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Apple Introduced Its Most Controversial MacBook 10 Years Ago Today
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I disagree with that assessment.
People who prefer small and light, and are even willing to pay a premium for it, are not likely ones who lug around a lot of other external items - as this defeats the idea of traveling light.
Things like external HDs and SD cards will preferably get replaced by cloud storage.
As long as you have a mobile phone that allows tethering, your 12" MacBook is easily connected to the Internet. I use it all the time.
Or use a local NAS drive via WiFi.
For a lot of connectivity uses there is Bluetooth and WiFi. You don't need a LAN port.
Many cameras even support Bluetooth or WiFi. You don't need SD cards to share data anymore.
Few people connect external CD or DVD drives these days. There is hardly a need for it. Use streaming over the Internet.
But if you want to, you still can!
Belkin sells you a small USB-C data + charge adapter with power pass-through. No need for a second USB-C port.
You can easily binge-watch DVDs for days, while your 12" MacBook is charging at the same time.
HDMI is likely rarely used as you are not typically going to buy a light 12" MacBook to connect it to a massive desktop monitor and keep it on your desk all the time.
Yet you can!
Just buy a USB-C connected monitor instead, and this will also charge the MacBook at the same time through the single port.
Since the MacBook has an audio jack, you can directly connect headphones or speakers.
The only time I really needed to connect an external device was during a presentation that required me to use an HDMI port to connect to the projector.
For that I needed a dongle adapter. Yet the one Apple sells also has an additional power pass-through port, so you don't need a second USB-C port for charging the MacBook while holding the presentation.
One USB-C port is fine for an ultra-portable machine.
Sure, it is always nicer to have more ports, but in my opinion this is not a deal-breaker.
I'd much rather have a smaller and lighter laptop.
I think power users who go for MacBook Pros are more likely in need of more ports, that makes sense, but ultra-portable users are not those people.
Yet if you *really* need a second port once in a while, there are solutions and small adapters that can give you exactly that.
I cannot use iPadOS for my daily needs. I tried and bought an M1 iPad Pro. Worst Apple purchase ever. Seriously. The experience was terrible. Great as a media consumption device, terrible as a main computing device.
I do not need many ports, but I *do* need macOS!
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I had the first 12” PowerBook and it was as compromised due to its size. I nicknamed it the Lap-Roaster and had Apple replace my original one with another which wasn’t much better thermally, but I dealt with it because I loved the size and that cool subwoofer speaker which used the screen to reflect sound back at the user. Apple was shady about its warranty replacements, telling me that they never suggested I use it on my lap. LOL
I agree.
But that was not the fault of the 12" MacBook, but rather a clear sign that Apple had no clue what the ultra-portable market really is.
They stupidly tried to apply the rules from the ultra-portable segment to all their laptop products.
And rightly received a ton of flak for it!
Sometimes I truly wonder what kind of strategy Apple really has for their laptops.
Probably none.
The only thing they strategize about is to upsell you to the most expensive model you can afford.
That's their only strategy it seems...
I just got one off eBay. It's my travel banger. Still good for general typing apps and web. Dont mind if someone breaks my car window and steals it as I live in one of those cities where people break into cars in nice areas.
ok so make it a tiny bit thicker and keep it at 2lb. we are talking about 1mm of extra thickness. yes it can be done
Still have my gold 2015 MacBook to this day. Woefully underpowered though it may be, it was the ideal size for travel. Sadly, I found the iPad to be a far more capable companion and have not purchased an Apple laptop since.
But the sleek form factor and gold color are hard to beat.
But the sleek form factor and gold color are hard to beat.
I think Apple was hoping that the 12" MacBook would replace the MacBook Air, similar to how in 2008, Apple released the original MacBook Air as a higher priced ultraportable that within 3 years replaced the original MacBook in the lineup. They were trying to do it again. That's why they didn't update the MacBook Air from 2014 until 2018. It was only there to maintain the psychologically important $999 price point. But it kept on outselling the 12" MacBook, even without the Retina screen.
What's interesting is that the only "mini" products Apple has left are the HomePod mini and the iPad mini. The iPhone mini lasted all of 2 years, and the 12" MacBook for 4 years. Meanwhile the iPad is now offered in 13" versions (both Pro and Air), and the MacBook Air now has a 15" version, though the iPhone "Plus" models haven't sold as well.
Sometimes the market doesn't act the way companies expect. When that happens, product lines evolve to meet customer preferences.
