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Apple's Ultra-Slim 12-Inch Notebook Rumored to Gain USB Type C and Fanless Internals

darkslide29 said:
Funny because yesterday I was thinking an iPhone 6 with an iPad Air. Then this morning I wanted an iPhone 6+ with NO iPad (but maybe a watch so I don't have to constantly remove a large phone from my pocket).
Now I want just as you said, a 6+ and a 12" air! lol.

This is going to sound silly but I liked when Apple really just had one of everything and it was easy to buy. You had an iPhone an iPad and a MacBook. Done.
I'm not saying choice is bad, but now I need to deal with choosing between different size iPhones, different size iPads, and different tiers of MacBooks. I have no idea which combo works best for me. :rolleyes:
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Yeh, I sold my iPad Air in favour of an iPhone 6+ should be able to live with the slightly smaller screen :rolleyes: then I will be selling my rMBP for the new 12" air (if it ever comes into existence)
 
darkslide29 said:
Funny because yesterday I was thinking an iPhone 6 with an iPad Air. Then this morning I wanted an iPhone 6+ with NO iPad (but maybe a watch so I don't have to constantly remove a large phone from my pocket).
Now I want just as you said, a 6+ and a 12" air! lol.
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Some might disagree, but I'm happily living with a 13" MBA and an iPhone (iPhone 4, then iPhone 5) since a couple of good years, and I never really felt a strong urge to buy an iPad. I don't doubt that there are some situations where it would give me some extra comfort, but (to me) it's nowhere near as beneficial (let alone necessary) as a good portable computer or a good mobile phone.
 
ugru said:
Stop this thinness madness...

We need performance and battery life....not a credit card thin laptop/smartphone/tablet...
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Exactly, for the thin use case why not just get an iPad. If the only thing you do is check email, Facebook, and tweet, why do you even need a keyboard.
 
How I see it is in a year, maybe 2, the apple line-up will be as follows;

iPad Mini 7.9"
iPad 9.7"
iPad Extra 11"
MB Air 12"
MB Pro 13"
MB Pro 15"

Do away with the 11" & 13" MBAs, in favour of a retina super slim 12". Any thinner/smaller you will have to get an iPad.
 
Wouldn't it be cool to see a laptop with both Intel and ARM? The ARM processor would boot when you want low power usage and do simple things like browse the internet or watch videos, then you could switch top Intel when needed.

That way Apple gets people used to it and starts a library of apps for it without the public going crazy over app compatibility.

Considering A8 can fit in such a tiny iPhone, it would not take a lot to integrate it to be a part of a laptop
 
mrbyu said:
Some might disagree, but I'm happily living with a 13" MBA and an iPhone (iPhone 4, then iPhone 5) since a couple of good years, and I never really felt a strong urge to buy an iPad. I don't doubt that there are some situations where it would give me some extra comfort, but (to me) it's nowhere near as beneficial (let alone necessary) as a good portable computer or a good mobile phone.
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Thanks for your input. I am beginning to lean toward this direction as well.
 
Hmm... Maybe I'm just trying to rationalize my recent (approx 1 year ago) MBA purchase, but I'm unconvinced by the awesomeness of this.

Thinner? Meh, really not an issue at this point. Fanless? Ok sure. Adapter requried for every USB up to this point? uhh no thanks. New way to charge? Unless this is true wireless over-the-air charging (totally awesome) then this is at best indifferent and at worst an annoyance at another charging "standard". Retina? First this article makes no mention, but even if this is true, I'm not entirely sure I'm ready to make the battery/graphical tradeoffs associated with this, especially combined with being so much thinner.


I think the new colors would make them look pretty sweet, but that's kind of the best thing to me.
 
mrbyu said:
Some might disagree, but I'm happily living with a 13" MBA and an iPhone (iPhone 4, then iPhone 5) since a couple of good years, and I never really felt a strong urge to buy an iPad. I don't doubt that there are some situations where it would give me some extra comfort, but (to me) it's nowhere near as beneficial (let alone necessary) as a good portable computer or a good mobile phone.
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Yes, since my Macbook Air, my iPad has gotten very little use. Quite happy with my 64GB 5S. Will see what the 6S is like in a year or so.
 
No standard USB port better mean that it's actually thinner than a damn USB port. A laptop without USB isn't a very useful or practical thing IMO, I'm not willing to carry around adapters for such a basic requirement. I hope they don't pull a MagSafe 2 and make it 0.5mm thinner just for the sake of it, the old magsafe fits just fine in the new MacBooks, I still don't see why they screwed with it.
 
