Apple silicon 12" macbook air - is there any chance for: 1. 5G connection 2. Face ID? 3. Fanless design

[KensaiMage]

As the topic says. Are there any leaks/infos? What do you think?

 

[cmaier]

since the rumor was 12” MB, not MBA, fanless seems like a given (the old MB was also fanless, and apple silicone is much cooler than intel’s garbage).

as for faceid, who knows. Touch ID works pretty well, and you‘d still have to touch something to authenticate after initial authentication (i.e. for purchases or whatever), so not as much benefit on a mac as on a phone.

5G? Again, maybe. It’s certainly been lacking, and it would seem a bit weird if you could get 5G on an ipad but not on a MB running with essentially the same architecture but costing more.

 

[ascender]

I really hope FaceID comes to the new laptops because its utterly brilliant on an iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard. You don't have to touch anything for the majority of interactions so authentication becomes utterly seamless.

Cellular would be good, as would ProMotion screens - I've said for some time that feature parity with the iPad Pros should be a minimum benchmark.

 

[Andropov]

The problem with FaceID on laptops is that the lids are too thin to house the FaceID hardware (same reason the webcam is so bad on most laptops). That won't change with Apple Silicon, though they may have found a way around those limitations.

 

[ascender]

The problem with FaceID on laptops is that the lids are too thin to house the FaceID hardware (same reason the webcam is so bad on most laptops). That won't change with Apple Silicon, though they may have found a way around those limitations.

Yip, but given the current webcams in MacBooks are rubbish and the screens are insanely thin, I’m wondering if they’ll change things up a bit to accommodate FaceID and touch?

 

[ghanwani]

Since there is no info, it would be good if this were a poll for everyone to guess. And then we can see if everyone was right.

My guesses:

1. No
2. No
3. Yes

 

[Cookie18]

5G is anyone’s guess. I haven’t seen any rumours of it and I personally doubt it would happen, at least with first gen ARM Macs.

Face ID is almost guaranteed not to happen in the 12” MB. It is the lightest and most portable laptop Apple has made, it’s unlikely they’d be willing to make it thicker just to add Face ID when they could add Touch ID instead. I think iMacs will be the first and possibly only ones to get Face ID.

I think it will absolutely be a fanless design. There’s no way they release a MacBook with a fan. If it’s a MacBook Air it is debatable.

 

[dmccloud]

The fanless design is a given. The other two items (5G and FaceID) are most likely pipe dreams. Apple will roll out 5G in their iPhones (and possibly iPads) first, and only then would it even be considered as a potential option on notebooks. Even on the Windows side, the market for LTE/5G enabled notebooks just isn't there to warrant widespread development and production. That's one of the reasons (besides the horrible QC issues) that led Lenovo to pull their C630 from the market entirely. Rumor is that Microsoft will announce a Surface Pro X2 as early as next week, with a new SQ2 (Rebranded Qualcomm) processor inside, but I haven't seen any analysts who think Microsoft is selling those in significant quantities, and I don't think a refresh will change that much.