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Apple Prepping 11.6'' MacBook Air and New iPod Touch with 3MP Camera
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It is a close as dammit to being smack in between the two
In terms of price, won't the Intel Core i-series processor keep the price down a bit?
But how about the millions of netbook users? This may present a pretty good alternative for them.
No. Lower component prices have never had any effect on Apple's premium pricing strategy.
I get the feeling that a lot of folks in this thread dont think that a more portable, but decently specced Mac would be desirable. However, these people fall into two groups:
1) They dont care about specs, but want to have an affordable toy. For these, Apple makes iPads.
2) They dont care so much about portability, but want a large screen to work with. For these, Apple makes MBPs.
Strangely, most people here do seem to believe that a laptop should be priced like a TV set - the larger, the pricier.
It makes little sense for Apple to enter the cutthroat margin market of netbooks, but there is certainly a market for an ultraportable Mac. One that allows me to prepare a presentation while crouched in an airplane seat, or on a train table. One that I can keep in front of me during meetings. One that I will always have in my bag when I leave the house for a cuppa or a holiday trip.
I do want one. I dont care about the price much. Give me high resolution (and upgrade MacOS so that it can scale the interface!). Give me a practical design: it does not need to be flat and sharp-cornered, but light and well-equipped. Give me the largest reasonable 1.8in SSD. Give me 4-8GB of memory. Also, I do care about USB ports, and possibly an SD card slot.
11in is just perfect. It is large enough for a full-size keyboard, and for 99% of the things that I want to do on the road. In my office, I have got a 30in display - I dont like to use a 13in or 15in laptop screen for heavy duty work.
If the specs are right, I will not hesitate to shell out 2500 bucks, and I know about a dozen people in my line of work that would do the same.
1) They dont care about specs, but want to have an affordable toy. For these, Apple makes iPads.
2) They dont care so much about portability, but want a large screen to work with. For these, Apple makes MBPs.
Strangely, most people here do seem to believe that a laptop should be priced like a TV set - the larger, the pricier.
It makes little sense for Apple to enter the cutthroat margin market of netbooks, but there is certainly a market for an ultraportable Mac. One that allows me to prepare a presentation while crouched in an airplane seat, or on a train table. One that I can keep in front of me during meetings. One that I will always have in my bag when I leave the house for a cuppa or a holiday trip.
I do want one. I dont care about the price much. Give me high resolution (and upgrade MacOS so that it can scale the interface!). Give me a practical design: it does not need to be flat and sharp-cornered, but light and well-equipped. Give me the largest reasonable 1.8in SSD. Give me 4-8GB of memory. Also, I do care about USB ports, and possibly an SD card slot.
11in is just perfect. It is large enough for a full-size keyboard, and for 99% of the things that I want to do on the road. In my office, I have got a 30in display - I dont like to use a 13in or 15in laptop screen for heavy duty work.
If the specs are right, I will not hesitate to shell out 2500 bucks, and I know about a dozen people in my line of work that would do the same.
I'd like to hear the explanation from those who said 11.6" is too small to work with. I don't think you guys are taking into account the resolution, which may be increased since a lot of other 11" and 12" notebooks are running at 1366 x 768
how can you make it slimmer than it's?
didn't Steve say Netbooks are cheap laptops?
i wish they announce this soon,at least the idiots who keep comparing the Air to the Pro can understand now the Air is not meant for heavy uses u do on the Pro...
i think it would be an awesome thing for businessmen.i was just in the airport carrying the almost 2.7 kg laptop which is really heavy and then i read this news.
if there's any advantage of this for me over the iPad then it's for the fact i can use a mouse!
didn't Steve say Netbooks are cheap laptops?
i wish they announce this soon,at least the idiots who keep comparing the Air to the Pro can understand now the Air is not meant for heavy uses u do on the Pro...
i think it would be an awesome thing for businessmen.i was just in the airport carrying the almost 2.7 kg laptop which is really heavy and then i read this news.
if there's any advantage of this for me over the iPad then it's for the fact i can use a mouse!
I agree that 11in is sufficient for many things - you can even display an A4 page at its original width, including scroll bars etc. No need make stuff smaller - just sharper.
Maybe you are used to Windows, where it is possible to adjust the size of rendered UI elements using the DPI switch hidden within the graphics card settings. MacOS can not do this. Thus, office documents on 15in MBPs appear at 66% of their print size, and would be at 50% on a similarly resolved 11in screen. Widgets, like scroll bars, will be very hard to maneuver, and UI fonts become illegible.
