Apple Phasing Out White MacBook in Favor of Entry-Level MacBook Air?

[UraGraymalkin]

The 13" MacBook Pro would be the logical replacement since it's only a tad more money and also faster...

(it's only a few hundred more for the MBP so anyone who wants the features the MB offered that the MBA doesn't have just spends a little more for an upgrade)...

'Only a tad more money' is still more money, though. Not everyone is in the position of adding a 'few hundred more' to the cost of their machine (and then adding on the cost of upgrades - when I bought mine after the late 2009 refresh the processors were virtually identical, but the MacBook came with a 250 GB HDD (compared to 125 GB in the MBP, if dame memory has not entirely quit her post). I got that upgraded to 500 GB and got another 2 GB of RAM for pretty much what the MacBook Pro would have cost). That's the main reason I went with a MacBook rather than a MacBook Pro (although, to be fair, it's the 13" MBP I'm intending to upgrade to). And I have to say I've never been disappointed with it...

Those white Macbooks were one of the worst laptop designs that Apple has come out with...They were like the eMac of the Apple laptop line...

It makes sense if you look at the product, It looks/feels cheap. Somehow it does not fit to apple...

Really? I've had nothing but compliments about the way it looks. The rounded edges certainly make it easier to pick up from a table. And it matches my white iPhone nicely.

Mind you, I've still got an eMac in the spare room...

Maybe it makes as much sense to think of the MacBook as an entry level Macintosh computer, rather than notebook?

 

[Duluth Baptist]

I'm the target market for the Macbook, someone without a huge amount of money but who needs a laptop with an optical drive and some capability. I tried hard to settle for the Macbook, but for me (and, I suspect, many others) its utility is simply squeezed out by the 13" MBP and the Air. I like the design, but for what it offers compared to what I need I could either go Air for portability, or in my actual case get the Pro for capability and durability.

How would Apple update it? Give it identical specs to the 13" MBP for $200 less? Not going to happen. They have nowhere to go with the product. It's being rapidly caught by Air capability on one side and running out of room to grow on the Pro side.

I like it, but it's not surprising if it goes away.

 

[jcoop]

MacBook Air: The notebook for everyone but 6 year old girls.

But my 6-year-old girl needs a computer!

 

[altecXP]

13in MacBook + 2x 1TB 9.5MM HDD's in RAID0 = epic!!!

The Air is more for media consumers than producers.

 

[Rocketman]

They did already say it, but as was noted early in this thread younger kids, and other users, might be better with a plastic case. There are going to be a whole bunch more scratches on MacBooks now.

I see it from the Apple perspective of fewer SKU's and forsaking optical drives, but if Apple simply updated the plastic case to whatever standards they can tolerate and the processor a bit for Lion, that would be great. I feel they may get enough customer feedback from the cancellation of the Plastimac to reissue it in another form.

Macs also need 3/4G. It's truly silly they don't have it now. AT&T and Verizon (others) would immediately thank Apple (again). Multi-homing, multi-accounts please.

"only" 10% of sales? That sounds pretty good to me for one of the higher margin units they offer. Trailing edge processor. Plenty good.

Rocketman

 

[Popeye206]

If they are phasing out the White MacBook, I'm sure it's because the sales have spoken.

I guess we'll see.

 

[GSPice]

I think it's rather obvious that I don't.

But the kind of laptop you use for your terabytes of music is not as obvious.

 

[Bonsai1214]

they just need to rename the 13" pro. lets face it, its barely a step better than the white macbook anyways.

 

[FroMann]

I had no idea the Air was only $999. When did this happen?

When it was redesigned and released last year at the Back to the Mac event.

 

[gnasher729]

The MacBook seems to go for the people who want an optical drive and larger harddrive instead of speed but smaller storage.

Add a faster processor, more RAM, and vastly more expandability. Plus a physically larger 16x10 screen.

How would Apple update it? Give it identical specs to the 13" MBP for $200 less? Not going to happen.

Almost identical specs at $200 less was always what the MacBook was, until Apple stopped upgrading it. The difference being the case and the backlit keyboard in the MacBook Pro, possibly differences in connectors.

 

[GSPice]

I hate anorexic laptops.. There is a point where it's too damn thin..

Someone needs to force feed at least one of Apple's laptops a few BBQ Pork Sandwiches....

I'd still like to see an Apple ToughBook MacBook.. 15" LCD, user replaceable battery, express card slot, 2 FW800, 2 TB, 2 USB.. shrug..

