This is incorrect; these CPUs support up to 32GB of DDR4 or 16GB of LPDDR3 per Intel’s datasheet.
This report seems suspect to me; I’m not convinced Apple would go quad core on a $999 Air replacement.
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Apple's Rumored MacBook Air Successor Said to Use Intel's Kaby Lake Refresh Processors
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This is incorrect; these CPUs support up to 32GB of DDR4 or 16GB of LPDDR3 per Intel’s datasheet.
This report seems suspect to me; I’m not convinced Apple would go quad core on a $999 Air replacement.
MacRumors readers here should stop thinking about what "they" want, but more about what "Apple" wants... Apple is best at positioning Macs from low-end to high-end with relevant prices for the markets targeted. Marketing 101 and Business 101.
Based on that, the MacBook Air as we know will soon be dead like the old MacBook Pro with DVD-drive before which, if you remember, stayed lonely on Apple's price list for a long time without any update before vanishing a couple years back without anyone complaining. The same will happen in due time of the MacBook Air, get over it!
The MacBook at the low-end and the quad- and 6-coreMacBook Pro 13/15 with Touch Bar at the high-end are the future. It is entirely conceivable that Apple would then break the MacBook product line into low-end (dual-core m3/i5) priced at $1,099 with 128GB storage ($999 Education) and with the next release of Intel processors, a MacBook with a faster clock at $1,499 256GB SSD replacing the current MacBook Pro without Touchbar.
It doesn't have to happen this September, but next year makes sense. I you love the MacBook Air, get it now while it lasts!
Based on that, the MacBook Air as we know will soon be dead like the old MacBook Pro with DVD-drive before which, if you remember, stayed lonely on Apple's price list for a long time without any update before vanishing a couple years back without anyone complaining. The same will happen in due time of the MacBook Air, get over it!
The MacBook at the low-end and the quad- and 6-coreMacBook Pro 13/15 with Touch Bar at the high-end are the future. It is entirely conceivable that Apple would then break the MacBook product line into low-end (dual-core m3/i5) priced at $1,099 with 128GB storage ($999 Education) and with the next release of Intel processors, a MacBook with a faster clock at $1,499 256GB SSD replacing the current MacBook Pro without Touchbar.
It doesn't have to happen this September, but next year makes sense. I you love the MacBook Air, get it now while it lasts!
The MBA has a fan to cool the more powerfull processor; the MacBook is fanless so can't cool chips that produce heat that require active cooling.
I'm thinking it'll be a non true tone display, just bare bones retina. no tb3, but usb c.
thicker, heavier, which is totally fine with me.
thicker, heavier, which is totally fine with me.
There's not really an excuse to not include TB3 as a lot of MBA users want to connect to external displays and so on. I'm guessing it will just have 1 TB3 port in the usual Apple compromise between functionality and sanity. Or just have 2 ports like the non Touch Bar MBP.
What Apple should really do slim down the non Touch Bar MacBook Pro, call it the new Air successor and be done with it, or make a slightly more practical version of the 12" MacBook with a 13" display and be done with it. The solution to the Air successor is staring us in the face.
The old and the new side by side. Lets be honest here all that the MacBook Air needs is thinner bezels and a Retina display. Retain Thunderbolt 2, USB 3.0 (perhaps add USB-C as well). Retain MagSafe. Retain scissor mechanism keyboard. Now that can't be all that difficult can it Apple?
So maybe the plan is to replace not only MBA but also MBP Non-Touchbar which is good from consumer perspective. I paid about $2000 for 15" MBP in 2008 and current prices for MBP 15" are totally insane. Now there will a be reasonable alternative assuming that refreshed MBA will get Retina IPS display and 4 cores CPU (in some ways Kaby Lake R chips are better than Coffee Lake ) and Apple will not cut some important features 
I hope that they will drop Touchbar so power consumption will be significantly reduced together with Kaby Lake R chip (even if the enclosure will be smaller battery time can be satisfied comparing to MBP 13"). In some ways this product can be even better than current MBP 13" Mid 2018. Regarding keyboard possibly Apple will change it to make it thin. I am sure that marketing manager are sure that if they leave current MBA keyboard people will choose it over MBP 13" so the trick is to make it worse eg. offer maximum capacity of SSD just up to 256GB and/or use a slower chips and/or max capacity of RAM up to 8GB (because it is a low cost machine). With 16GB and 512GB, Retina and classic keyboard this machine could cannibalize MBP 13" Mid 2018 because people have enough of trivial keyboard problems and replacements.
