Summary: If you want an M-series MBA, then get one now before the horrendous colours come in.
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Five Features to Look Forward to in the 2022 MacBook Air
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Software is the same. What they have to deal with has dramatically changed... support for a new architecture (ARM) and an entire new API (Swift and SwiftUI). As the API's mature and stabilize, and Objective-C and x64 are slowly deprecated... things will start to get better.
There is no reason to disbelieve it will be M2. It is simply the next generation of the M series processors. M2 will be a bit more powerful than M1, but not as powerful as the M1 Pro and Max. Eventually they will release M2 Pro and Max to replace the M1 versions.
They’re not gonna release a significant hardware upgrade with a CPU from by then 18 months ago. It’ll be the M2.
In a way I also think there's room for three devices.
The MacBook Pro starts at: $1,999, whilst the Air is $999-1249 (base prices here, not including additions). So there's quite a large gap; Apple could look into filling that gap and also bring back the "MacBook" name (or use SE on the bottom end).
Consumer/Economic: $999-1249 (Probably this new MBA)
Executive: $1499-??? (Slim travel device, like the original Air or 12"... imagine a bezel-less M1/M2 13" version ?)
Pro: $1999+ (What we have now)
Apple could even drop a cheap plastic device with the M1 and no customisation options as an education model if they wanted the bottom end of the market.
Why? Sure it would be good if they did so but they have alternatives if you need multiple monitor support. I suspect that the vast majority of MacBook Air users don’t use an external display at all and most of the rest are fine with one.
Poor argument. The same argument would support reverting to the processors at the time. What did Macbooks look like back then, does anybody know? Were they all white or all grey, basically? That was then. Since then, they’ve evolved into having black bezels which to many offer good function and also look really sharp. There’s a reason we don’t see white bezel/cased televisions.
A white keyboard/bezel MBA would be more about form than any function.
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I really prefer the tapered front edge. I used a MacBook Pro for a while and found myself very much missing that lower, palm-friendly profile in the front of the machine.
It's become a bit of a mania. Five, ten years ago nobody was using the word "bezel" -- much less corny terms like "chin" and "forehead".
I wonder if, as machines started getting faster and lighter and more efficient, tech bloggers found themselves needing something to complain about and got everyone fixating on the frames around their displays. Now, right on cue, forum-dwellers come out of the woodwork to clutch their pearls and declare their hatred for cursed bezels.
The first rumors didn’t really start until right after it was released. Honestly it’s not that big a deal as I wanted Boot Camp and I got the very last one that had it. The performance is actually much better under Monetery than Catalina which it was released with, and obviously better than the half measure that was Big Sur.
Still no matter how it’s sliced, I don’t understand why they would do that. Not any reason that makes them look like they care about their customers, anyway.
Apple did a minor spec bump update of the MBA in Mar 2020 to include the Ice Lake processors but mainly to get rid of that terrible butterfly keyboard. No one wanted them to keep selling laptops with that keyboard.
The rumors of new processors had been in the air since at least 2019 but really picked up in early 2020. By June 2020, Apple had formally announced that they were starting to transition their computers to Apple Silicon and would be done within 2 years. By end of summer the speculation was that Apple would start with the low end processors and low end of their computer line. That means MacBook Air. The main question was whether they were ready to launch those in October or November. As it turned out, it was November.
How is this not caring about customers? Computers get updated all the time. You know that your recent purchase is never going to be the latest forever. Since Apple computers generally keep their resale price fairly well, if something newer comes out, you do have a reasonable option to sell yours and get the new hotness.
I agree. I bought the base i3 MBA in the early Spring of 2020 for $899. It has been a fantastic laptop. Got great reviews when released because everyone wanted the better keyboard. At the time, there were rumors about an ARM chip for the Macs, but it wasn't definitive. Like you said, those rumors had been circulating for about a year.
I don't feel cheated by Apple at all.
Sorry but a lot of that is wishful thinking. Especially the resale value. This MBA is about as valuable as an ordinary rock now that the M1s are out.
