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This is probably my next MacBook. I've pretty much decided that I want a lightweight MacBook for client meetings and travel, that I would only use maybe 20% of the time. The rest of the time my wife would use it to run her home business. Then I'd replace my MBP with either a high-end Retina iMac, or a Mac Pro Trashcan 2.0 with Retina Thunderbolt Display. I recognize that it may take some time for that to happen, but I'm patient enough to wait it out. My idea setup would be Mac Pro, iPad Pro, iPhone Plus, Apple Watch. So far I've only got one piece of that puzzle, lol. The iPhone Plus, for me, makes my Retina iPad Mini mostly irrelevant. Might get an iPad Air for casual use at home, as well as for drawing with Ink & Slide (which isn't my favorite on the smaller Mini) and editing family photos / sorting my library in Lightroom Mobile.
 
I still think this is the iPad Pro, but the leaks keep mistaking it for a laptop. I can't see a 3rd notebook line, nor do I see the MacBook Air going away....

I think this is the "new" Macbook Air. This single 12" model will replace both the current 11" and 13" Macbook Air and will come in Space grey, silver or gold. It's going to sell like hot cakes. Not sure if it's possible for a fanless computer to handle both an Intel CPU and a Retina display, but I will be happy to be proven wrong :D
 
The main thing I always hate about laptops in general is how they produce so much heat for such a small body and need fans running. I always feel like one is going to burn up or suck up lint. With Macs, it's less of a problem but still annoying. When you close a MacBook while it's running (like with an external monitor), its ventilation is blocked off, and it gets REALLY hot.

Meanwhile, the cheese grater behind my monitor is always super cool and quiet.
 
I really hope its not 12" or at the least thats the smallest option. My 13" Air is about my limit for small screen, i want a bigger screen on my Air. Really annoying how Apple puts the 15" on the mega money side of things. They need an entry level 15" laptop, with SSD, and non retina. My Eyes hurt if i use a 13" display all day for work or games :(
 
Calling it now, this will be a major hit. A retina screen in a very portable form factor... *drools*

Calling it now... there will be endless b*tching here over dropping ordinary USB, Thunderbolt, SD and the golden oldies of user-upgradable RAM, hard drive, ethernet port and optical drive along with renewed calls for a 17-inch MBP.

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Stop this thinness madness...

We need performance and battery life....not a credit card thin laptop/smartphone/tablet...

Who is "we" - the people who actually buy Apple's laptops or the ones who complain about Apple's laptops?
 
I still think this is the iPad Pro, but the leaks keep mistaking it for a laptop. I can't see a 3rd notebook line, nor do I see the MacBook Air going away....

I can't see Apple ever turning the iPad into a PC. This is probably just the next MacBook Air form factor.
 
Maybe this will be a 1300$ ultraportable running Yosemite, but when we really look at it, does it make sense?

They are dropping even more ports, using something other than magsafe, then there is the fanless internals.

This smells more like an ARMbook than an ultraportable. An ARM notebook running an iOS derivative and directly competing against "the average" windows notebook on price wouldn't be a bad product.

In fact, for 90% of the world which does amazon/email/facebook/light word processing, I think it could do quite well.

Karl P
 
Seeing as both USB 3.1 (via type C connector) and Thunderbolt 3 will support up to 100W of power flow through their connectors, not really any reason for a separate power port any more, when either/both of the connectors can do it now. (Or will be able to once they come to market, anyway.)
 
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.

Yes, that is how I suspect the line-up will look. Although I suspect the current iterations of the MBA will linger on for a while as did the cMBP.
 
So they will really go with the "M" models. I guess it makes sense, since the 13" rMBP fulfills those that need more power and both 13" models were overlapping a bit.

But I really can't wait for ARM.

Why do you think ARM will be good? In terms of FLOPS/Watt, ARM doesn't offer any power savings over Intel. On the other hand, you lose binary compatibility with all OSX Apps and you don't have enough CPU power to have a rosetta-like solution.

If you're going to break every App on the platform, there better be a good benefit and ARM doesn't offer any benefits. Stick with your iToys.
 
Who's that kid, Jack March? What's his record on Apple leaks and value as a rumorist or wild-guesser? Where are these two reports in a row coming from?
 
I'm just excited to see how they adapt inductive charging into all of their portable devices now that they can do it with the Apple Watch; at least that's what I assume when I read about them ditching Mag Safe.
 
Who is "we" - the people who actually buy Apple's laptops or the ones who complain about Apple's laptops?


Well I used to be the one who bought Apple's laptops. Now I'm the one who complains about them.

Personally, I'd rather buy one, but they don't sell a single machine I'm interested in. I wouldn't trade my 2011 cMBP for their latest rMBP if they offered me a straight swap.
 
