Their marketing department has been killing it recently - notch, overpriced yet under powered pros and now the lower priced macbook air. Its really going to be another exciting year from Apple :/
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KGI: Apple to Launch Cheaper MacBook Air in 2Q 2018
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Need to get rid of the Air entirely - the MacBook is better in every way except price.
The Air is bought exclusively by people who want the cheapest Mac laptop they can possibly get.
Nobody I've ever talked to has looked at both and said "I'll take the Air because it's better". Also the wedge is incredibly stupid, and it has massive discolored bezels.
The Air is bought exclusively by people who want the cheapest Mac laptop they can possibly get.
Nobody I've ever talked to has looked at both and said "I'll take the Air because it's better". Also the wedge is incredibly stupid, and it has massive discolored bezels.
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But as has been said, then it would be a Pro.
The current non-TB 13” Pro has a smaller footprint than the 13” Air, is the same weight, and has a Retina screen and faster Kaby Lake CPU.
Because (even without the hypothetical cheaper version being discussed here) its 30% cheaper than the next alternative (the 13" MBP isn't user-upgradeable either, so you'd have to get the RAM upgrade from the start if it were important). If you're already struggling to justify to your employer/accountant/significant other why you need a $1000 Mac rather than the standard issue $500 Dell then that can be pretty important.
Some prefer the keyboard and, well, lets just say that 2xUSB3, TB2/miniDP, SDXC and separate MagSafe is still a better fit for some people's connectivity needs than 2xTB3... and in 3 years time, I guarantee that large swathes of "software development" will still work fine in 8GB.
Not if it was given a retina screen but lower than pro specs, there is room for middle ground between the MacBook and the MacBook Pro in my opinion.
As mentioned, if you need to compromise then that’s fine but the key word here is compromise.
This is exactly what needs to happen. At the time that the air was released, it was meant to be a super thin and light ultraportable. Now Apple released an even thinner and lighter computer in the form of the MacBook. There is no reason for the air to exist and there is no reason for the price of the MacBook given the much slower internals. It’s time for MacBook to be dropped $300 in price and for the air to die.
The problem is pixel density. It’s already at 128 ppi which means the Air’s default font sizing is relatively small. The next step up from here really is Retina because it allows for decent scaling options. If you jump up to the non -Retina resolution of say 1600x1000 you get a pixel density of 141 ppi which has a very small default font size at 13.3” but which look ugly if scaled.
Yes Apple could offer the choice but IMO it’s not actually a great choice.
I agree with the previous post. All Apple really needs to do is add a second USB-C port to the MacBook and lower the price a bit and it would be an instant hit.
However, it seems the previous poster doesn’t know the current speed of Y series and what it costs. I don’t see Apple dropping the MacBook price $300, but they could drop the price nonetheless.
They might be packaged differently, but they are the same cores at their basic level...
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I'm sure non integer scaling would work ok at 1920x1200 - that's 170ppi which is quite sharp really. Remember all the retina MacBooks now default to non integer scaling, and it's only really noticeable if you're used to exact @2x from the previous gen, otherwise looks fine.
The MacBook range isn’t as parsimonious as it was during the Jobs era, but the strategy is clearly the same. If you look at Apple’s modern lineup, there are essentially three models: a consumer notebook (13” MacBook Pro), a pro-notebook (15” MacBook Pro), and an ultrabook (12” MacBook). The pricing and base configurations support this interpretation (13” MacBook Pro w/ TouchBar is the prosumer device).
The biggest shift between Jobs and Cook’s strategy, is that Cook seems more willing to keep legacy products around to hit price points and demand from mid-market customers (notably education). The MacBook Air, for instance, remains a popular choice for college students. This makes a lot of sense if the strategy/goal is $$$$, since this is how you increase market share.
It's no use whatsoever the MacBook being more aesthetically pleasing if you are forced in to purchasing a docking station to be able to use any USB 3.0 Peripherals which the majority of them are.