It is possible to remedy this problem in MacOS, but it will entail changes in practically each and every app, including Finder, Mail, iTunes, and in many 3rd party apps, too. If have no idea how Apple is going to resolve this. In order to get it done, they would need to release stricter resolution independence guidelines and a new version of MacOS to developers something like 6 months prior to the official release.
Using the resolution independent IOS is not an option, because it does not run the standard productivity apps that the target group of the MBA would want to use.
I'm surprised if this is true.
What set the MBA apart from the competition was it's thinness and light weight, despite having a "full" 13.3" screen.
With a 11.6" screen we're in netbook-land. Most netbooks are very compact and weigh around 1 kg. So unless Apple came up with something special, the MBA won't be so unique anymore and will now suddenly have plenty of competition in light, portable computers with prices the MBA surely can't beat.
Of course the MBA will still be the stylish choice, and it's a Mac and all that, but I can't quite see why Apple would want to go there. This would also mean they're narrowing the gap between their laptops and the iPad, which is exactly the opposite of what I thought they would do, because it could cannibalize sales. What happened to "computers will be like trucks", Steve?
Then again I'm not a marketing or financial advisor. I'm sure they're making a smart move, but until I get what this is all about, consider me very surprised.
Maybe it's yet another new, revolutionary device that fits in between the iPad and the laptops! Nobody needs that, but Apple marketing can convince me of anything. After the press conferance we'll all be like "I don't know how I have managed without this for my whole life!"
What set the MBA apart from the competition was it's thinness and light weight, despite having a "full" 13.3" screen.
With a 11.6" screen we're in netbook-land. Most netbooks are very compact and weigh around 1 kg. So unless Apple came up with something special, the MBA won't be so unique anymore and will now suddenly have plenty of competition in light, portable computers with prices the MBA surely can't beat.
Of course the MBA will still be the stylish choice, and it's a Mac and all that, but I can't quite see why Apple would want to go there. This would also mean they're narrowing the gap between their laptops and the iPad, which is exactly the opposite of what I thought they would do, because it could cannibalize sales. What happened to "computers will be like trucks", Steve?
Then again I'm not a marketing or financial advisor. I'm sure they're making a smart move, but until I get what this is all about, consider me very surprised.
Maybe it's yet another new, revolutionary device that fits in between the iPad and the laptops! Nobody needs that, but Apple marketing can convince me of anything. After the press conferance we'll all be like "I don't know how I have managed without this for my whole life!"
Back in the G3/G4 days, Apple was the only PC manufacture that charged more for their larger laptops. Every other computer maker took the approach that smaller was harder to fit everything into, and their larger laptops were the cheapest.
And if the price is right, I'd love a 11.6" Netbook.
If this is apple's netbook
I tried a hackintosh netbook a while back. My findings:
1) Hardware matters - netbook touchpad and keyboard were infuriatingly cheap and over-responsive.
2) Screen is actually quite usable for netbook-type activities (i.e., reading mail, web, youtube, etc).
3) Battery life was atrocious unless I used XP, and XP is a huge screen-space wasting OS (unusable at the then top-of-the-line height resolution of 600 px)
4) I ended up gifting the netbook to a friend who needed a computer and was traveling abroad (netbook + mouse + monitor = quite usable, but not portable)
So if the macbook mini can improve on these issues, it's gonna be huge. 12" powerbook successor indeed.
I tried a hackintosh netbook a while back. My findings:
1) Hardware matters - netbook touchpad and keyboard were infuriatingly cheap and over-responsive.
2) Screen is actually quite usable for netbook-type activities (i.e., reading mail, web, youtube, etc).
3) Battery life was atrocious unless I used XP, and XP is a huge screen-space wasting OS (unusable at the then top-of-the-line height resolution of 600 px)
4) I ended up gifting the netbook to a friend who needed a computer and was traveling abroad (netbook + mouse + monitor = quite usable, but not portable)
So if the macbook mini can improve on these issues, it's gonna be huge. 12" powerbook successor indeed.
To keep it thin, they may have to forgo ports and outputs. But those would be necessary to differentiate it from the iPad. Given the dimensions being discussed, could a Display port and USB port be squeezed in?
Let's see...
