing to have it swapped).

The 27" iMac has been a better “portable” computer for me since Apple refused to issue a loaner like laws up here require during the 30 day repair. Bit cumbersome to unplug everything and move it around, but at 27" that thin and light obsession of theirs actually does help a bit.

Sounds like your needs are a better fit for the laptop than mine were. AFAIK, you won’t get the edu discount anyway, since they bumped over the cutoff point for subsidized school laptops, but it’s been a while since I was in school so I could be wrong.
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Same resolution bud

2560x1600 said some part of one of the videos they played. 16:10 IOW.

 

[dazzer21-2]

Tell Apple to get with the times and do touchscreen Macs already! Using a trackpad to remotely move a cursor across the screen so you can then click on it is pretty yesterday if you ask me.

Why would you obscure the view of what you (are trying to) select with a hand and five big fat fingers, when using a trackpad to work on an unobstructed screen is so much more practical. For a tablet, touch is ideal - a laptop, with its separate off-screen keyboard, does not require it. For desktops, it's a non issue.

 

[zuiram]

300 nits brightness and sRGB

2018 and they charge ultra premium prices for sRGB, 300 nits, a tablet CPU and a storage option that’s the hardware equivalent of a four letter word?

I guess 48% more colors really does sound a lot better than “now up to the norm for 2016”. To be fair, I could live with 300 nits most of the time, as that’s what I usually set my monitor to, but I really missed this well polished bundle of fiber.

 

[KPOM]

I'm in the same boat, typing this on my jet engine of a MacBook Air 13" 2011. Had the rMB got a spec bump I would jump to that in a heartbeat, but I'm not exactly thrilled at the thought of buying old chips at full price almost 1,5 years since they were introduced.

The Amber Lake i5-8200 is identical to the Kaby Lake chips used in last year’s MacBooks except the clock speed of the CPU has been boosted. Last year’s MacBook i7 should actually have similar performance as it has the same Turbo Boost. That’s probably why they didn’t update the MacBook to Amber Lake. They are probably waiting for Cannonlake to finally arrive next year.

The main differences between the MacBook and Air are the larger screen, Touch ID, Thunderbolt support (which requires a separate chipset) and better battery life, with the trade off being the higher weight.

 

[wriconsult]

Why would you obscure the view of what you (are trying to) select with a hand and five big fat fingers, when using a trackpad to work on an unobstructed screen is so much more practical. For a tablet, touch is ideal - a laptop, with its separate off-screen keyboard, does not require it. For desktops, it's a non issue.

You obviously haven't spent much time trying it. No, touchscreens do not by any means replace trackpads for laptop use. There are many things where a trackpad is much better, especially in conventional non-web apps with lots of small buttons and controls. It's pretty ridiculous to try to use a touchscreen to operate stuff in the control strip in an older version of Excel, for example.

But that's one of the reasons MS has redesigned Windows 10 and the newer versions of the Office suite with larger controls: specifically to make them easily touchscreen operable. MS has put a lot of thought into it. Apple will have to spend some major effort on visual redesign of MacOS and many of its apps to make them work well with touch. I understand their reluctance to spend a fraction of their trillion dollars to do this. Instead they have thrown us the bone of the TouchBar, which is nice (I'm typing this on a Touchbar-equipped MBP) but is half-baked at best: even half the dialog boxes that Finder throws up don't show up with their 2 or 3 options highlighted on the Touchbar. C'mon Apple, at least finish that job.

Where touchscreens really shine is on the web, and honestly, even as a system developer I spend a huge amount of my time in web-based apps these days. On most web pages the controls are large enough to be easily usable from a touch screen. Once you've spent enough time browsing the web using touch, using your finger to click buttons and links and scroll the page up and down, you realize how inefficient and klutzy it can be to do it with a trackpad. Also, there are many non-web apps that work great with touch ... including iTunes! On my PC I mostly navigate iTunes by touch. I find it ironic that this Apple app is so much more natural to use on a PC than on Mac.

Using a trackpad to maneuver a mouse cursor around a screen just to click on something you can easily reach with your finger is kind of like those games you see in arcades, where you have to maneuver a joystick to maneuver the clamp to try to pick up the stuffed-toy prize you want. It's like when Homer Simpson uses that joystick and the remote arm to pick up fuel rods. It's an extra layer of abstraction you just don't need.

