MacBook Air Turns 15 Today: 'The World's Thinnest Notebook'

[MacRumors]

Today marks the 15th anniversary of Steve Jobs pulling the MacBook Air out of a manila envelope at the 2008 Macworld Expo in San Francisco. Apple advertised the MacBook Air as being "the world's thinnest notebook" at the time.

"We've built the world's thinnest notebook—without sacrificing a full-size keyboard or a full-size 13-inch display," said Jobs, in a January 2008 press release announcing the MacBook Air. "When you first see MacBook Air, it's hard to believe it's a high-performance notebook with a full-size keyboard and display. But it is."

The original 13-inch MacBook Air featured a flip-down tray on the right side of the machine that provided access to a single USB port, a headphone jack, and a Micro-DVI port for connecting an external display. It was Apple's first notebook with a multi-touch trackpad, no CD/DVD drive, and an SSD upgrade option. Pricing started at $1,799 in the U.S. with a 1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of RAM, and an 80GB hard drive.

Apple released a completely redesigned MacBook Air with the M2 chip last July and continues to sell an older version with the M1 chip. Given the power efficiency of Apple silicon chips, the MacBook Air is no longer equipped with a fan. While the original MacBook Air measured 0.16-inches at its thinnest point and 0.76-inches at its thickest, the latest MacBook Air has a flatter design with a uniform thickness of 0.44 inches.

Rumors suggest a larger 15-inch MacBook Air will launch this year, and the notebook is expected to be updated with an OLED display next year.

Article Link: MacBook Air Turns 15 Today: 'The World's Thinnest Notebook'

 

[jdoyle]

Maccbook Air was Classic Jobs. Incredible piece of engineering and design. 15 years later they still use the same wedge design in the M1 Chip Air.

 

[muasachi]

It was a truly love at first sight!
My 15 years old first-gen Macbook Air built-to-order with SSD is still working fine with Snow Leopard.
Can’t believe I spent so much back in the day.

 

[JamesBerry]

I remember this quite clearly as it was the beginning of my Mac journey.
A lifelong Windows / PC guy, I saw this clip and just had to own one of these to see for myself. Expecting it to end up on a shelf or ebay, after a few days it became my mainstay 'non-work' device -- and was followed within a year by a macbook pro for work.

 

[contacos]

I miss the old shape. Now it’s really just a cheaper MBP. You hardly feel the difference anymore

 

[tranceking26]

I love my M1 Air.

Can only imagine how cool it must have been to see him do that in person.

 

[ducknalddon]

I had an early Air, it was a loverly machine but the hinges disintegrated just as it went out of warranty.

 

[frifra]

I also remember it. And the horrible display.


If you displayed anything white on the screen, one could see many parallel black lines which were tilted about 10/15 degrees. It was so horrible that I had to return it.

All of them had it, but for some people it wasn’t as bothersome.


Would have been my first Mac. But due to this it was my last.

 

[joecomo]

The 15 inch with OLED and a 180° flexible touchscreen would be a great mobile machine

 

[Mr Fusion]

I owned a 2011 13” MBA. For a decade, this product line suffered from severely under-powered integrated Intel GPUs (watch an HD YouTube video and after a few minutes, the fans’ll be loud enough to drown out max volume. 🤣) I swore off iGPUs after that experience.

In 2022 I returned to the M2 MBA and couldn’t be happier! I’m glad Apple stuck with this design concept through the years and its paid off with creating the best laptop I’ve ever owned. 💝💻☺️

 

[TheOldChevy]

That's the kind of revolutions Apple brought to tech for all of us. Not that computers didn't exist before, but the new form factor made their usage different.

 

[NightFox]

I miss the old shape. Now it’s really just a cheaper MBP. You hardly feel the difference anymore

To be fair, I think it's the form of the MBP that has changed more dramatically than the MBA to achieve that physical similarity.

 

[city_17]

I think Bill Burr's description of Steve Jobs is pretty accurate, as someone who just yells 'I want my phone, my iPod, my agenda, in THAT. Now GET ON IT!", while taking credit for all the actual hard work the engineers do.

But somehow that's still essential in breaking through boundaries. Jobs may have had unrealistic visions, and lived in a 'reality distortion field', but sometimes it turns out that those visions are not so unrealistic.

Demanding your engineers come up with an impossible solution (a powerful laptop in a package as thin as an envelope), can lead them to actually figure that that it was not so impossible after all.

