Apple Says 11-Inch MacBook Air and Two Other Macs Are Now Obsolete

[Plutonius]

Obsolete just means they won’t provide any hardware support to it, it says nothing about software support.
Apple has continued providing software to machines they have marked as obsolete before, and they have done the opposite, discontinuing software before the obsolete classification.

As a customer, I agree with you.

From Apples standpoint, it helps drives sales of new products.

 

[RumorConsumer]

How are they going to deal with the M-series chips in this manner. A 7 year old Intel laptop is truly obsolete. A 7 year old M1 Max MacBook Pro I dont think is going to be anywhere close.

 

[winxmac]

Apple gone mad with installing lots of cameras on iPhone.

Just look:
1. Ultrawide that serves as computational crop macro now. Quality worse than 10 years old GoPro, I mean why include that camera if it cannot compete with GoPro or other wide-angle action cameras?
2. 24mm lens that makes it a challenge to frame something easy, and portrait photos of people if done too close can look weird;
3. 120mm zoom is nice.

If I was Apple I would have left only two cameras - telephoto and wide, and changed wide from 24 to 33 or 35mm for better framing and less of digital zoom/crop “void” between two lenses. Ultrawide must go, honestly

Telephoto and Wide:

• iPhone 7 Plus
• iPhone 8 Plus
• iPhone X
• iPhone XS
• iPhone XS Max

iPhone 4s was the last to use 35mm

 

[chrono1081]

there was a 11 inch mba ??

Yep and it was amazing! I didn't realize it lasted until 2015 though, I thought it died much earlier. It was a great travel machine for those who needed something small and portable for internet, email, and documents.

 

[Apple_Robert]

I still have my 11" MBA in near mint condition with 85%+ battery health.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

"obsolete" is one thing but unusable is quite another. These devices can easily go for 12 years or more

Absolutely, completely agree; I can attest to the longevity and durability of this superb design.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Yep and it was amazing! I didn't realize it lasted until 2015 though, I thought it died much earlier. It was a great travel machine for those who needed something small and portable for internet, email, and documents.

I still have my 11" MBA in near mint condition with 85%+ battery health.

A superb machine and design.

 

[Corefile]

Honestly I kinda don’t understand how people liked 11’ MacBook Air. I can’t see stuff on my 13’! And 15’ came much later after I bought 13’. Imo the only adequate form-factor for laptop displays is 15-16’, and 17’ is ideal. Those were great days when Apple had MacBook Pro 17’, and it had awesome square-ish display, you could see everything on it.

I get the idea of portability but probably the iPad is enough nowadays for most things. Can’t imagine how editing photos was like on it or watching movies

Definitely the portability aspect is where they win out. An iPad isn't a real computer experience so no use for much for most.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Definitely the portability aspect is where they win out. An iPad isn't a real computer experience so no use for much for most.

Agreed.

An iPad - to my mind - is probably very good for consuming content, but is a lot less good for creating content, especially if the content being created involves quite a lot of writing.

 

[Apple_Robert]

A superb machine and design.

Absolutely. I would definitely buy a revised model today. I am also keeping my eye on the rumored new 13" model coming late this year or early next year.

 

[lostPod]

11" Macbook Air was my favorite .. wish they would bring that back .. or the 12" macbook

 

[uacd]

No, it is not.

Not for those of us who like to write with a fully functional, tactile keyboard.

Personally, I loathe, loathe, loathe, detest, abominate touch screen keyboards; for writing, nothing beats the feel and function of a proper keyboard, with decent tactile sensation and proper travel on the keys.

In any case, I cannot abide the iPad, and deeply dislike the iPhone

Totally makes sense. Didn’t think about that scenario at first. I guess as the typewriter this machine is perfect!

Anyway, it doesn’t matter whether Apple says it is obsolete or not, if it still works - it is good. Especially considering even if macOS fails and no longer serves needs, it is not an issue to load Windows on it thanks to Intel processor.

Typing on real keyboard is indeed different experience, as well as the apps seem to be much more advanced than on iPad. And also iPad is kinda too sandboxed: you can’t install Windows on it, so when iOS no longer updates, Safari stops opening webpages over time and that’s basically the end of effective life.

If Apple brings this 11 Inch MacBook back it would be nice, they can make it fanless just as M-series Airs.

I mostly prefer iPads to small laptops only in terms of content consumption: you can lie on the couch and blind yourself with that slate😃 Not healthy for sure but nice to watch movies or scroll websites like MR

 

[Happy_John]

11-inch MacBook Air was the perfect form factor. they need to bring that back.

Would you rather a smaller form factor and the 11” screen, or the keyboard to stay the same size and have a bigger screen?

A smaller keyboard would be a problem for, but with same size, it wouldn’t be distinct enough from the current 13” MBA ….

 

[wilderkun]

I loved mine so much. I used it in combination with a Mac Pro, so I didn’t need much processing power. Perfect size screen and keyboard for working on college papers!

 

[thecivvie]

My 11" MBA travelled with me 5 times to Russia, Mongolia and god knows where else on a motorcycle. Was dropped and broke the USB port on the left hand side and is still in daily use. I replaced it this year with an M4 Air. I still struggle with the bigger size

 

[thecivvie]

Would you rather a smaller form factor and the 11” screen, or the keyboard to stay the same size and have a bigger screen?

A smaller keyboard would be a problem for, but with same size, it wouldn’t be distinct enough from the current 13” MBA ….

Personally would prefer the small form factor, my 13" M4 Air is too big

 

[Raoul Pérez]

what about the MacBook Pro 15-inches I bought on January 30, 2018, in France, but which was the 2015 model with the old keyboard, before all the troubles you got with the new flat keyboard?

 

[TVreporter]

Loved my 8-plus and I’d probably still use it if I didn’t obliterate the screen on a drop on a hot day. Held out as long as I could and regretfully got the 15 which Tim neglected the second it was released.

 

[jent]

Nothing to say other than that I had an 11" MacBook Air (I think from 2010) and I loved it. Back in a time when most manufacturers were making clunky netbooks (yes, a laptop-esque product that was the worst of both worlds, was so popular it got its own word, and failed so bad no one remembers the term anymore), the small Air really had it figured out. It was my daily driver through to 2020!

 

[Astuces iOS]

11-inch MacBook Air was the perfect form factor. they need to bring that back.

iPad is there my friend…

 

[Astuces iOS]

That iPhone 8 Plus looks so clean. Makes you realise how ugly those camera arrays really are on the current iPhones.

Bring back the SE team !! 👇

 

[Scepticalscribe]

iPad is there my friend…

Not as a replacement for the 11" or 12" MBA.

 

[germanbeer007]

Would you rather a smaller form factor and the 11” screen, or the keyboard to stay the same size and have a bigger screen?

A smaller keyboard would be a problem for, but with same size, it wouldn’t be distinct enough from the current 13” MBA ….

I don't recall having problems with the 11" screen + keyboard.

 

[germanbeer007]

iPad is there my friend…

that's hilarious.

 

[Agent007]

there was a 11 inch mba ??

aka Bezel City. It was like a 12.5" laptop with an 11" screen.