Smaller bezels are likely compared to the old 12" MacBook so I wonder if the dimensions wind up the same, just with a bigger display. Could be cool.
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Apple Planning to Launch Low-Cost MacBook Powered By iPhone Chip
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Y’all think this is just going to be an A-series chip in a MBA body but it won’t. It will prob have a non-haptic trackpad, no touch id, super low res panel, and one port. It will basically be an iPad screen attached to a Magic Keyboard variant.
Everyone will complain even though it’s not for the average consumer to the point I hope Apple walls these behind purchasing accounts associated with education or similar.
Everyone will complain even though it’s not for the average consumer to the point I hope Apple walls these behind purchasing accounts associated with education or similar.
What if this laptop would run a branch of iPadOS 26 without touch capability? It could explain the massive upgrades for iPadOS this year.
Not all dev work is that heavy. A small laptop (12" preferably) with a full blown OS would be great. Running a browser nowadays might actually use more resources. For most of my development I need a terminal, text editor with language specific plugin, and compiler tool chain. None of that is heavier than the resource hungry web "apps" out there. I'd wait a bit longer for things to compile but that's it. Processing data may be an issue sure, but unless I run out of ram, I'd probably try that too.
just put macos on the ipad already, and stop playing these games.
I'd be amazed if it even ran MacOS. It would make more sense to make it run iPadOs.
$100 would be massive, in relative terms.
There are limits on what Apple will be willing to compromise.
Ports? Maybe. Likely even.
Touch ID? Possibly - but biometric login has become standard across their (portable) product line.
But low-res panel and „bad“ trackpad?
They still want customers to have a decent experience and upsell them later.
Completely different market - just get a UPS to use with the Mac mini?
Probably not worth it if it’s anywhere close to the $850 that the Air is most often than not, especially if sales for this one are not available. Time will tell.
Those have much smaller screens and no keyboards or trackpads. They are also on older A16 and A17 processors. If this is an A18 in 2025, I expect a $699-799 price. Of course, who knows what the tariff situation in the US will be for Chinese products by the time this launches. The price could be driven up to make this the “new” MacBook Air with worse specs and the same price.
The current A16 iPad does support playing video on external displays at full 16:9 display size. So in terms of bandwidth and different resolutions it does work. However, non-mirrored UI on a second display (like with Stage Manage) might conceivably not be an option due to limited RAM, or just for product differentiation.
Not disputing that.
But keep in mind that external display support has also been very limited on A-series chips. Developers - and Mac/iOS developers at that - will be OK with spending a $800 or $1000 on a development machine. They‘re not the target audience (I believe).
The target audience, I think, would be people „on the fence“ about whether they‘ll buy a MacBook or a Windows machine. Or a notebook at all.
Users programming and compiling are not the targets, it's for children and users that are there just to browse and do schoolwork!
Not all dev work is that heavy. A small laptop (12" preferably) with a full blown OS would be great. Running a browser nowadays might actually use more resources. For most of my development I need a terminal, text editor with language specific plugin, and compiler tool chain. None of that is heavier than the resource hungry web "apps" out there. I'd wait a bit longer for things to compile but that's it. Processing data may be an issue sure, but unless I run out of ram, I'd probably try that too.
Yes, you don't need much hardware for what can basically be a ssh/text editor terminal.
However, if you don't work alone, or even if you do work alone, all that crap that runs in a browser or instantiates a copy of chrome and pretends it's a separate application will eat all the ram in a <= 8 Gb machine rather instantly.
And even if your work only requires an editor and ssh, it may still be more convenient to run containers/vms locally.
I agree. Just update the specs. Great machine. I still have mine but never use it because it’s become a dinosaur.
The target is children and they already do this in their iPad lineup of keyboards so not any difference.
There is zero market for this. Anyone using a Mac mini as a server still needs a UPS for their modem and router, so just buy a really good one and put the mini on it as well.
I’m not sure this rumor really make sense. There are bound to be some serious limitations with an iPhone processor that will limit a full-fledged computer. In other words, this kind of product could leave buyers disappointed rather than excited at a low-priced option.
People were surprised that the MacBook Air M4 came in under $£1000. Maybe this new “cheaper” MacBook is intended to come in at $£999 so the Air can move up to 1500 and they drop the non-Pro M4 version MacBook Pro?