Darth Tulhu
macrumors 68020
Light bezels are not that uncommon. Many TVs still sold today have silver bezels, which isn't that far removed from white. I've used white-bezelled iPads for years without impact, as well as many Macs before Apple started doing black bezels on them.
I'm of the opinion that functionality is not impacted by bezel color, but perhaps I'm old-school that way. And as far as keyboards go, I never had any qualms about Apple's keyboards, where outside of laptops have ALWAYS been white except only in the case of the iMac Pro, which they've now discontinued.
I understand that this can be polarizing for those who prefer the black bezel/keyboard combo, but I find the loss of functionality argument to be nonsense.
I'm looking at a brand new M1 iMac right now, with its white bezels. Everyone forgets that once your eyes adjust to the brightness of your screen itself, the white of the bezel is generally going to look darker to the eye and fade into the background. The apparent brightness is what actually matters.
For me at this moment, in a pretty typically lit room the apparent brightness of these white bezels in the periphery of my screen right now is much less than the white of the background of the page I'm typing in. This photo is pretty representative:
Turns out in real life things look a lot different than in renderings. Fixate on the bezels if you want, but if you're looking at your screen it's not an issue.
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A lot of truth to that. I’m not a member of the Zero-Bezel or Notch Never Societies, and I think I would have no problem adjusting to the black notch (I don’t yet have a device with a notch), but I think the wrinkle in this particular discussion is the potential for a white notch.
Just like how wearing black is slimming, a black notch would disappear more often than not; consider cases of watching a move (black notch disappears within the letterboxing and/or the menu bar is purposely colored black). Or where a dark color or black menu bar would allow the notch to disappear. I’d think a white notch in a white bezel (which would have black camera holes) would look pretty darn goofy. Same for a black notch in a white bezel, which might look even more goofy IMHO.
I have to laugh when the bezel freaks also complain they want the notch they made happen to "disappear" somehow. The way to make it disappear visually is to put the camera above the monitor instead of showcasing it in a stupid little box inside the display area. So, **** that, they can live with what they did.
Hear hear!! Couldn’t agree more.
Hear hear! Tech bloggers needing something to complain about to justify their jobs since they can’t just spew happiness and satisfaction was probably the fuel Jony Ive needed to convince Tim to let him whitewash away so much of the intuitive goodness in Apple interface design before iOS7 & Yosemite. Beavers must builds dams, bloggers must blog. And designers must design, even if often at the expense of usability.
I should qualify or revise my response — now that Notch is the new Normal, a white bezel is more about form than function. Like I mention in post 193, there’s a lot you can do to “hide” a black notch (which contains a black camera lens) via the bezels outside of the screen, and menu bar coloring inside of the screen.
I’ll wait to see it in person to pass judgement but I can’t see a white notch in a white bezel being as easy to stomach as a black notch in a black bezel.
Darth Tulhu
macrumors 68020
As long as the notch doesn't take away the actual screen space like on the MBPs, I'm good.
Also, the color of the bezel simply doesn't impact my ability to get work done or to see things on the screen. I actually enjoy the "framing" of the screen, same as like I do on my older iPads (all of which were white). All my favorite Apple devices were the white ones... I found the silver/black combo very "HP" when it came out, but I got used to it.
If I could get an iPad Pro with white bezels (or even better, ALL white), I would. But this is simply aesthetics, the screen is separate from the bezels so bezel color has zero impact on it.
All that said, I do wish Apple would provide at least one model with black bezels for those that want it, but I'm afraid it ain't happening. The iMac set that precedent, so it looks like you'll have to go "pro" for them.
That’s fair, but with our Sales fleet, the idea that we have a fanless option that they can drop on a dock in a hotel cube is the sweet spot.
The white bezel may help the apparent blackness of the screen when displaying blacks, if the Air doesn't (and most likely won't) get a HDR display.
I'm not in the market, but for what it's worth I have no issue with a white bezel. My iPad Pro is white and has one. It's fine. Older MBA's had a silver bezel. Old original polycarbonate MacBooks had a white bezel.