Please Apple.. take my $$$ !!!

Panasonic.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

Good Lord! Has Apple forgotten about the elementary school education market that has relied on the MB? Our parochial school is on a tight budget and was going to purchase 20 replacement MB's this fall after the refresh because we assumed there would be an upgrade in both storage and speed. (The white plastic issue doesn't matter to us one way or another.) Even the projected upgrades for the Air will not meet our school children's needs. I guess if Apple was to slightly lower the price of the low end unibody MBP, that might be a solution, but no way will the AIR fit our needs.

I would think a Sandy Bridge based MBA would be perfect for school children. No hard drives to break, easier for kids to handle, easier to store, more durable & less maint. intensive, & less expensive. If adult can be productive w/ an 11" why can't school kids w/ smaller hands?

 

[sporadicMotion]

Why? I feel sorry for you that you will never appreciate what uncompressed CD quality sounds like on a decent bit of high fidelity equipment. I assume you use the Apple white earphones to listen to music? That's sad.

If we can get past the incredibly weak CD and continue forward with the increasing network bandwidth and available disk space, perhaps we will be able to leave the weak 16 bit audio @ 44.1 and start moving back towards the sound quality that vinyl had years ago...

 

[435713]

Let's see if it get's a collectors item. I don't know the strategy that apple is going to take, but by the looks of it they are going to dumb down laptops. Anyway the macbook air ain't an macbook replacement. Let the sandy bridge models out and let's see, they most likely aren't out yet due to heat issues.
Apple is treating laptops like mobile phones where you can't upgrade anything.

Its cute Steve thinks optical will go away with the massive marketshare he has gotten Apple to. Toshiba, Sony, Dell, HP etc.. all announced they are done with optical media as well...

Not going to happen LSD overlord. Air is niche, any other laptop that had its start would be discontinued very quickly.

 

[simon22]

I think this does make sense, although it's now bringing up memories of my old 12" iBook, loved that thing. Anyone who's ever used a MBA, rather than just complain that the CPU is too slow and ignore it, will know it's crazy fast for 90% of day to day stuff. As much as a lot of this community hates the idea, most mac users simple don't do that much intense processing. Why have something bulky when you can get something so elegant for the same price? This sounds like Apple giving a gentle nudge towards something better, a tactic they've used multiple times and usually get thanked in the end.

Also, I always think that those white macbooks look like the poor relation to the rest of the line. I don't think that's right. Why should someone look like they're cheap even after spending $1k? Make all the notebooks metal and everyone looks cool

 

[nagromme]

I find this a bit hard to believe, my 3 sisters and mother all have the white macbook, case closed

In the unlikely case that this rumour is true I can't see it going down too well with some people if the updated line of macbook airs doesn't really improve enough to replace the macbook. With no DVD-ROM drive, less battery life, much smaller hardrive (I consider 128Gb small) and a slower processor I doubt apple will be able to make what I would call a viable alternative.

Very few people out in the real world need more than 50GB space in my experience. Almost none would find the new mobile Sandy Bridge chips slow. And almost none need a DVD drive unless they’re at home, in which case an external you leave at your desk is fine. (And most don’t even need that: watching a movie on your laptop is neat, but DVD is not the best or only way to do that, and most people I know have DVD players—not laptops—for their home movie viewing.)

So the Air is NOT a viable alternative for everyone. But it is for most people. Especially white MacBook buyers. The solid state drive’s snappy performance alone is just awesome.

The low % of sales of the white MacBook seems to bear out my observations: it was great and it had its place, but the Air is better for most people.

(If they keep it, drop the price!)

 

[striker33]

By that logic tape players should still be around. People don't make their media decisions based on what their car can play. If anything they do it the other way around.

Oh, and last time I "used" my iMac's optical drive was when I missed the SD slot and put the SD card part way into the drive.

U ANGRY BRAH?!

I said it wont go away, purely because there will still be uses for that media in 20 years time. My comment has nothing to do with another persons' media decision or whatever the hell you're talking about. I was simply stating a fact.

Instead of trying to start pointless arguments because your bored or your parents don't love you anymore, why not go outside and enjoy life?

 

[iRobby]

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Exactly as one would expect. Those White MacBooks are like entering the vintage section on Apple's site.
Also expect the next generation of MacBook Pros to drop the optical drive and then later the iMac too. It would be nice if the next software update to the time capsule would allow network use of the external optical drive, would reduce the negativity around having an external super drive like the old days.