Sometimes I feel this 'unrealistic' vision of Jobs is what's missing from Apple these days. Boundary breaking innovation, rather than spec bumps and improvements that almost everyone could see were possible.

 

[EgbertAttrick]

I think Bill Burr's description of Steve Jobs is pretty accurate, as someone who just yells 'I want my phone, my iPod, my agenda, in THAT. Now GET ON IT!", while taking credit for all the actual hard work the engineers do.

But somehow that's still essential in breaking through boundaries. Jobs may have had unrealistic visions, and lived in a 'reality distortion field', but sometimes it turns out that those visions are not so unrealistic.

Demanding your engineers come up with an impossible solution (a powerful laptop in a package as thin as an envelope), can lead them to actually figure that that it was not so impossible after all.

Sometimes I feel this 'unrealistic' vision of Jobs is what's missing from Apple these days. Boundary breaking innovation, rather than spec bumps and improvements that almost everyone could see were possible.

He didn’t live in a reality distortion field; he created it.

 

[Gudi]

It was a truly love at first sight! My 15 years old first-gen Macbook Air built-to-order with SSD is still working fine with Snow Leopard. Can’t believe I spent so much back in the day.

It was way too expensive and underpowered at the time. Every smart shopper bought a MacBook Pro instead and 15 years later, I still never had a MacBook Air. With this ugly notch I won't buy the M2 MBA either.

 

[Gudi]

Demanding your engineers come up with an impossible solution (a powerful laptop in a package as thin as an envelope), can lead them to actually figure that that it was not so impossible after all.

No, no. It was impossible and the MacBook Air wasn't powerful until the M1. It became acceptable with the 2010 redesign and price cut. And good looking with the 2018 Retina update. But powerful only since 2020.

 

[Nozuka]

For some reason i prefer the M1 Air design...

 

[Gudi]

That's the kind of revolutions Apple brought to tech for all of us. Not that computers didn't exist before, but the new form factor made their usage different.

The MacBook Air is just a revolutionary form factor. But Apple in general brought us the graphical user interface of the Macintosh and the multi-touch display of the iPhone. Those may have existed before as technology demonstrators in somebody else's science lab, but as a category of consumer products Apple invented the PC, the Smartphone and the Tablet. MP3-Players existed before, they were just horrible to use.

 

[East India Company]

Interestingly in over 15 years of evolution, apple only managed to increase the drive capacity threefold 🤦🏻‍♂️

 

[Digital Dude]

Still have my 2008 MacBook Pro. Compared to units made today, I prefer the form factor of the old versus the new.

 

[Shanghaichica]

It was way too expensive and underpowered at the time. Every smart shopper bought a MacBook Pro instead and 15 years later, I still never had a MacBook Air. With this ugly notch I won't buy the M2 MBA either.

Never had an issue with the power or lack of with the MacBook Air. I would sacrifice power for a more compact design.

 

[Basic75]

It was way too expensive and underpowered at the time.

Yes, there were some compromises to make it that thin and I remember not recommending the first generation(s) Air to anybody.

Every smart shopper bought a MacBook Pro instead and 15 years later,

Not everybody requires a MacBook Pro, for many use cases the Air is fine and has been for a while.

I still never had a MacBook Air.

Me neither, but many people I know that don't require the performance of a Pro have one and it does everything they need.

With this ugly notch I won't buy the M2 MBA either.

With the menu bar set to always visible and solid black the notch is essentially gone and I often forget that it's even there.

 

[Abazigal]

Demanding your engineers come up with an impossible solution (a powerful laptop in a package as thin as an envelope), can lead them to actually figure that that it was not so impossible after all.

The MBA concept wasn't technically impossible. It simply required tradeoffs that one normally wouldn't consider in a laptop (could you imagine a laptop without a cd-drive or ports back then?). And therein lay the irony. Nobody in their right mind would ever make those sacrifices for fear of alienating customers (try explaining to users why your product cost twice as much while lacking a lot of functionality).

Apple's strength was in their ability to tell users "We believe this one feature is worth more than every other drawback combined", and they often turned out to be more right than wrong, and people were willing to buy in to their vision. Many people preferred a thinner and lighter computer, and were perfectly willing to give up features once thought indispensable.

And the rest as we know it is history.

 

[Wildkraut]

Good ol‘ think different and innovative times.
Sad what Apple has become.

 

[ericwn]

Good ol‘ think different and innovative times.
Sad what Apple has become.

Apple today is capable of delivering a great form factor and a great performance. The stuff that you claim is think different became mainstream and Apple became mainstream at that as well.