Here is a very thin 11.6 inch netbook with 3 USB ports, HDMI, VGA, ethernet, and a SD card reader. Unless Apple makes another completely retarded design decision it shouldn't be much of an issue. Of course Apples recent track record of form over sanity isn't giving me much hope.
It wouldn't be comfortable to use for extended periods of time though - everything would be so much smaller on the screen (you could make do if you just use your MacBook Air for an hour or so a day, but my guess is that most people would be around the 5+ hours per day mark). As much as I want an update to the MacBook Air, I wouldn't buy a new MacBook Air with an 11-inch screen. Four changes would make the MacBook Air a great computer again:
- Improved hinge design
- Glass trackpad
- Larger SSD option
- 4GB RAM
Hah - you are totally right. Stupid design decisions of late are not giving me just a whole lot of confidence.
Like many have stated earlier, their minimalist direction seems to be cutting into true usefulness. Love their designs though and would consider a new Air.
I wonder if they are going to do anything about those sharp edges?!
One big question for Apple is when we're going to start seeing USB3.
Yes, the Air was way too minimalist - few USB ports, no Ethernet and no firewire really limited the connectivity of the thing. No fast harddrives, no fast networking.
With USB3, there's going to be a ton of bandwidth for fast disk, networking and even video with external hardware. So to a great extent Apple can be as minimalist as they want, but the user will still be left with a usable machine.
Yes, the Air was way too minimalist - few USB ports, no Ethernet and no firewire really limited the connectivity of the thing. No fast harddrives, no fast networking.
With USB3, there's going to be a ton of bandwidth for fast disk, networking and even video with external hardware. So to a great extent Apple can be as minimalist as they want, but the user will still be left with a usable machine.
I think you meant to say USB port. The MBA may be the only computer in history to have one, and only one USB port.
Have they said anything or have there been any indications as to when they will make that jump?
I liked it so much that... ...well just look down!
Generally things like this are like a pendulum - I suspect it will start swining the other way at some point.
Look at AlienWare vs Apple. AlienWare is known for packing their computers with everything known to man - I think there is even some sort of missile system associated with AlienWare computers
My point is that Apple can't afford to be a niche, hyper minimalistic company while AlienWare can put themselves in the niche because of who they are selling to.
Apple, having a much broader demographic of sales has to start coming back at some point. Lord knows they need something coming out to get everyones eyes off the seeming iphone4 fiasco.
I don't really get how so many people keep waiting for the "true successor to the 12" PB".
The 12" PB was:
1.18x10.9x8.6
The 13" MacBook Pro is:
.95x12.78x8.94
Both are roughly the same weight.
To me, the 13 MBP is definitely the spiritual successor to the 12" PB, which is why I love it so much; I love(d) the 12" PB, and wanted one so bad, that when they came out with the 13" MBP I had to buy one. everything I loved about the 12" with more speed, thinner, and the same weight.
I don't know that I care to ever see USB3, if Light Peak ever materializes. I'd much rather have that than USB3. HDBaseT looks really cool too, for video.
It is becoming more tempting. Best Buy had a nice Core i3 UM ASUS notebook.
Apple is better off just discontinuing the Air. Its a completely useless machine vs. the rest of the Macbook line and it's way overpriced and honestly just a waste of time and waste of money. I had one for a year and that was the longest year of my life with it as I used it for business, glad I got rid of it for a real Apple notebook. Again, it's just a waste.
I'm curious as to what sort of business you did on your MacBook Air? I'm guessing it was more than just word processing, spreadsheets and the web? I use a MacBook Air for uni - basically for the things I just listed plus a bit of image editing and music. If I can do this on my Rev A 1.8GHz HDD model, then I would hardly call whatever replaces the 2.13GHz SSD model a "waste". It would actually be powerful enough for the vast majority of consumers (gamers and video editors obviously excluded). My motto is that as long as a computer is powerful enough to play 1080p video without dropping frames, chances are it will do everything else you want it to do.
Do you need more though? With pretty much everything being wireless now (keyboards, mice, printers, scanners, music via AirTunes etc), other than an external hard drive (which could actually be wireless if you're just using it for backups etc), a digital camera or an iPod/iPhone, I can't think of anything else I'd actually want to plug into my MacBook Air. In fact, I'd rather see an SD card slot than a second USB port (as I pretty much never use the one I have and would rather just plug in a USB hub instead of wasting time plugging in multiple cables). Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see USB3 and would hate to loose the one port we have, but I certainly don't see the need for more.