Apple Introduced Its Most Controversial MacBook 10 Years Ago Today

[Dreamail]

The 11' iPad Pro exists. The 13.6' MacBook Air also exists. Choose one from them

That's like choosing between a rock or a hard place...


iPadOS is abysmal in my opinion, doesn't even run half the software I need professionally. And juggling multiple applications, manipulating data back-and-forth in various applications, is a Royal pain in the arse.

The 13.6" MacBook Air is a *monster* compared to the 12" MacBook.
Even the 11" iPad with keyboard folio is bulkier and heavier.
Why would I want to lug any of these things around? I don't.

So what are my options?
Hope that Apple will eventually allow to run macOS on iPad hardware?

Or just take good care of my current 12" MacBook - so it may live for as long as possible...
Plus buy an old one as "spare", to eventually replace it with.

 

[roncron]

Put an M series chip in there, a Magic (non-butterfly) keyboard, and a sub $1000 price and it’ll sell like hotcakes.

 

[Dreamail]

This first Air was lighter than anything else at the time, so what are you trying to say?

That depends on what you want to compare it with.

Yes, it was lighter than any other Apple Macintosh product at the time.

But no, the Sony Vaio X505, which invented the ultra-portable market in 2003 (5 years before the MacBook Air), weighed a mere 825 grams - compared to 1,360 grams for the original MacBook Air.

Sony was always the king of ultra-portable laptops. Those were not netbooks, those were very powerful laptops, certainly for their size and weight. At a premium price of course.

 

[Joshuaorange]

People are so dramatic. It was a phenomenal computer. My wife had one for over 5 years with no issues whatsoever.

 

[Adelphos33]

This is one area where Apple went wrong. But it is not the key area, in my opinion.

The fact that Apple cancelled the 12" MacBook yet applied its design philosophy to high-end professional machines proved to me that they stopped to understand the ultra-portable market.

Sony created this market, culminating in its premium Vaio X505 ultra-portable model from 2003.
Apple was 5 years late to the game with the MacBook Air, but Jobs at the time also understood that market.
Few people remember that the 13.3" Air originally cost $1,799, at a time when 13" MacBooks started at $1,099.

Sadly over the following years, and in an accelerated fashion after Jobs' death, the "Air" was morphed into a cheap "student laptop", and dropped to $1099 by 2013. The introduction of the 11" MacBook Air for $999 underlined this.
That change of strategy ultimately caused problems for the 12" MacBook.

I am absolutely sure the 12" MacBook was originally designed to best and replace the MacBook Air as the new ultra-portable Apple laptop.
Yet the Air was no longer the premium ultra-portable device that it was originally introduced as, and the entrenched marketing people at Apple did not want to kill off their golden goose "student laptop" that the "Air" label became by 2015, which resulted in the 12" MacBook becoming an off-kilter new product line that didn't fit anywhere anymore.

If Apple had released it as the 12" MacBook Ultra, re-introducing a new high-end ultra-portable product line, it likely would have been more successful. But the "MacBook" moniker signaled that it was a consumer machine and hence people did not understand why it would cost more than the larger 13" "MacBook Air". Nor did Apple marketing.

Ever since around 2010, when the strategy for the "MacBook Air" changed from a premium ultra-portable to a cheap student laptop line, it was clear that Apple no longer understood the ultra-portable market.

Which does not bode well for any re-introduction today.
Today's Apple neither understands nor cares about the premium ultra-portable market.
And the interest in that market stopped with Joni Ive leaving Apple.

Maybe some of what you wrote is right in terms of the situation in the late 2010s.

As of now, though, the 13" MacBook is cheaper, has higher build quality, and runs better basically all laptops in its class. It isn't the smallest laptop avaialble but is pretty close

 

[Fuzzball84]

