Yeah. This form factor was popular among "home computers" in the 1980s (see also, say, the Atari ST).
I imagine if laptops weren't so massive, it might make a comeback. But they are, so it won't.
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Gurman: M4 MacBook Pro, Mac Mini, and iMac Coming This Year
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Yeah. This form factor was popular among "home computers" in the 1980s (see also, say, the Atari ST).
I imagine if laptops weren't so massive, it might make a comeback. But they are, so it won't.
Because the release cycle is quite similar. So is AMD's. So is Qualcomm's.
The only difference is that Intel (and AMD) offers some higher-end desktop chips at all.
Their overall Mac sales are stronger than ever.
Their desktop sales are probably weak, although we haven't really had official numbers on that in a long time. Part of it is indeed that they don't offer some of the configurations people want; another part is that it's a shrinking market segment. They don't care much, and they have less and less reason to.
If such a thing existed, what then would a MacBook Air dressed as a MacBook Pro look like, in your mind's eye?
By the way, the only extra ports are the niche use ports of HDMI and SD card... the third USB port on the right hand side, which is by far the most important extra port for most people using a MacBook Pro, is absent on the base Pro. As such, the connectivity is barely even improved over the Air...
Apple’s a victim of its own success with laptops. Their laptops are so good, not that many people buy desktops anymore, which is why all of them languish. In 2023, laptop sales made up 77% of their Mac sales with 43% being MacBook Pros and 34% being MacBook Airs. In order of popularity when it comes to their desktops, we have iMac > Mac Pro > Mac mini > Mac Studio. The Mac Studio rounds things out at a mere 1% of sales, which explains why Apple is in no hurry to update it. The most popular desktop is the 24” iMac at 10%.
The HP iPod.
IME, HDMI is hardly "niche" in professional settings. It's still the default assumption that if you go to a meeting room, you can do HDMI. Certainly not USB-C.
That is a bummer. Might be a limitation of the M3's PCIe lanes.
To me, lack of HDMI is one of the most annoying weaknesses of the Air. (Another: no second external display, unless you close the lid. DisplayLink works, but is a bit awkward.)
I’d point out PC laptops aren’t any better, especially since they all waste space on USB-A ports. It’s rare to find more than 1 or 2 USB4 ports on even high end PC laptops. MBP’s offer three and used to have four until MagSafe’s return, blowing most PC laptops out of the water. I bought a $1800 Windows Intel i9 Meteor Lake laptop about two months ago and it has a USB-A and two USB4 ports on the left side and an HDMI port and headphone jack on the right side. There was no SD Card slot. Most PC laptops I’ve seen have only one USB4 ports. That is pretty typical of Windows, so as laptops go, MacBooks aren’t all that bad.
*Looks down at Dell laptop*... more than 2 USB-C ports? Check. Ports both sides? Check. HDMI, headphone jack, SD slot? Check, check, check.
I prefer Apple so haven't investigated the Windows landscape much at all, but for the $2,000+ dollars the base MacBook Pro costs in Europe you'd expect a proper port selection.
Pre-Covid I'd 100% agree. It was a usual daily occurrence for me. Neither I nor my partner has had to plug in our laptop to HDMI at work in almost 5 years, though. 95% of presentations are remote, and when you present to a client or at a conference you're asked to upload your PDF file first- you *never* plug in your laptop outside of your own offices any more, at least here in Germany, and with shared folders on the company servers you don't need to in your own office too.
One question- "The HP iPod"? What? I had to Google that. Just a regular iPod with an HP logo printed onto it?
Sure, the post-COVID era has dramatically reduced in-person client meetings.
Plus, more people have USB-C-based solutions now — a dongle, a little hub, maybe even a dock.
Nonetheless, it's still among the things I tell colleagues to be mindful of when getting an Air.
Pretty much.
I also considered throwing the late 2008 MacBook in the ring. It's a unibody MacBook Pro, except it doesn't have the Pro branding.
