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

[SgtPepper12]

Honestly, I think the M1 Air is possibly the best Macbook they have ever made to date. It is competitively priced, the hardware feels solid, it feels super responsive and best of all, it has no fans. Once you've used a fanless computer, you don't want to go back. I haven't realized before how much the fan sound pisses me off until it finally stopped.
The M1 Air is probably the first Air that truly lives up to the original vision.

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

The interesting bit is really just how demand for more capacity has stagnated. Your photos and videos are in the cloud somewhere, your music, movies and tv show you stream. Of course that's just most people but in my experience most people have very little demand for vast storage space.

 

[kerr]

Probably the most popular computer for students this century

 

[azentropy]

I was never that impressed with the MBA until the M1.
I thought it was overpriced and the battery and performance were not anything special either. But the biggest issue was that the screen was subpar for Apple products until the last intel revision (which the M1 got the same screen).

However the M1 MBA is probably my favorite bang for the buck Apple product of all time. I do have to say I was a bit disappointed with the MBA M2, even though it is a fine machine too. They didn't really address the small issues I had with the MBA M1 (would like USB-C ports on both sides, and the lack of support for multiple external displays). Plus with the $200 increase I would have liked to see either a bump in RAM or storage. Really thought the M2 was going to go 12GB standard RAM after seeing the Max was raised to 24GB in the presentation.

 

[TechRunner]

My boss at the time got one right after release, and I would make up an excuse to pop into her office just to drool over it/ask questions. I finally got one of my own in 2015.

 

[Wildkraut]

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.

I see it more as riding on Steve Jobs legacy and harvesting the normal evolution of products, evolution that would have come like that anyway, even with a monkey as CEO.

 

[Patchwork]

I remember following the MacRumors feed on something called twitter (wonder what happened to that?) and promptly bought one the same day. It was my first Apple laptop having switched from Windows the previous year when I bought an iMac. At the time there wasn’t really anything like it (the rather expensive carbon fibre Sony X505VP was smaller but quite old at this point). Took it everywhere I traveled and so much more useful than windows laptops that had gone before. Sure the single USB port could be a bit of a pain, it wasn’t powerful and the fan would ramp up if you tried to do anything vaguely taxing, but it was ground breaking in a way that Apple rarely is these days.

 

[Leon Ze Professional]

15th anniversary for the Macbook Air is now the perfect time to release the 15 inch Macbook Air.

Please, 🙏 make it happen 🍎.

 

[cicalinarrot]

And I still hear people saying you can get a faster Windows laptop for a third of the price.
They had 15 years to understand what a good laptop is all about.

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

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

But you gain more with the new design, just as you do with the newly designed MacBook Pro and even the Studio versus the ‘trash can’ Mac Pro.

Tapered or wedge designs sacrifice functionality because you have to engineer around a non-uniform shape. The terraced battery is a classic example - Apple had to design a bespoke multi-layered battery just to fill the available space, was not only more expensive but came at the cost of reducing battery capacity all for the sale of aesthetics. With the latest products, they’ve reverted back to more square sides and that has allowed several features to improved or included, particularly standard batteries.

At the end of the day, functionality trumps aesthetics and you can’t alway have both the way you want them.

 

[Corefile]

This original machine was an embarassing disaster. The spinner in the base model was so slooow and the CPU was so weak. It wasn't until the 2010 MBA that the correct components for the form factor became available. But my sympathies for those who bought the original model which was plain terrible.

 

[Apple_Robert]

My oldest Air was the 2011 model. I have been happy with my M1 and M2 Airs. I like the new chip and form factor.

 

[ericwn]

I see it more as riding on Steve Jobs legacy and harvesting the normal evolution of products, evolution that would have come like that anyway, even with a monkey as CEO.

Well but times change and the success of the company changed. Cook build the company back up as Jobs right hand and they knew where they’re going in the process. It’s pointless to compare Apple to the days where all they could technically achieve was a nice case shell, with mobile chips of the mediocre type, lower quality displays, few ports etc

And I still hear people saying you can get a faster Windows laptop for a third of the price.
They had 15 years to understand what a good laptop is all about.

and apple took a decade to make it a good computer too, not just a light one.

 

[ericwn]

I miss the 11 inch model.

 

[TheYayAreaLiving 🎗️]

MacBook Air is such an iconic Mac. It got me through college when I was broke and couldn’t afford an expensive laptop. I left Microsoft Windows OS because of the MacBook Air.

MacBook Air is definitely Mr. Steve Jobs's baby. It changed the game. I hope Apple brings the old flushed design/wedge design back in the future.

Stay thin! 🫥

 

[Piscestg]

Cool. Too bad I wasn't an Apple user back then. My M2 MBA is probably my favorite device ever. I love it.

 

[BrownyQ]

I remember watching that presentation, seeing Jobs pull it from the envelope. Genuinely blew me away at the time.

But at the time, I already had a MacBook that was less than 6 months old, so getting a new one was just out of the question. And to date, I still haven't owned an Air model of anything.

 

[GerritV]

Fell in love with the form factor while seeing this presentation.
But, at the time I needed maximum power and screen estate for my work.
Hard to believe that fifteen years passed in the meantime - but now I'm retired.
Guess what... I recently bought me a MBA M1, and couldn't be happier.

 

[TheYayAreaLiving 🎗️]

15th anniversary for the Macbook Air is now the perfect time to release the 15 inch Macbook Air.

Please, 🙏 make it happen 🍎.

15” MacBook Air + Midnight Edition. I will instantly buy it. I will give up my MacBook Pro 16” for that.

 

[darngooddesign]

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

The notch is easy to hide.

 

[GubbyMan]

There’s something in the Air.

 

[CoreForce]

I'm using a MacBook Air with M1 core at work. It's the ideal travel companion and an astonishing piece of engineering. I can leave the power cord home without any worries, still it got serous amount of beef under the hood. Love it.

 

[chrono1081]

I remember this. I didn't have a Mac yet but I was always "Mac curious" and whenever he announced that I was like "Holy **** what the hell kind of black magic is Apple up to?"

I ended up getting my first air in 2010 with the redesign and was smitten. Air's have so much more power than people realize (although I know the first Air wasn't so great).

My current main laptop is a MacBook Air M2 and I do a lot of heavy work on my laptop (Final Cut, Logic, Godot, Unity, Blender, Houdini, Xcode, etc) and it handles it with ease.

 

[riverfreak]

To this day, a typically memorable bit of Jobsian stagecraft.

And the MacBook Air — despite its shortcomings — forever changed my expectations for mobile computing. What a joy it was to have a truly lightweight device with a slim profile that fit in any bag, with no sharp corners to snag. Made going through circa 2008 airport security scene fiasco that much easier.

 

[George Dawes]

Steve was such an incredible presenter

Nobody else comes close

 

[staypuftforums]

Probably his best single moment as a showman. Whoever came up with that idea deserves a lot of credit.