My only concern with eliminating the optical drive on all devices is that i need a drive on my main machine so that I can burn my music CDs that would be my only use for it. Granted, after 25 years of buying CDs I will not be buying new ones other than for 1 or two fav artists just to have the hard copy but the rest will be bought on iTunes. But also if I ever needed to manually reburn my collection from scratch without at least one device without an optical drive I'm screwed. I guess I switch to the iTunes only thinking too late.

 

[Drunken Master]

Ok maybe you didn't get it. A cheaper, less-powerful Macbook Pro would take the "Pro" out of "Macbook Pro". I wasn't debating the notion of the Macbook being phased out.

I'm tired, so the sarcasm detector is off for the day.

The point of the Air is an extremely lightweight laptop that performs well due to the SSD. It's 2011 and optical drives are nearly obsolete. I wish the MBP line would get a second drive option in place of an optical drive (like MCE's Optibay gives you). I'd love to have an SSD and a HDD in my laptop (and I'm seriously thinking about getting an Optibay).

Maybe so, but there's still some technology weirdos like me out there that still like physical media. I read newspapers, still. Buy DVDs and CDs. I listen to records on my Technics turntable and shoot 35mm film.

I wonder if they would ever get rid of the optical drive from the iMac? Seriously, it seems like it would be a hasty thing to do, at least for now.

 

[munkery]

Not necessarily - there may be fewer failure modes but that does not always translate to greater reliability.

Fewer moving parts usually equals greater reliability.

Of course, other confounds exist which may produce exceptions to this rule.

 

[ToM7]

i hope that this is a lie !
i totally love the white macbook & is an icon & unique
i hope that they'll update him in next month

 

[Alvi]

Makes sense... The Build Quality of the White MacBook is not even close to the rest of the Apple Products, it gets scratched as easy as those 2006 iPods.

On the other hand, a 128GB 13" Air for $999 would be a good replacement. 11" is not enough for the mainstream that buys 13" Notebooks

 

[GodWhomIsMike]

I for one am happy to see the end of the 13" White Macbook. I'm on my second one now since 2006 (work-issued), and I HATE white plastic laptops. They might work great and all, but the white plastic cracks and easily gets dirty and stained.

I was not too pleased when I requested a 13" MBP at work, and was issued a 13" White Macbook, and had to have them order ram and a new hard drive to meet my needs. They wound up spending on this White Macbook about what I originally requested with the 13" MBP, and after a year, it looks pretty beat up.

 

[3247]

The 13" MacBook Pro would be the logical replacement since it's only a tad more money and also faster.

Actually, if you configure a white MacBook with the same amount of RAM (4 GiB) and the same HDD size (320 GB) as the cheapest 13" MacBook Pro, the price point is the same. Apple could easily replace the white MacBook with a 2*GiB aluminium MacBook (Pro).

 

[ModerateFKR]

Not surprising at all, I remember speculating this when the new line of MBAs came out, doesn't really make sense offering both at $999, most people will take the Air.

Well you were clearly wrong then and have been for all of the two and a half years since the MacBook Airs were launched! And it's very easy to see why. No way in hell is a MacBook Air suitable for a 9 year old kid, whereas the MacBook is, if not quite perfect [colours would appeal a lot more to this market] it's definitely ideal.

All we really need to do is look at the numbers to see that this is not a good business decision, unless the profit margins are too low to be sustainable, and/or if plastic MacBooks have been discovered to be cannibalizing another part of the range.

The article quotes these numbers as if they represent some sort of proof to support the author's theory. Yet they clearly don't. Kuo is quoted as saying:

"Apple's MacBook shipments have reportedly fallen to just 80,000-100,000 per month so far this year, representing less than 10% of Apple's Mac sales."

Apple's Mac range includes some 20 models, with the low volume selling, high ticket items such as the Mac Pro and Server at the top end, and the high volume lower ticket items such as the Macbook and the Mac Mini at the other.

So if the MacBook is still representing 10% of Mac sales, it's accounting for a very reasonable proportion by anyone's standards, leading me to suspect that the cannibalization theory, not even mentioned by Kuo, is in fact the real reason. However, it's still a bad idea. The best way to win hearts and minds is to get them early. You get computer users early by offering an practical product to kids and low end users.

Therefore, either Kuo is wrong, or Apple is wrong. Or Apple does indeed have a better replacement - other than the MacBook Air.