I still think the analysts haven’t twigged it’s going to run iPadOS.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple's Cheap MacBook: What to Expect in 2026
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
They can make it thicker just to make it more rugged to cope with kids.
You didn’t answer the question. WHY do you think the iPad should run macOS? Don’t just say “why not”, there is a specific reason as to why you think it should. What is the technical reason you’re referring to?
Not at all, a lot of people here are under the impression that: chip = product, and that is simply not the case. The chips have a ton of overlap across different products.
Yes the form factor is one of them, the function is the major one, the operating system is another one. Damn near all of Apple’s main product lines are essentially computers, but what differentiates them are those things I just listed. A MacBook with an A18 Pro chip instead of an M4 chip inside doesn’t all of a sudden make it “an iPhone”. That’s absolutely ridiculous.
iPads run iPadOS, this is a MacBook. Why on earth would it run iPadOS? That makes zero sense and there’s zero things about this that would lead someone to think that.
While a lot of people would love that I suspect it's going to be near identical if not identical to the existing Air. Tim Cook is a supply chain crazy, the reason this is likely coming out is to capitalise on education and use up some old A series chips.
I would not be surprised if they just throw these into the existing air chassis to cut down on cost.
It’s simpler than that. It won’t be 12-inch because that form factor was a flop. That size was only designed to compete with netbooks and that era is long gone. People want big displays and touchpads these days.
This is same as how some people hoped the next iPhone SE would be based on the iPhone mini. Why would Apple take a flop and build a new product around it?
That would only mean 1, maybe 2, more OS releases for the M1 MBA?
This comment is completely missing the mark. Context is very important and you just removed all of it. The form factor wasn’t a flop, everyone absolutely loved the form factor, it was everything else about it that made it fail. The 12” MacBook was a flop because it was more expensive than the MacBook Air at the time and the MacBook Air had better specs, so it was extremely hard to justify. Plus the intel chip that was inside of it was horrible and it would overheat like crazy. Also the world hadn’t adapted to USB C yet. Literally all of those issues would be resolved today with Apple Silicon and it could be extremely cheap, all of the R&D is done. But the point is, people absolutely loved the design, it’s still to this day the most satisfying laptop to hold. People wanted to be able to use it but unfortunately it was doomed from the start.
Also netbooks died off many years prior to the 12” MacBook, so it had nothing to do with that market. Apple was just innovating and making something as thin as they could, but it was ahead of its time. But time has now caught up and honestly it would be a perfect time to bring it back, but as much as I would love for that to happen I’m not expecting it to. I think it has a better chance reusing the chassis from the M1 MacBook Air, which would be super disappointing. The 12” MacBook would be perfect.
Never ever.
Plastic contradicts Apple's requirements for the material; it has significantly poorer thermal conductivity than aluminium and, at the same material thickness, significantly lower stability.
If they use plastic instead of aluminium to save $20, they're lost!
Why not sell a 2 gen old chip with a 25% discount
I had a m2 air for it for $700 at Best Buy 2 years ago. Just traded it in for a m4 for $750 as they proved match Amazon with $450 trade in for the old one.
Do what they do with the iPhone sell the older model or a se model that basically a 1-2 year old phone.
Next year a m5 or m6 air comes out sell the m3/4 for $699. When Best Buy/amazon discount it might be under $500
Cheaper than that doubt apple will go.
I had a m2 air for it for $700 at Best Buy 2 years ago. Just traded it in for a m4 for $750 as they proved match Amazon with $450 trade in for the old one.
Do what they do with the iPhone sell the older model or a se model that basically a 1-2 year old phone.
Next year a m5 or m6 air comes out sell the m3/4 for $699. When Best Buy/amazon discount it might be under $500
Cheaper than that doubt apple will go.
Whatever the base iPads are made of is what this will be made of, with the same colours. Kuo keeps mentioning silver, blue, pink, yellow – that’s the base iPad colours.
I was wondering if they might put the cheap £300 iPad in a £100 keyboard case, price it at £600, and say - “there’s your budget MacBook”.
They’d also claim to appease the fan base by saying “You wanted the iPad to run the same OS as your MacBook? Well - now it does!”
Of course the iPad Pro/Air can run Mac OS, but iPad OS was designed for this form factor and preferred by most people and keeps getting better.
So you know that for sure? How? There are no 12" laptops on the market, so there's no way to know. The MacBook was definitely not a flop because of its form factor; it was due to flaws such as the weak Intel processors and the keyboard.
If people only want large screens, there shouldn't be any 11‘ or even 8’ iPads.
A MacBook the size of the old 12" MacBook with powerful Apple SOCs will fly off the shelves. The keyboard will be the same size as on all other MacBooks, as has been the case since Steve Jobs.
It would be the perfect device with MacOS to take with you on all occasions.
I had actually 2 Macbooks 12 inch. They so compact, that with a Macbook 12 inch in the bag you'd think you left one at home - it was that much mobile, slim and light. While everybody hates butterfly keyboards, I have had not a single problem with them. CPU was a bit weak (don't mention GPU) and it was the main reason of failure IMHO along with the high price. This time Apple corrects or is going to correct both mistakes so I'd expect it to sell reasonably well. It was slow and expensive though very compact, generally Apple's Vaio and it failed due to similar reasons as Vaio did.
Yeah I still have my 2017 12” MacBook, I bought it cheap used many years later, but same with me, the butterfly keyboard has given me zero problems. I absolutely love this laptop and would love to have a modern version of macOS on it, especially with something as powerful as the A18 Pro inside.
I can’t wait to see how they backtrack on ‘there will be no touch in Macs’ if those rumours are correct. (Maybe this will be the first touchscreen Mac? Probably not at $699…)
I broke four butterfly keyboards in MBP 2017s in three weeks, the E key always went first. That’s how I ended up with a hackintoshed Lenovo, I just couldn’t keep replacing MBPs every 5-6 days.
But my 2016 rMB was perfectly fine until I sold it last year for surprisingly nice money. Typing on it after the M1 Air was painful, my fingers smashing a plank, but apart from needing to use canned air twice it has never caused me problems. Still miss the size and weight of it. It’s strange that it hasn’t been revived yet.MacOS on iPads would certainly hurt MacBook sales. Touch on the MacBook, however, would in no way hurt iPad sales.
Touch on MacBooks will be an expensive optional extra; it's not really useful.
Apple does not like to cut profits, undercutting the price of MBA would do just that. Therefore, I hope this a sign Apple intends to improve MBA by giving it more ports such as SD Card and HDMI to make the device compatible in more environments and situations, and improve interoperability with MBP. So more "professionals" can choose to own a thin device and still have at least some kind of realistic port selection—if they don't need so much sheer power—a teacher, corporate worker or conference attendee still needs ports, just in case. If this happens, Apple would raise the price of MBA a bit and shoehorn this new MacBook in at $900-$999. Yes, Apple would have found a way a to raise some prices. Welcome to Apple.
Last edited: