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

Astuces iOS said:
I replied to him + iPad keyboard is very good… I use everyday
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Each to their own.

Personally, I prefer a proper (full sized, fully functional, computer) keyboard, complete with tactile sensation and decent travel on the keys.

Around a decade ago, - in addition to my brilliant 11" MBA, I did invest in an iPad, and a keyboard to accompany it, yet never enjoyed using it at all; my brother was happy to receive it from me.
 
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I really miss the little form factor full window-style notebook. At work, I keep one around even Apple and many software developers dropped support years ago.
 
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Scepticalscribe said:
Each to their own.

Personally, I prefer a proper (full sized, fully functional, computer) keyboard, complete with tactile sensation and decent travel on the keys.

Around a decade ago, - in addition to my brilliant 11" MBA, I did invest in an iPad, and a keyboard to accompany it, yet never enjoyed using it at all; my brother was happy to receive it from me.
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I have the 11 inch iPad Pro and the magic keyboard along with a 14 inch MacBook Pro.
The magic keyboard for the iPad Pro and the keyboard in the MacBook Pro are absolutely identical, other than key size.
Identical sensation, identical mechanism, identical texture, identical everything. It is the exact same keyboard.
iPads are not MacBooks for many many reasons, but the “I don’t want to type on glass” argument has never been a serious one.
Steve Jobs literally introduced a keyboard accessory alongside the original first generation iPad, and either Apple or third-party companies have provided dozens of keyboard options since then.
Totally understandable why some might prefer a Mac over an iPad, but “don’t want to type on glass” isn’t really one of them.
Especially since, if rumors are to be believed, future MacBooks may be more like massive folding iPads than traditional laptops.
With all that being said, the software difference between iPad and Mac is still a pretty wide gap.
 
Lounge vibes 05 said:
I have the 11 inch iPad Pro and the magic keyboard along with a 14 inch MacBook Pro.
The magic keyboard for the iPad Pro and the keyboard in the MacBook Pro are absolutely identical, other than key size.
Identical sensation, identical mechanism, identical texture, identical everything. It is the exact same keyboard.
iPads are not MacBooks for many many reasons, but the “I don’t want to type on glass” argument has never been a serious one.
Steve Jobs literally introduced a keyboard accessory alongside the original first generation iPad, and either Apple or third-party companies have provided dozens of keyboard options since then.
Totally understandable why some might prefer a Mac over an iPad, but “don’t want to type on glass” isn’t really one of them.
Especially since, if rumors are to be believed, future MacBooks may be more like massive folding iPads than traditional laptops.
With all that being said, the software difference between iPad and Mac is still a pretty wide gap.
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Well, let's simply agree to differ.

In any case, while you may attempt to assert that the "Don't want to type on glass" is not a "serious" argument, - as it happens, it is a very serious argument for me, and is one of the main reasons I detest iPads.

I loathe iPhones and any other device designed in such a manner.

That it is popular, widely used, and may become even more extensive (the argument that future MacBooks may also feature this regrettable design) in the future, do not sway me.

The thing is, when I buy a computer, what I have in mind is something that meets my needs, and answers to my preferences; while I do like Apple, this is now a lot less pronounced than it was, as I am neither wedded to the company, nor an evangelist about their products.
 
Most of the pre-Retina MBAs had horrendous quality screens (in terms of viewing angles, colour profile, etc) and this was noticeable even at the time. Otherwise they were a legendarily nice design.
 
MacRumors said:
macbook-air-11-inch-apple-website.jpg
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I can practically feel the heat radiating off this photo... 😁
 
Once my 2017 AMD iMac can't run the latest macOS release via OpenCore… will be doing what a lot of developers are these days and looking at the new Omarchy Linux distribution by DHH…

Will be an interesting time, I just wish there was an easier way to convert this into a plain old Cinema Display.

I think you can plug in thunderbolt for low-latency Remote Desktop to a newer laptop, but sadly not with full resolution (and who knows how long it will keep working with my setup…)
 
WestonHarvey1 said:
My 11" MBA was always a real dog. It was only 2GB though.
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Mine was (is) a CTO (512 SSD, 8 GB, i5) and, as I have already written, the best computer I have ever owned by far.