Gain?

When I read "gain" I thought it was going to have type-C USB connectors in addition to the regular, but (to me) it reads like it's just losing regular USB (so not really gaining anything).

As a sub-complaint: Now I'm going to be dragging around adaptors for years until everything catches up. Where adding it so that we can adapt would make a little more sense for the user.

Not really gaining "fanless" either...

Gary
 
Coming from a MBA 13", I'd want something with a slightly larger screen, not smaller, as the older I get I notice how much better larger screens are for my eyes.

I can only hope that this new mystery MacBook will also be available in a 14" version - I have no need for the additional performance, weight and price (!) of a 15" MacBook Pro.
 
freemini said:
No standard USB port better mean that it's actually thinner than a damn USB port. A laptop without USB isn't a very useful or practical thing IMO, I'm not willing to carry around adapters for such a basic requirement. I hope they don't pull a MagSafe 2 and make it 0.5mm thinner just for the sake of it, the old magsafe fits just fine in the new MacBooks, I still don't see why they screwed with it.
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Dont get me wrong as I do agree with you, but if you are carrying around USB devices, wouldnt you just attach the adapters to those items you are carrying anyway?
 
Dilster3k said:
Calling it now, this will be a major hit. A retina screen in a very portable form factor... *drools*

With the A8 chip bridging the gap between our modern computer CPU's even closer, I am wondering when Apple will make the shift to the ARM platform. By doing so they won't be bound to Intel's schedule and it'll be possible to implement such things like TouchID even.
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If you want to compare low-end mobile processors, ARM will win out against Atom. Intel's translation front-end for the x86 ISA is a burden in terms of performance die area, and power.

However, once you make the leap to one of Intel's out-of-order processors, there's no comparison. The translation front-end is comparatively small and not always in the critical path for executing instructions (c.f. trace cache). Sure, a lot of hardware is dedicated to dynamically scheduling instructions, but it's a huge win for performance, especially in the face of very long last level cache miss latencies. ARMs (even the out-of-order ones) are still more energy efficient, but they just cannot compete in terms of performance.

The bottom line is that if you expect to get a notebook computer with acceptable performance to run MacOS X and typical Mac applications, an ARM processor would have woefully insufficient performance. (And since most apps are bottlenecked by serial algorithms, adding more ARM processors won't help.)

If ARM and their fabs had the same engineering and manufacturing clout as Intel, ARM cores could indeed compete with desktop Intel processors, but they'd have to be architected in a way that would make them lose most or perhaps all of their energy efficiency advantage (wide superscalar, large instruction windows, deeper pipelines, etc.).
 
In before obligatory ming chi kuo insult...

Anyway speaker grills above the keyboard stretching right to the edge... design concepts from the 12" iBook.
 
If I wanted an ultra thin device with no real USB functionality I'd buy an iPad.

Thin isn't everything.
 
Redneck1089 said:
If I wanted an ultra thin device with no real USB functionality I'd buy an iPad.

Thin isn't everything.
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This could be argued in that decreasing thickness and weight increases portability, which is why thinness is sought out. I will argue the functionality aspect with software as OSX without a standard USB port would still be more functional than iOS with USB. And Apple has been known for going "ahead of its time" or "ushering the new era" such as removing the optical drive from their macbook lines. But even so, the USB functionality will be there, youd just need adapters from Type C to standard USB. The interesting thing will be seeing how many manufacturers follow suit and make the Type C the new standard
 
I am currently working with a 2011 15inch MBP and every time I render out a movie file via After Effects and Cinema 4d, the fans deploy and it's as if I'm about to head into outer space. I can't imagine a 15 inch MBP in this design not having any fans for the amount of performance that Designers need to utilize. Good luck Apple. I'm pushing for you.
 
ugru said:
No. My first Mac was a PB G4 Titanium.

It was thin and light enough to be carried easily around....
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and the battery runtime wasn't anywhere near todays macbooks.

its possible to make them smaller, lighter and increase battery runtime at the same time.

in fact thats exactly what happens when you make a CPU smaller. it's more efficient and generates less heat.
 
maflynn said:
Fanless? Wow. I'm not quite sure, I'd be willing to take a chance on a fanless laptop. Not given Apple's track record with heat management, i.e., hot laptops.
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It wouldn't be Apple's first fanless notebook. I have one of these and it is fanless. Runs Quake quite well. It CAN be done.
 

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