12" macbook pro = 12" iPad pro

i 100% believe this product is a merging of the lines.

i think the current $1099 imac (the 1.4ghz one) is testing the waters to see how users will take to lower powered machines at that price point. that imac is the canary for a possible new direction for them.
 
How is the performance for those ultra low power Intel chips then? Is it as good or better than what's in the current MBA, or could it even eventually end up in a MacBook Pro?

They are better than the i7 I have in my 2011 11" MBA that is my work laptop. They will theoretically be just right for this type of machine.

Sounds cool wish I needed one :(. My Mac air from 3 years ago works fine for everything I do on a laptop.

This is exactly the point. Me too, but mine is getting long in the tooth. I'd like to have the newer generation SSD, Bluetooth, Thunderbolt, and Display port technologies (and speeds) but otherwise am very happy with my MBA. This is the machine I am waiting on to upgrade.

I actually called it that Apple would move to a new ultra-thin connection standard in combination with this new rumored machine. I said it could be the new Lightning connector, because of how versatile Apple made it, but this new USB Type C standard fits the bill perfectly.

IMHO this is not a new notebook line, rather this 12" will replace the 11" and the 13" as the NEW form factor for the Air.

Exactly, this is not going to usher in a new notebook line. It is the next generation MBA.

Sounds pretty amazing, but as a rule, I try to avoid the first generation of major updates of Apple products. (Actually not a bad rule for most hardware...)

Take a look at how terrible the first Macbook Air was compared to the second generation, for instance...

Except this isn't the first generation, it is the 3rd generation MBA.

...The issue isn't support the issue is ARM is ****

Not so. I seriously hope Apple makes the move to ARM sooner rather than later, and would wholeheartedly support it. They could unify so many nice features, like TouchID for example, and the only reason you think ARM can't hack it on a laptop platform is because you haven't seen a modern ARM CPU in the category yet. You're basing your judgement on Apple's A-series chips, which are extremely impressive in their native mobile space, blowing everything else that exists out of the water, and that on less cores, less cache, and less RAM than anyone else as well. Obviously they don't compare to Intel's line of core i7 chips for laptops! They aren't meant to either.

Imagine a 64 bit quad core ARM processor with heaps of L1, L2, and L3 cache, 4-8GB of RAM, with a fully optimised custom bus and integrated peripherals, GPU, etc, that is operating on a thermal envelope similar to Intel's Y series chips. If Apple's successful chip designing in the mobile space is any indication, I would put good money on their Laptop & Desktop custom ARM chips to be serious contenders as well, even against Intel.

Unless a developer is using assembler or Intel specific intrinsic functions (and very few people would do that), code built for Intel 32 or 64 bit processors will just compile and run on ARM 32 or 64 bit processors without any change.

This. 99.9% of both consumer and professional software available for OSX now can be one-click recompiled for ARM by developers and redistributed via online channels, especially using the Mac App Store.

Mark this. The next version of OSX after Yosemite will probably be launched alongside a laptop device running a brand new Apple "X"-series ARM chip.
 
Well I used to be the one who bought Apple's laptops. Now I'm the one who complains about them.

Personally, I'd rather buy one, but they don't sell a single machine I'm interested in. I wouldn't trade my 2011 cMBP for their latest rMBP if they offered me a straight swap.

What is it that is worse about the current line-up than your machine?
 
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Why do you think ARM will be good? In terms of FLOPS/Watt, ARM doesn't offer any power savings over Intel. On the other hand, you lose binary compatibility with all OSX Apps and you don't have enough CPU power to have a rosetta-like solution.

If you're going to break every App on the platform, there better be a good benefit and ARM doesn't offer any benefits. Stick with your iToys.

You don't know that. You never saw an Apple designed ARM chip from the ground up to be used on laptops. What we do know is that intel is holding things down with their slow pace.

ARM would AT LEAST give the control to Apple. Apple only would call the shots. Every time that happened great products were made.

The processor and graphics are a crucial part of the product, and sooner or later Apple will own it. As things stand today, Apple is at the mercy of what intel thinks a computer is supposed to be. There's no way around that. You can't order a costume processor like you can order a different screen.

So it is 100 % certain that it will happen.
 
Stop this thinness madness...

We need performance and battery life....not a credit card thin laptop/smartphone/tablet...

luckily for you, apple notebook battery like has been INCREASING over the years, despite the REDUCING the case size.

i mean, dont you even know the basics, here??

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I think this is going to be touch-screen. OSX has been going the 'touch-friendly' direction since Mavericks.

what on earth? no, it hasnt. and apple has answered that consistently every time its brought up. pay attention.
 
I fail to see the point in a 12-inch laptop when there is an 11-inch Macbook Air and a 13-inch Macbook Air already available. It would seem like a 12-inch screen wouldn't be worth making for the 1-inch screen size difference, unless it is a completely "new" device in its own league.
 
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