It travelled the world with me (still does), and - apart from a battery (and keyboard, on account of the need to replace a swollen battery) replacement three years ago - it has never given me any trouble whatsoever.

A wonderful machine. Love it to bits.
 
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For what it's worth - I got a new battery for a 2011 MacBook Air (13"), installed Linux Mint on it, and it works like an absolute charm. Mint is friendly and runs great.

For anyone who wants to keep using one of these old Macs (or wants to buy one cheap on eBay), it makes for a great inexpensive lightweight ultrabook to bring on the road and do some writing (for example).
 
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germanbeer007 said:
11-inch MacBook Air was the perfect form factor. they need to bring that back.
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I still have my 2012 11" i7 Macbook Air(though I rarely use it now). Just replaced the battery this year.

Probably one of the best purchases I've made but being pedantic the one main achilles heel I think is the 16:9 aspect ratio which is very unlike Apple and it would be better with a 16:10 and I would agree with the other users who said the 12" Macbook was an improvement.
 
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WestonHarvey1 said:
My 11" MBA was always a real dog. It was only 2GB though.
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Sounds like you had a 2010 model with a Core Duo 2 given that you mention you had 2 GB of ram.

Yeah thats a bad config because 1-2 years later was the major improvement with the i series intel Sandy/Ivy bridge and those were twice as fast in single core and around three times in multi core performance. Worlds difference. Like I mentioned earlier I have a 2012 11" Air with a i7 and 8gb ram and I can still use it even today for light web browsing.
 
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Happy_John said:
On the plus side, this implies that it won't be impossible to have the equivalent of OPLC for M1 Macs to run versions of MacOS that no longer officially support M1 Macs.
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"The equivalent of the One Laptop Per Child" device has been taken over by sub-$100 Android tablets with sub-$20 Bluetooth keyboards.
 
uacd said:
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.

UPD: didn’t try to offend anyone, sorry. I just meant that MacBooks don’t have a good UI scalability, especially after transitioning to hiDPI Retina displays. 11 inch MacBook indeed had its user base and very specific use cases. To me it had few disadvantages such as fan and lower processing power.

If Apple was to make it again it would have been a good machine to watch movies on. Imagine: fanless and with A processor or older M series one. Maybe that’s exactly what are they after
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Some people have working eyes, and about half of those are probably female with handbags that the 11" fits into but the 13" does not.

Had this discussion with my ex way back when the 11" air first came out. The 13" was way better on paper but she had no interest as it wouldn't fit in her bag(s).
 
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now i see it said:
"obsolete" is one thing but unusable is quite another. These devices can easily go for 12 years or more
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I had a 12 inch Powerbook G4. Anyone else remember those? Then I had a dell mini 10 inch netbook hacked and running mac OS. Wasnt great but the powerbook was something in the range of 5LBs and when I was in grad school, I had a single Textbook that was 1,000 pages and weighed 8LBs. That wasn't the only book I needed to have with me so the netbook did the job I needed it to do. Wrote part of my masters thesis on that and part of it on my first generation iPad. In 2015, I was preparing to have spinal surgery and went to look at the macbook. It looked amazing but was extremely underpowered so I maxed out an 11 inch macbook air and it served me well for several years until I started having to attend classes virtually and needed something with a bit more umph to it. Btw, also had a 2007 maxed out 24 inch iMac which served me well until 2020 when I bought a fairly high end 27 inch iMac that was a workhorse. When I could no longer use the imac from 2007, a friend took it and installed linux on it so his younger daughter could play minecraft with her friends during lockdown. As far as I know, it is still in use. that 2020 iMac was great but so damn noisy which doesn't work when you are trying to make decent music recordings. At that point, got the M1 mac studio after having purchased my M1 13 inch MacBook Air which ran rings around the intel iMac. Last year, I traded the studio in for the M4 mac mini and then this year with my eyesight getting worse, traded in the M1 macbook air for a 15 inch m4 macbook air that I absolutely love because I don't need to put it 6 inches from my face to see what is on the page. These are what I will stick with for at least another 5 years, or I will hand them down to my daughter once school isn't forcing her to use a pretty crappy chromebook.
 
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