I hope that they will drop Touchbar so power consumption will be significantly reduced together with Kaby Lake R chip (even if the enclosure will be smaller battery time can be satisfied comparing to MBP 13"). In some ways this product can be even better than current MBP 13" Mid 2018. Regarding keyboard possibly Apple will change it to make it thin. I am sure that marketing manager are sure that if they leave current MBA keyboard people will choose it over MBP 13" so the trick is to make it worse eg. offer maximum capacity of SSD just up to 256GB and/or use a slower chips and/or max capacity of RAM up to 8GB (because it is a low cost machine). With 16GB and 512GB, Retina and classic keyboard this machine could cannibalize MBP 13" Mid 2018 because people have enough of trivial keyboard problems and replacements.
I concur. I would be even willing to spend more money on a MacBook that doesn’t have that god awful butterfly keyboard.
Apple never implemented subpixel AA on the GPU, which means Core Animation-backed views never got it. If you render the view on the GPU, all the alpha blending has to take place there as well, which becomes hard if you want to factor in subpixels (there are prototypes of doing subpixel AA on the CPU, but no OS vendor seems to have done it). On iOS, all views have been CA from day one, so it never had subpixel AA.
On the Mac, CA was introduced as an optional feature, with views in many cases still defaulting to being rendered on the CPU.
In Mojave, this changes; most views get CA-Backes automatically. Thus, no subpixel AA for them.
With Retina screens, it becomes less relevant, but the same can be argued for any AA at all — at some point, pixel density is high enough that it’s a pointless exercise.
For now, it’s a bit problematic since 1) there’s the MBA still, and 2) many people like me attach external non-Retina screens.
Really agree - with one caveat!
Launching this new machine as the new MB then makes it the equivalent to the iPad i.e. it’s the cheapest Apple product that you can buy in that range which is great for most people.
Similarly, it’s going to make a lot of sense if this year’s LCD iPhone is simply called ‘iPhone’.
However, since the Air is such a popular computer, it just might make sense to call it just that - and leave the unadorned MB name ready for when they launch machines with A series chips.
Talking of the MB...
I expect the current 12 inch MBs to disappear if the new MB is fan-less.
I expect Apple to intro this computer as the new MB and MBA successor which brings the best of the 12 inch MB (weight, size, fanless interior, retina screen) with the MBA (price!).
Hence the (pretty expensive) current MB is superfluous to requirements. The 10 nm chips that this was obviously intended to house haven’t arrived yet & I doubt that the casing has room to redesign that problematic keyboard, anyway.
So bye bye 12 inch MB - it was nice knowing you, but alas, you never lived up to your potential.
As a footnote, I think we’ll be getting:
- the same screen as the current MB
- x2 USB-C
- 128 GB SSD & 8 GB RAM (entry level)
- new case that’s reminiscent of the wedge shaped Air
- escape key MBP discontinued (this new computer will fill the gap) leaving a clear pricing chasm between the consumer & Pro Macs.
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I wonder if they’ll somehow include the 15w U processor without a fan?
15w without a fan is not possible. Nothing over 5w can be fanless.[/QUOTE]
I guess then this computer will be getting a fan.
Knowing that, it makes more sense why the ESC MBP wasn't updated - this computer will be its replacement & it'll have 15w processor with a fan and be a machine aimed at light productivity, mobility - and long battery life.
This then tips it to still being called an Air.
I still wonder where this leaves the MB, which increasingly looks like an incredibly niche product if we're about to get an Air successor with great battery life and (presumably) a retina screen.
