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Easy solution for Apple: take the iPad pro, add hinges, keyboard and trackpad... et voila.
They’re so busy shaving off 1/50” iPad bezel space that they forgot that the machine used to do so is called a “computer”
 
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"Inexpensive" here's an average laptop for $1000. lol. $1000 is not an inexpensive laptop. $700 and lower are inexpensive laptops.
 
You seem to have left out a small detail: Recompile macOS and ALL Apple Applications for ARM...

Exactly. As much as I hate the dumbed-down flat unintuitive iOS, the minute my MacBook would "look" and operate with iOS UIx, I'm officially out of the Apple eco-system. It'd be: Goooo-bye, it's been a nice 13 years with some good memories.
 
October? I really hoped we'd be seeing the new iPad Pro in September.

I would love nothing more than for Apple to release an iPad in a laptop form. A 2-in1, detachable or something else. A slightly larger screen than the 10.5. Maybe even a trackpad with cursor support. I can dream right ?
 
I don't see why the Air even exists anymore. Maybe because of MagSafe and the non-dongle USB port, and keyboard.

Apple likes having the sub $1000 catagory covered, and it still sells to more casual users and students. Not having a replacement would take them out of that market. There is also the entry level 21 inch iMac.

I think the Macbook Air is done though. It is the last remaining ‘air’ product that they had been phasing out the name, and the easiest route might be a cheaper Macbook.
 
I don't see why the Air even exists anymore. Maybe because of MagSafe and the non-dongle USB port, and keyboard.

Drop the entry model price for the MacBook, improve the keyboard, include x2 USB-C Gen 2 ports, include a USB-C to USB-A dongle, 720p webcam for the 2018 refresh and then drop the Air. Keep the lineup as such:

IPhone
IPhone Pro

IPad
IPad Pro

MacBook
MacBook Pro

IMac
IMac Pro

Mac
MacPro
 
They’re so busy shaving off 1/50” iPad bezel space that they forgot that the machine used to do so is called a “computer”

Yup. Until it's been confirmed that Apple engineers/designers design 100% of a product using iPads and not a desktop or laptop with mouse & keyboard, any joke about replacing a laptop with an iPad + keyboard is just that, a joke. :)
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"Inexpensive" here's an average laptop for $1000. lol. $1000 is not an inexpensive laptop. $700 and lower are inexpensive laptops.

Don't forget apple care, which I still think is a must-have. Suddenly that $700 laptop is, what $950? I forget the Apple Care cost for a MacBook.
 
Apple "inexpensive" is not the same as inexpensive.

We'll see though. Wouldn't hate to be proven wrong.
 
I still think it’s a mess, and hopefully Apple combines the rMB non-touch bar MBP and MBA into one product with an entry level model and slightly more expensive one.
Apple has always meant the 13” nTB to be the retina replacement for the MBA. The question is, can they bring it in at $999. Up to and including today, the answer has been, No, retina means a $1,299 minimum.

I do think Air/nTB are merged into a new 13” replacement model. I’ve been speculating at the $999 price it will be a non-retina/P3 display, maybe an IPS 1920x1200, with retina adding $100-150. Like rMB I don’t think it gets Thunderbolt 3 either, just USB 3.1 Gen 1 or Gen 2. Probably 2 USB-C and no USB-A and the new keyboard. Mag Safe and SDXC gone for sure.
 
I think it would be interesting if Apple took a production cycle to see what consumers want. Apple has kept the Air because it continued to sell so well as it has a nice set of trade-offs. Great battery life but not super speedy as just one example. Perhaps Apple could put out a MacBook that has the thickness of the Air with updated internals but not as fast as the Pro line. So the MacBook retains the great battery life, keyboard, ports, etc. but only has say duo-core processors that don't achieve that top of the line performance.
The MacBook Pro would then be the thinnest fastest machine they could build.
I believe the average Apple laptop person would prefer the MacBook with its trade-offs to the MacBook Pro with its trade-offs.
It would also provide a visual distinction between the two lines, MacBook thicker than the Pro line.
Of course Apple will never do it. Apple is all in on thin to win despite that design's philosophy on the user experience.
 
All Apple had to do was slap a retina screen on the MacBook Air and updated the processor for it to retain the “greatest laptop ever made” title.

Apple are such stubborn fools sometimes.
No thanks. The MacBook Air design itself is very dated. It’s not just the screen that held it back. The form factor is a lot larger than it needs to be for a device named “air”

Give us the retina MacBook for cheaper and I’ll be good
 
I don't see why the Air even exists anymore. Maybe because of MagSafe and the non-dongle USB port, and keyboard.