I'm kind of not surprised it didn't last long. That Intel M chip and the 8 GB RAM limitation, they definitely were meant for casual computing in the thinnest and smallest form factor possible. Of course, Apple wanted to have a premium ultraportable laptop again, after the MacBook Air changed from being that into Apple's entry-level Mac laptop, taking the place of the polycarbonate iBooks and MacBooks. But yeah, at that time a single USB-C port was definitely not enough. When the fourth generation of MacBook Pros were launched later in 2016, at least they gave you two to four of those ports, and they were the Thunderbolt variety, so it was a lot less controversial then. Plus by that time, numerous third-party companies were already making nice USB-C hubs and docks for use with such MacBooks. (When I ordered my M1 MacBook Air, I also bought that Falwedi USB-C hub shortly before the Air arrived so I could start using it with some of my existing devices right away.)
View attachment 2490192
We did get one with a broken screen at my former computer tech job, a first-generation model from 2015. Unfortunately since the screen was broken and we had no way of getting a video image out through our USB-C hubs to one of our external monitors, we couldn't do much with it. And yes, those butterfly keyboards sucked, from my experiences working with some 2016-19 MacBook Pros and Airs there; they felt pretty flimsy.

Intel M chip and 8 GB RAM back then was more than sufficient for their target customer.

It was never meant to be for heavy workloads. Ever.

Those M series chips worked great for the bursty workloads that an average consumer would be subjecting it to when web browsing, productivity apps and email. Light photo editing etc

That’s what it was for and if anyone got it for a heavy workload, well you’re the one who made the decision to buy an M series intel.

 

[CarAnalogy]

This was Apple's netbook. Even Apple bought into the hype. And for some reason consumers loved those pieces of crap. Every single netbook, from Apple on down, was slow and underspec'd and overpriced even for what little it offered. But people just loved how tiny they were, and it proved to me that people don't care how slow a computer is if they think it's cute.

 

[turbineseaplane]

This was Apple's netbook. Even Apple bought into the hype. And for some reason consumers loved those pieces of crap. Every single netbook, from Apple on down, was slow and underspec'd and overpriced even for what little it offered. But people just loved how tiny they were, and it proved to me that people don't care how slow a computer is if they think it's cute.

I don't understand this negativity

"Form factor" is, of course!, a huge driver of interest in laptops

They did what they could on the power/performance given Intel offerings at the time.

It was a truly amazing device. Even though it didn't have the "Air" name, it was without question the most "Air" of any Macbook ever made.

Even despite the small screen (my eyes were younger then), I loved mine for toting it around sort of "iPad style" everywhere I went and whipping it out at coffee shops and on a train or plane.

 

[pksv]

I’d kill for a new ultra thin MacBook option.

This will probably never happen again. Air will be the one that will be the thinnest and Pro will be the thicker one with more performance. The only thing we will see new is a new form factor like the rumoured foldable one.

 

[ILoveCalvinCool]

I'd love to see something like this - a really small MBA to fill the gap the iPad doesn't fill and the Surface does.

 

[turbineseaplane]

I'd love to see something like this - a really small MBA to fill the gap the iPad doesn't fill and the Surface does.

I think we all would!
I honestly expected it with the advantages of Apple Silicon

The problem seems to be "Tim Cook" and his absolute antipathy towards anything that might even hint at stealing from iPad sales.

What he fails to realize is that folks who want something like a 12" ASi MB are more likely "not buying anything" right now, as the iPad+KB is clunky and the OS doesn't allow what this buyer would actually want (macOS capabilities).

Apple continues to look pretty hopeless on future innovation with Tim Cook still around.
It's so far past time for him to be gone.

 

[Ndbbm]

Still have one of these that is our house computer. Still works ok, I’m just now starting to think about replacing it with one of the new Airs just for the software upgrades. We obviously are not power users of any kind, most of our computer needs are browser based, little bit of word processing, which will go up a little in the next few years, and light photo editing.

Honestly all things that could be done on an IPad. The only thing I have run across in the past few years that I couldn’t take care of on iOS/IPad OS was I recently had to restore my iPhone when the recent beta software update hung up.

 

[Dreamail]

As of now, though, the 13" MacBook is cheaper, has higher build quality, and runs better basically all laptops in its class. It isn't the smallest laptop avaialble but is pretty close

Well, "pretty close" is a matter of perspective.

The 12" MacBook weighs 920 grams, the new M4 13" MacBook Air weighs 1,240 grams. That's 35% more. That is quite a bit more.
Surface area (depth x width) and total volume are about 20% higher for both.

That's nearly the same difference as between the 11" iPad Pro and the 13" iPad Pro.


That's the real issue here.