There were mockups done in CAD layovers on top of the internals showing various ways a second port could have been added. Space was there, Apple just chose not to, and in the end it was a compromise a lot of folks were unwilling to make.
What would be the point? it's already thicker at the hinge that the current Macbook Air.
Make it much thicker and you've got a Macbook Air with a smaller screen.
Summarizes my thoughts exactly as well! A 12 inch MacBook with apple silicon and 5G!! I essentially refuse to buy a new MacBook without 5G, since I use my iPP 13 for travel to mirror my home desktop all the time for work on the go. Or just bring a more robust OS to the iPad Pro which I have now, either would work for me! We still have the 12 inch MacBook from 2017 and the design and usability is still great, just getting a bit slow for day to day usage.
I think there were many factors. Not just one.
To me it always seemed as if the 12" MacBook was designed to replace the MacBook Air at the time, but for some reason, last minute it seems, the marketing team at Apple overruled those plans and forced the device to be sold as "MacBook" instead of "MacBook Air" - while keeping the old MacBook Airs around.
That might be the reason why the MacBook Airs were not updated for a while afterwards - simply because there were none in the pipeline. Sourcing CPUs, manufacturing lines, materials etc. typically have lead times of 1 1/2 years or more.
By keeping the MacBook Air, the product lines became muddled and users (as well as Apple's own marketing) got confused as to why the smaller MacBook would cost more than the larger MacBook Air. Hence few people bought it. As they would get more bang for their buck with the MacBook Air. Not realizing that extreme miniaturization and dead-silent, fan-less designs with high-speed SSDs have their price... And these amenities are difficult to explain to customers only looking at the price.
On top of that Apple was surely promised a certain roadmap by Intel for these 5W ultra low-power chips - which never happened.
When the MacBook was finally cancelled and the MacBook Air finally updated, it was done so with a 7W version of that very chip. Clearly Intel could not manage to get their latest CPU update down to 5W... To increase the speed, they needed to go up to 7W. And Apple consequently needed to put it into a laptop that had room for a fan. Which the 12" MacBook had not.
As no further 5W CPU version was in Intel's cards, Apple had no choice but to abandon the 12" MacBook. They could have kept the same old CPU going for a while more, but who knows, perhaps Intel was not even willing to produce it anymore.
And as mentioned, at the same time there was also starting a trend towards larger and larger screens. "Phablets" instead of phones. A 12" laptop today may no longer sell as well as they did 10 years ago.
The next 12" laptop from Apple may need to have a foldable screen design. 12" small when closed, but 14" or more when opened.
But such a device comes with its own challenges.
I doubt that an all-screen laptop with a virtual "glass keyboard" instead of a physical keyboard would go down well. That would be even worse than the butterfly keyboard. Most people prefer a physical keyboard. Yet adding a removable keyboard, revealing a screen underneath, would add too much bulk and cost making a combination of both less viable.
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The macBook 12 was my all time favourite for travelling (whether to a meeting in London or an overnight stay in the US). It's easy to carry around, the screen size works for short business trips, and it had a good battery life (well the later gens did).
The last gen model we have is starting to show its age. It's starting to feel slow, it drains the battery quickly, and won't run the latest version of the OS, yet I still love it! Pick up the replacement MacBook Air 13 and it feels way more heavy.
Please bring it back (with Apple Silicon)!
The last gen model we have is starting to show its age. It's starting to feel slow, it drains the battery quickly, and won't run the latest version of the OS, yet I still love it! Pick up the replacement MacBook Air 13 and it feels way more heavy.
Please bring it back (with Apple Silicon)!
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I only upgraded from my 2012 11” i7 MacBook Air last year! That thing was great. I still miss the wedge design.
I honestly think that people who are willing to compromise on everything for portability generally overestimate the size of their own demographic.
The number of people who truly want or need something ultra-portable at the cost of needing a dongle for basically everything is probably small and most people are better off with a MBA, which now at least has two USB-C ports plus MagSafe.
This MacBook was, like the gold Apple Watch, and the iPhone mini, was a marketing and market test exercise.
When you are flush with cash like Apple, you can afford to test the contours of the market.
When you are flush with cash like Apple, you can afford to test the contours of the market.
At least if they could get him to design something for Apple 🙏🏼
They have moved on, can't see them returning to work on Apple, but maybe do some work for them, after Crook is gone.
Exactly, if it wasn't for macOS, and the other OS for devices, I wouldn't buy anything from them anymore. Design is *******‼️
If Ive had the materials of today to design with - wow!
Yep, Apple design going downward, but it sells still because of the macOS, that's all.