Some Surface Pro configurations use a 15W CPU without a fan, but it’s not quite clear if they are cTDP down.
It must be great to bow down to every board room decision that Apple make without question. Fact is there was plenty of complaints when the non Retina unibody MacBook Pro was discontinued. It was the last Mac to include a Superdrive. It was the last Mac that was entirely user serviceable. It had properly laid out scissor mechanism keyboard. It had USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt 2. It had MagSafe. It had adequate ventilation. It was a workhorse.
But like the 17" MacBook Pro it was discontinued in favour of producing fashion accessory Handbag Macs and the discontinuation of the MacBook Air will signal the end of all traditional Macs and make way for all the modern pseudo offerings where thinness is more important than longevity. Where everything is soldered. Where you no longer have any control over your machine. Apple are no longer producing Macs for the user but are now producing Macs for the shareholder. SAD
I think it's easiest to think about Apple's laptop lineup in terms of Intel's mobile processor TDPs, at least while Apple still uses Intel across the board for MacOS. Apple doesn't tend to use cTDP up or down models, which is sensible as the standard TDP tends to have the best performance/watt trade off across Intel's range. So what does Intel offer in mobile?
[5W] - [15W] - [28W] - [45W].
Corresponding Apple line up:
[MB] - [MBA and MBPEsc] - [MBP13] - [MBP15]
Now what machines need updating and where is there unnecessary product overlap? It's clearly in the 15W space. What's missing? A 15W 8th Gen Intel processor with decent integrated graphics. I expect that that product space will be completely replaced once a suitable processor drops.
I don't know how successful the current MacBook is. If it isn't, maybe they'll discontinue it at the same time and have the range start at 15W. If something sells, Apple tends to keep it around even if it doesn't quite make for a neat lineup. This isn't Steve's days who'd kill a product on general principle.
[5W] - [15W] - [28W] - [45W].
Corresponding Apple line up:
[MB] - [MBA and MBPEsc] - [MBP13] - [MBP15]
Now what machines need updating and where is there unnecessary product overlap? It's clearly in the 15W space. What's missing? A 15W 8th Gen Intel processor with decent integrated graphics. I expect that that product space will be completely replaced once a suitable processor drops.
I don't know how successful the current MacBook is. If it isn't, maybe they'll discontinue it at the same time and have the range start at 15W. If something sells, Apple tends to keep it around even if it doesn't quite make for a neat lineup. This isn't Steve's days who'd kill a product on general principle.
I guess you need to go Windows or Linux. Or build a hackintosh.
Or just keep using my older Macs and not be forced in to the modern Apple world of planned obsolesce.
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Thing about the Y series is if you provide it a U-series's cooling, it acts like a U series, the silicon is virutally identical but for the TDP setting. Similarly a U series can be TDP-down'ed to 7W, and act every bit the Y series.
So just to throw the possibility out there, an actively cooled Macbook Budget with a Y series would still act as a U series on processor performance, especially as Apple has long removed any TDP caps and just let things run within their thermal constrains.
Just a possibility if the 15W chips with the combination of parts they want isn't out yet. Granted I think it's most often the reverse with the Y being refreshed later.
Nah,
USB-C is doing fine and is starting to become more used. The problem is for people who expected it to be a clean cut-over and went into devices that only had USB-C options. These people are going to be dissapointed by the pace in which USB-C is being adopted because, like other similar migrations of USB tech and ports, there is a time where both are going to be needed. And this timeframe isn't measured in weeks/months but years, and sometimes in some tech cases, decades.
USB-C is a better tech than USB-A port. However, just because Apple WENT all in, doesn't mean everyone else can cut over one day. But they're starting to slowly take off. One of the compelling reasons for my current laptop was that it featured USB-C(thunderbolt) AND USB-A to bridge me.
I still use a Firewire 800 external drive coupled to my mid 2011 iMac for Time Machine backups. The read/write speeds are more than acceptable.
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