It's not uncommon here for companies to fully ban staff from connecting to USB ports at external sites, due to data sensitivity. Connecting physically stopped being a thing a few years ago 🤷🏼♂️
I frequently use my HDMI port on my laptop for watching streaming services on the TVs around my home, though, so I wouldn't want to lose it! It irritates me that Air, my primary personal laptop, misses that feature, but a $15 dongle solved the issue. Well, until I left it in a hotel abroad. 😬 Bloody dongles...
They aren’t really comparable. Intel and AMD best top end desktop do not get beaten by a laptop. Apple needs to have the opposite release strategy if they don’t want to continue to piss off the pro market. I hate Windows. I absolutely hate it. But the way Apple is handling the studio and pro might drive me back to it.
You're joking but there have been times that this did feel like Apple's goal.
They might sell more if the machines weren't such a poor value for half their lifespan. No one who does their research is going to buy an Apple desktop right now unless they are desperate. I would love a new Studio but it would be absurd to pay that price for what's on offer right now.
I said most. I’ve had a ton of Windows laptops and rarely do they have more than 1 or 2 USB4 ports. I didn’t say none of them. Even most Dells don’t. Plus the only one I know with more than 2 USB-C ports is the Inspiron and not all three of them are USB4. The Inspiron has 2 USB4 and 1 USB-C 3.1 ports (5Gbps).
As I said, I haven't investigated the Windows laptop market. Don't chunky $2,000 Windows laptops *usually* have a good port selection?
Typically they do but even Windows laptops have also gone thin. The only chunky laptop I can think of are the Alienware M series laptops. However you should be able to plug in an external ports adapter and those you can find on Amazon.
No, they don’t. For some bizarre reason, most Windows laptops seem intent on sticking with at least one USB-A ports, which ends up taking away an actual good port. I’ve even seen some with two USB-A. Why, i couldn’t tell you. USB-C 3.1 (aka 3.2 rev 1) is better than USB-A’s 480Mbps, but is still mediocre. Most of the ones I’ve seen have only a single USB4 port. Windows manufacturers seem to have other priorities.
I’ve seen some people ask for a USB-A port on a Mac laptop, which doesn’t make sense to me. On a Mac desktop, yes, but the desktops tend to have more ports. My Mac mini has six USB ports, 2 USB-A and 4 Thunderbolt, while the Mac Studio has 6 USB-C (either 4 TB and 2 USB-C 3.2 rev 2 or 6 TB depending on SoC). Windows desktops are quite variable, depending on the motherboard you get. Having built well over 100 PC’s, I’m usually very happy with port selections on desktops, though SD card slots are few and far between. I rarely use SD cards, so I don’t care much, but I know some people do. I currently own about a dozen PC’s of varying types (I used to mine crypto) and none of them have SD card slots.
The Inspiron is Dell’s business-oriented laptop, which does tend to have more ports, but as I said, they still only have two USB4 ports. The XPS, which I like a lot (my previous Windows laptop was an XPS, my current an Asus), maxes out at 2 USB4 ports and doesn’t have SD card slot.
I’m close to just pulling the trigger on a M2 Mac Mini. Getting a little impatient.
Yes, I'm so tired of my noisy, crappy Intel NUC, but I'm hellbent on waiting for the M4 Mac mini since the upgrade seems more significant than otherwise.
I have found this to also be the case in the US in the aerospace industry. But the motivation was primarily about viruses.
What is wrong with "the way Apple is handling the studio?" other than the ridiculously s l o w upgrading of course. I was forced to buy an M2 MBP because M2 Studios took so long to be released. The constant upgrade delays may literally mean I never get a Studio, despite the fact that [other than being far behind the update curve] it is my ideal desktop solution.
Agreed. If they made a space black iMac Pro, I'd buy instantly for home.
Should have started with 16GB of RAM and gone to 24GB as an option.
Not talking about Apple here. I am talking about Intel and AMD. No top end Intel chip (BEST of the BEST system from Apple uses M2 Ultra!!!) can be beaten by X+1 gen laptop chip.