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Five Features to Look Forward to in the 2022 MacBook Air

Caliber26 said:
I really, really, REALLY hope this one of those products everyone was horribly wrong about.

For Apple to take away the option of a professional-looking MacBook at the entry level category would be asinine. Surely they have to understand that there are countless people who need MacBooks for work but at the same time prefer a device that looks professional without having to jump to an over-powered $2000+ machine. I understand this is probably what Apple is going for, but it’s bull if they actually follow through with it.
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I don’t think most professionals feel the need to have a gunmetal tank of a laptop to appear professional. I’d love to have a blue one and rock it in a meeting. Plenty of production houses are using the new iMac as well in lots of fun colors.
 
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I do not look forward to Apple doing what they did with the watch, phone, tablet, ipod and so on with the Air. They will most likely not change the low end or make a reduced feature set revamp with less ports and the same old M1 for the entry price model, more than likely turning the base model into a downgrade from the previous version. And then coming out with the full featured model at a higher entry point. Maybe calling it something new and letting the air just wither away with barely any updates for several years to come while up updates the newer more expensive model. I wouldnt think this, but Apple has done this with most of their products now and seem to want to go there with their computers too.
 
If the bezel/notch is white it'll be a huge fail. With the black MBP's, at least you can make it way less noticeable, and not noticeable at all in certain situations.

If they're not gonna have a darn FaceID, why is it so huge? why not just a punch hole for the camera?
 
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The current M1 MacBook Air is the best-value product Apple currently sells !

The 128 GB 13 Pro Max is probably their 2nd-best-value product.

If the M2 (in the MacBook Air & 13" MacBook Pro) gets anywhere close to the added SRAM of the A15, it will be a BIG winner in the market !

Disclaimer: I bought their 2nd-best-value product over the weekend, & got my Dad their best-value-product the day before the Super Bowl; both are great products ! ... I'm waiting on the M2 13" MacBook Pro !
 
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nph said:
So will the MBP 13" be around/updated? Otherwise there will be a big gap from MBA to MBP 14" price wise.
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I really think that model will be quietly discontinued once existing stocks draw down. It just doesn't really serve a purpose anymore with the new 14" MacBook Pro as when configured with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of SSD, it is within $300 of the larger model. It also has two less USB4/TB ports, lacks MagSafe and has a TouchBar which is now deprecated.

Assuming Apple holds the line on the $999 starting price, upgrading the MacBook Air to 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD would be $1449. The $1999 14" MacBook Pro is 38% more expensive at that configuration, but then the 64GB iPad Air is 82% more expensive than the 64GB iPad so Apple might be comfortable with that level of price differential.
 
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I would frankly love any new MacBook they make if they would fix some of the software issues in Big Sur and Monterrey. RAM getting gobbled up, and WiFi disconnects are really frustrating.
 
Wanted797 said:
All the complaints on here are the 1% of people. The other 99% honestly will not care.

I used a pro in a store for a little bit and in that time I got used to the notch.

I showed my wife (completely not a tech person) the iMac design when it came out. Her response was ‘ooo I like the blue one’.

When I mentioned the white bezel she shrugged and said it still looks good.
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You are correct about this. Apple goes after new customers more than it makes moves to satisfy older ones. (they waited till after the intel models were gone to fix the macbook pro) It lends itself to the practice of people holding on to their tech longer, because they know the upgrade cost isn't worth what you get. At least thats how it was in the intel days when hard drive speed generally stayed the same for many years.Those who purchased all those white ibooks and white apple products now have yellow and dirty looking white apple tech and wouldn't buy another white one again. Now that its all Apple stuff inside they need to impress on looks and speed to bring in more people. But the noobs don't realize they are the ones paying for the manufacturing costs for the revamped generation 1 models that come in at the higher price points the first year they are out and will end up wanting to upgrade sooner because of discoloration and not because their computer feels old. And that's another reason they go after fresh meat. They just keep falling for the flash because they haven't owned one long enough to know what to avoid. And the only choice apple gives to avoid such issues is to buy an outdated model they will still be selling for years or a drastically more expensive model they make more professional looking. The white macs tend to be the ones that depreciate in the used market the fastest. 99% won't care. Which is great for the used market.
 
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My bet is on the next consumer MacBook chip being the M1s or M1+ or some other marketing name that shows an iteration over the M1. The consumer chips aren’t going to jump ahead in numbering over the just released M1 Pro and M1 Max.

When an M2 comes it’ll be the M2 Pro and M2 Max for the Apple Silicon Mac Pro and the next MacBookPro and then the MacBook will inherit the M2 that next year without the Pro/Max features.
 
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These rumours make me happy that I bought the M1 Air.

* No wedge = worse keyboard experience, probably a bigger footprint too...
* White bezels...
* Notch... I'd rather take the 720p camera over a notch. Let the Pro keep that (for FaceID later on)
* Likely minor single core improvements, this doesn't matter as the M1 is fast enough for me.

Sure, MagSafe and MiniLED would be cool though.
 
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Maybe they could do an 11" version called the Air, get rid of the 13" MacBook Pro and release a 12-13" MacBook to fit that segment.

Or just drop the air branding and have 11-13" sizes.
 
“Please replace all of the durable metal with cheap plastic that can crack and turn yellow!” said no one ever.
 
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I was waiting for a 12in macbook successor. I can deal with compromises but white bezels are not one of them so I went ahead and got a 14in. If the new MacBook/Air comes with black bezels, I'll have to grab it just for the smaller size and weight.
 
mjtomlin71 said:
So... umm, don't buy one.

No one asked for this iBook either, yet it was an extremely popular laptop.

I'm starting to wonder if this whole bezel thing is some kind of phobia - because it makes absolutely no sense to hate on them. Picture frames, window frames, door frames, curbs on the side of a road, margins on a printed page... these are all "bezels" - a transitional space to separate disparate content, areas, or views.
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Yep. had both the G3 & G4 versions. Let my daughters use them when I moved on. Finally recycled them earlier this year. (They did not work any more)
 
ASentientBot said:
From the previous rumors, I thought this could be a low-cost machine akin to the iPhone SE. Which would fit the MacBook name -- a sort of throwback to the 2010 models, which had a white plastic chassis but the same specs as the Pro.

But with mini-LED and the notch, this sounds more like the 2015 MacBook. Likely more expensive than the current Air, with a heavy focus on thinness?

In which case, the names are still backwards ?
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Agreed. If they follow the iPad strategy, which makes sense to me, it would be this:


MacBook/iPad (no modifier) - legacy features (i.e. Touch ID, wedge design) lowest price, smaller screen

Air version - some Pro features, mid price

Pro version - more features, larger screen, multiple screen sizes, heavier
 
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I won't buy a computer with a white bezel, no offense to anyone who would.

Thanks to reports like this, I just bought another M1 Air for my family. I do regret missing the M2.
 
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Tagbert said:
I can see this new computer to be branded as MacBook.
And the current MBA to be rebranded as MacBook SE maybe with a small price drop and retaining the M1 chip while retiring the Air name.

this would bring things into alignment with their other product lines.
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Which other lines? Phones have standard and Pro, Watch has SE and numbers, iPad has standard/Air/Pro (I think this is most likely for the future of MacBook lineups)
 
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