People said the same thing about touchscreen phones when they came out: why obscure the view of my phone's screen to touch it when I can use the buttons on my keypad to access anything on the screen! Just press up-up-up-up-up-left-left-ENTER to select something on the screen!

I understand many people don't get it yet. But you will.

 

[upandown]

Buy my non-TB MBP 16GB/1TB instead, for less money. Also Norway.

Hasn’t been touched at all since the last keyboard swap. Comes with the LG UltraFine 27” and the first gen magic peripherals in a Henge Clique (for me a necessity since that machine can’t use the internal keyboard for more than 2 months at my desk before needing to have it swapped).

The 27" iMac has been a better “portable” computer for me since Apple refused to issue a loaner like laws up here require during the 30 day repair. Bit cumbersome to unplug everything and move it around, but at 27" that thin and light obsession of theirs actually does help a bit.

Sounds like your needs are a better fit for the laptop than mine were. AFAIK, you won’t get the edu discount anyway, since they bumped over the cutoff point for subsidized school laptops, but it’s been a while since I was in school so I could be wrong.
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2560x1600 said some part of one of the videos they played. 16:10 IOW.

Which is the same native resolution as the 13 inch MacBook Pro. 2560x1600 for both. 227ppi.

 

[Glockworkorange]

Exactly what I'm thinking about. Silence over performance for users like me (browsing web, mail, MS Office, messaging, even virtual machine) is a game changer.

Do Office and Safari (or whatever) spin up your fans?

I have a similar use case and rarely hear fans on a 2018 MBP or 2017 iMac.

If I DO hear fans, something is clearly wrong, like an app acting up in the background (looking at you iMessage).

 

[cocoua]

Nope. They needed the space for the 100 year old headphone jack.

Can’t wait to see if the iPad rumors pan out now ...

So Touch ID is now the MacBook thing? I wonder how long until FaceID replaces it too? I was kinda surprised it wasn’t included in this redesign. Maybe next year?

you now what is older than jack? keyboard!

but still necessary, so forget about how old something is, just think thath bluetooth is just A NO WAY for many as has a delay impossible to override for production or games (quicktime and its extensions can sync it but is the only one who can)

I guess Face ID real cost must be about 1 USD higher than Touch ID , so Apple would charge and extra 500USD for each Macbook air, so it looks legit they delayed this...

 

[mpuk]

I guess Apple is such a poor negotiator considering fast 512gb NVME SSD's are now routinely available for $150...
or maybe, Timmy likes his profits

...the latter.

 

[flopro]

Starting to wonder; if the standard MacBook even has a place in the lineup now?

 

[GalileoSeven]

Starting to wonder; if the standard MacBook even has a place in the lineup now?

If you prioritize profits over everything else, sure

https://9to5mac.com/2018/10/31/asp/

 

[Glockworkorange]

you now what is older than jack? keyboard!

but still necessary, so forget about how old something is, just think thath bluetooth is just A NO WAY for many as has a delay impossible to override for production or games (quicktime and its extensions can sync it but is the only one who can)

I guess Face ID real cost must be about 1 USD higher than Touch ID , so Apple would charge and extra 500USD for each Macbook air, so it looks legit they delayed this...

You know what’s older than both?

The wheel and fire!

Removing something because it’s “old” is not the best argument.

 

[deckard666]

You know what’s older than both?

The wheel and fire!

Removing something because it’s “old” is not the best argument.

No but removing it because tech needs to move on is - I am looking at you

Mr-over-a-hundred-years-old-headphone-jack

 

[k2focus]

Wrong. My XPS 13 and Samsung Ultrabook havent had any issues being super thin. The throttling "extent of apple computers" is false.

My razer blade 15 and asus rog zephyrus S disagree with your "they made it thicker, adding vents and fans" BS. They are super thing and get the job done while being hooked up to a 24" 1080p 144hz monitor.