The MacBook Air still very much has a place in the Mac range. Give the MacBook Air an internal upgrade and Retina Display and it would have the potential to displace the MacBook and Apple are only too aware of this.
You are lucky. It is almost impossible for me to use my 4G 11" Air with U2515H screen connected and program something in Eclipse/VS/XCode at once. Its too laggy.
I would buy 2017 MBP if it wasn't that expensive here (the USD is not 1:1 to EUR - it is 1.23 USD per EUR now!) anymore and the CZK is 25.3 instead of 27 CZK/EUR. Part of the saving will be eaten by NAND + RAM price increases, however, it still should be cheaper here than with 2017's exchange rates) and the competition wasn't offering better laptops (Kaby Lake Refresh) for significantly lower prices.
I definitely will buy the 16G version as I see the 8G one as a non-sense. If I buy 8G version, it will last 2-3 year. If I buy 16G version, it will last 5+ years and it will be worth much more then as it won't be that laggy. I would put SSD in the 2008 MBP if it was worth it - I already (!!) have 8G of RAM in that TEN years (!!) old computer.
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Because god forbid anyone could be happy with an entry level MacBook
Bring it on, Apple. I have really old products ready for replacement (Mac Pro, MBA, iPhone 6). I am ready to go for a small-bezel 5K iMac, ARM MacBook with good keyboard/display and a below-5" iPhone.
My guess is they announce ARM compatible developer tools this June and release the Macs later.
My guess is they announce ARM compatible developer tools this June and release the Macs later.
I posted this earlier but ...
1 - not widely used, by the common folk, Port
worse keyboard
no-magsafe
less powerful CPU
Everyone way you say?
I do not see that happening, if you mean ARM-based Macs. If they do that, significant amount of developers will leave macOS platform. The biggest advantage of having Mac is being able to develop for everything at one computer. It would not bring neither significant performance increase or significantly better battery life. ARM64 is not +50 % faster as the Core2 during PPC era was (making Rosseta-like solution impossible to use). But maybe Apple does not need developers and power users. Then it can easily happen.
If Apple does release this, will they also consider slashing prices for those MacBooks that don't sport all USB-C?
I didn’t think of that, if true I’m going to be left with the same problem ie deciding between the MacBook and 13” Pro but I guess we will see what happens.
Well, there are some huge setbacks from macbook. One it is severely underpowered, no fan means it throttles it self when it gets hot unlike the macbook air.
Macbook Air has useful ports!!!! USB! imagine, that!
Macbook Air has magsafe2! One of my favourite features.
Macbook has one freakin port! this is enough for me to tell Tim Cook to shove it
Macbook Air - People claim it has a better keyboard than the 2017 macbook. I would say equal but I totally understand people's feeling for the macbook keyboard.
The biggest draw back of the MB Air is the screen. Tim Cook has intentionally held back the screen as to give the MacBook an edge. YES, TIM CROOK LIED (AGAIN) that he lets products compete so that Apple betters themselves. The MB Air (designed under Jobs leadership) would significantly have higher sales than Tim Cook's MB if given the chance.
Macbook is horrible, just another piece of hardware that was created by Tim Cook to increase net profit with the lowest production cost possible.
An entry level has to be dongle proof and actually serve the market. There's only a single port on the current MB which is no use to any regular person.Because god forbid anyone could be happy with an entry level MacBook
And who did they take 4th place from? ASUS.
And yes, ASUS lowered their own production rate which helped Apple move past them, but what models did ASUS cut? The cheap ones that made them little money, but were a significant part of the models they did ship. So if anything, ASUS is taking a page from Apple and trading quantity of shipments for quality of revenue.
And speaking of quantity vs. quality, #1 HP had to sell 300% more PCs to make only 30% more revenue than Apple.
Exactly what I am waiting for, lower price, better webcam and 1x additional usb C. Makes this machine perfect