It's like Apple discontinuing the 11" iPad Pro and then telling all its customers to buy the 13" iPad Pro instead - because it's pretty close and almost the same size and weight anyway.
I doubt all customers would agree...
Even if the price of the 11" and 13" would be the same.

I am sure many would not mind and go for the larger iPad. And enjoy the bigger screen, despite the added heft.

But for some people who want their devices to be really portable, a 13" iPad would be too big and heavy.
To them it would not be "pretty close" to the 11" iPad.

 

[Seanm87]

This got absolutely slated on here when it launched now it seems to have a lot of love. Funny that.

 

[macbookj0e]

Apple should resurrect it with an m3 processor, call it MacBook Air and give the MBA the "MacBook" name it deserves.

Totally and utterly agree. That makes so much sense!

 

[turbineseaplane]

If you're someone who thinks an iPad + Keyboard is a suitable replacement for a 12" Macbook, you are simply not in the demographic a hyper thin/light Macbook is meant for.

The macOS part of a 12" MB is every bit as important as the super light/thin/all in one package.

 

[Squidiey]

It was all Intel’s fault.

🧈🪰 🔑Board: am I a joke to 🫵🏼?

 

[Squidiey]

I personally owned a 2016 m5 version. And I loved it, I was able to do everything on it, I mean yeah video editing took forever but it was what it was. The super thin design was amazing. I did have to have my keyboard replaced though. The butterfly keyboard sucked. Great concept but just poorly executed.

M5 in 2016?, HOW?!
You probably live in a parallel universe…

 

[awshucks]

I still remember buying my gold MacBook at the Apple Store in my trip to Atlanta. It was my first Mac and I loved it. Sadly I broke the screen so I upgraded to a MacBook Pro 13”, but the 12” will always be one of my favorite Macs.

 

[eqquito]

"Apple Introduced Its Most Controversial MacBook 10 Years Ago Today" and the best MacBook Air up to date.

 

[awshucks]

M5 in 2016?, HOW?!
You probably live in a parallel universe…

It had a 1.2ghz intel core m5

 

[SW3029]

The power of nostalgia. People on MR ****ing hated this product back in the day.

 

[turbineseaplane]

The power of nostalgia. People on MR ****ing hated this product back in the day.

There is always a faction on MR that hates any given product

It's meaningless as a data point

 

[Admiral]

I would leap at the opportunity to buy an ultralight 12" MacBook with Apple Silicon, especially if it had the Apple C1 modem for 5G connectivity.

 

[jpcyr]

Really surprised to see all the love this is getting here. It was pretty meh at the time.

Over the years I had them all, from the Sony Z505, PowerBook 12 G4, MacBook Pro, first MacBook Air, and future ones, and multiple workstations, but nothing ever beat the MacBook One.

I bought the second generation in 2016, and it’s the best computer I ever had to date.

When I bought it, I purchased also the latest MacBook Air 13, to compare, and two minutes with both of them, the Air was back in the mail, without any regrets.

Yes it was underpowered, you had to get used to the keyboard low travel keys (I’m one of the fortunate who never had any problem with it) and the battery was just getting you 4-5 hours, but the form factor and the weight were absolutely stunning and still is. I just can’t get use to a MacBook Air. Yes, they are just 1 lb (now 0.7 lbs) heavier, but it’s a world of a difference when you commute or travel. At 2 lbs, you simply forget you are caring it. Everything else is too heavy. It’s also held just right into your hand. You can carry it everywhere around the house, lid open, in a single hand without the fear of dropping it. And for me, the single port was not an issue. I prefer this compromise than having anything heavier or thicker. A single dongle would do it all to transform it into a workstation.

We only hear about its caveats, but the retina screen and resolution for a 12 inches were amazing. The speaker under the keyboard.´Oh my God’ the sound this laptop has for its size! One of the best to date. And don’t forget the first haptic trackpad, which absolutely nails it in making you believe you are clicking.

I was in love. And still is.

Today I still bring it on flights and when I travel even if the battery needs service and last only 1 to 2 hours. I would be the first in line to get a new one if Apple ever announce a new version with their own silicon.

And no, an iPad cannot beat the ease of it, and macOS, in any way. Even less when you need to carry a keyboard with it!