Achieving thinness is possibly and it all depends on the cooling which apple has figured out for the mac mini as seen in previous generations and both Razer and Asus have found a way to do the same.

you can just look on youtube and see countless examples of thin macs throttling. heck - even the mbpro throttled to no end and they had to release a software fix because a youtuber caught them. and the fix wasn't that great because software can't fix thermals. also, look into all the gpu failures mbs and imacs suffer from because of no thermals. say what you want, but thin and computers don't work - especially when it comes to intensive work.
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I respect your point of view but here’s here how I see it.
1. The gaming machines are a different product completely and are marketed differently. The biggest difference is portability.
2. The throttling in the mbps aren’t as bad as in the original software release. And they aren’t as bad as people have made them out to be at this point in time. They are still highly usable machines and don’t get throttled to where they can’t be useful.
3. Competing PC laptops, which are largely trying to be thin as well, also throttle and has the same issues as Apple.
4. I agree if Apple added more holes and made them thicker they would do better with heat. But thicker is not what they want to sell. Perhaps more can be done and still be thin but I see their current performance in their respective segment on par with the PCs.

i am not defending PCs that have the same issues. it's crazy what apple can achieve with such thin machines, but the fact remains that they are not PRO computers for heavy use. they are for people with too much disposable income that like to edit pictures every now and again at their local organic coffee shop with the sony ar7 that their partner bought them for their birthday.

 

[Glockworkorange]

No but removing it because tech needs to move on is - I am looking at you

Mr-over-a-hundred-years-old-headphone-jack

That’s a different argument than screen slides of telephone operators in the 1930’s or whatever Schiller was showing on stage in 2016.

If you want to say there’s a better way, fine, but removing the jack because it’s “old” is not a great argument by itself.

 

[Brammy]

Starting to wonder; if the standard MacBook even has a place in the lineup now?

I think it exists for three reasons:

• It fits some weird price point Apple wants.
• The sales show there is a market for people who want thinness over anything. These could be people who can't move to an iPad Pro for mobile.
• It is going to be the first Mac with the ARM chip, so it's staying around.

The laptop that makes zero sense to me is the non-TB Pro.

 

[Glockworkorange]

I had assumed they killed that model, but nope—there it sits on the web site at $1,299.00 for 128GB.

There are a lot of laptop options between $1,199.00 and $1,399.00.

 

[alexandero]

The laptop that makes zero sense to me is the non-TB Pro.

Interestingly the non-TB Pro (which has not been updated in a while) gives you more bang-for-buck than the new MBA – a better screen, a faster CPU, Bluetooth 5.0,… all for minimal additional costs, when compared to the MBA.

 

[Brammy]

Interestingly the non-TB Pro (which has not been updated in a while) gives you more bang-for-buck than the new MBA – a better screen, a faster CPU, Bluetooth 5.0,… all for minimal additional costs, when compared to the MBA.

Yeah, it just feels like those two machines should be merged somehow.

 

[Viper-FFM]

Meanwhile processor is confirmed by Intel. It's this:


https://ark.intel.com/products/189912/Intel-Core-i5-8210Y-Processor-4M-Cache-up-to-3-60-GHz-

 

[Geordiekeith]

I live in Office for work.

iOS is fine for a quick change here or there, but to really work effectively and comfortably, it’s best to have a laptop or desktop form factor with a precise input device.

Constantly reaching up, tapping, down to the keyboard, up and fumbling for that small cursor insertion, back a paragraph and highlight a block of text (tip over iPad, pick it back up), down to the keys...and on and on.

Awful.

I also live in Office for work, and I have done so for almost 30 years to do scientific writing, mainly using Macs. That includes when employed by major pharma companies with Windows laptops when I had a personal Mac on my desk, not only for graphics work, but also to promote them.
Now working independently Office is the de facto medium for all my clients, but I still work on a Mac (early 2015 MacBook Pro) and I just got a 10.5 iPad pro as the iOS Office is good enough for working on the road (with a Logitech Slim Combo keyboard) to replace my iPad mini. However, the new style keyboard that started on the MacBook, then the new MacBook Pros and now the MacBook Air means that should my current MacBook need replacing I will be looking for the same model secondhand, or switching to an entirely Windows line-up.
I happily use a Lenovo laptop for one client so know Windows, and I havea 15" Dell Windows laptop (half the price of a MacBook) for myself. Even bought a cheap Asus Chromebook to experiment with, and both Dell and Asus have better keyboards than the current Macs. Apple is now a phone company with a side interest in computers, but trying to merge the two into one. Hence the obsession with thinness and cloud storage (which most companies are not comfortable with) which means usability of current MacBooks is impaired for me, and that ignores the loss of MagSafe, lack of USB ports, SD card slot, and other outputs (amazing how few professional offices still do not use USB-C to connect to projectors, how many people want data on USB sticks, how remote slide changers and laser-pointers connect via USB-A dongles).