It exists for EDU. We buy pallets of this machine for our 5,000 educators that mainly want Apple. If they dropped the Air line we would not be able to afford to supply MacBooks. Really, in general the prices of Apple computers need to come down a lot.
 
It's fairly cheap, although now I wouldn't recommend it as there's been no new generation. Still using my CTO Early-2014, although I have a strong suspicion that it needs a thermal paste replacement. Also, MagSafe is great. Too bad Apple retired it in favor of USB-C.
MagSafe IS great.

Fortunately, Third parties have come up with multiple solutions for USB-C users, some as cheap as $10:

https://www.amazon.com/Magnetic-Lighting-Charging-Braided-Transfer/dp/B0781P8BLY/

https://www.amazon.com/Magnetic-MacBook-Charge-Apple-Charger/dp/B079PYZJ2B/

https://www.amazon.com/MagSafe-Adapter-Magnetic-Charger-Charging/dp/B07DMKJ9KX/

https://www.amazon.com/Ankey-Magnetic-Connection-Converter-Chromebook/dp/B07C4JNX6D/

https://www.amazon.com/MagSafe-Adapter-Magnetic-Charging-Replacement/dp/B07BGSS591/

https://www.amazon.com/Power-Trend-Reversible-Chromebook-Notebooks/dp/B078PH8Q2K/

https://www.amazon.com/UGI-Magnetic-Braided-Charging-Samsung/dp/B07BF5WQVV/

This one even has a Lightning adapter, for MagSafe iOS-Charging!

https://www.amazon.com/Degree-Magnetic-Charger-Charging-Silver/dp/B07D31SYFD/


So, I think we can official stop wringing our collective hands about this one, eh?
 
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Apple has always meant the 13” nTB to be the retina replacement for the MBA. The question is, can they bring it in at $999. Up to and including today, the answer has been, No, retina means a $1,299 minimum.

I do think Air/nTB are merged into a new 13” replacement model. I’ve been speculating at the $999 price it will be a non-retina/P3 display, maybe an IPS 1920x1200, with retina adding $100-150. Like rMB I don’t think it gets Thunderbolt 3 either, just USB 3.1 Gen 1 or Gen 2. Probably 2 USB-C and no USB-A and the new keyboard. Mag Safe and SDXC gone for sure.
How is it that the cheapest iPhone and iPad can have a retina screen but the Mac cannot? It’s criminal at this point that not every Mac is retina.
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Exactly. As much as I hate the dumbed-down flat unintuitive iOS, the minute my MacBook would "look" and operate with iOS UIx, I'm officially out of the Apple eco-system. It'd be: Goooo-bye, it's been a nice 13 years with some good memories.
macOS isn’t being replaced by iOS. How many times do Apple execs have to keep saying this???
 
No thanks. The MacBook Air design itself is very dated. It’s not just the screen that held it back. The form factor is a lot larger than it needs to be for a device named “air”

Give us the retina MacBook for cheaper and I’ll be good

Apple would be wise to lose the Air name, but current Air's form factor & features vs. price level is perfectly fine for many users, including myself. "Dated" is so relative and such an overblown "issue" in regards to technology, primarily Apple products, to where it's too often been used as excuse to push forced innovation and change for the sake of change, two concepts I never applied to Apple products before 2013.
 
Apple selling a Mac with an unchanged design for eight years straight (as in both the MacBook Air and Mac mini) is not something that has happened before, ever.
...And hasn't happened with either of those models, either.

The MBA has been updated as recently as 2015. That's THREE years, not TEN:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacBook_Air

And the Mac mini has been updated SEVERAL times, most recently in 2014. That's FOUR years, not TEN:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_Mini
 
macOS isn’t being replaced by iOS. How many times do Apple execs have to keep saying this???

True, but UIx aspects of today's flat and dumbed-down "Fisher Price my first computer-looking" OSX keep grafting on quite a few cues from the flat, low-contrast, overuse-of-light-blue-text-on-white cues currently throughout iOS vs. how OSX looked during Mavericks and prior.
 
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This is really not true anymore of Windows. Windows 10 is a much better product now and has come a long way. I work with Windows everyday and rarely see the issues I used to. But I do agree MacOS is better.

I used Windows 10 for 3 straight weeks, recently. It's still in the 80s in many respects.

1. Can't rename or move a file in the Explorer that is open. You get an error message. You have to go find the open file in an app and close it. If it's over the network, go find the person who has it open and ask them to close it. Horrible.
2. Open/Save dialogue is exactly the same that it has been for 20 years, and it sucks. Different apps give you a different open/save dialogue. Different apps give you different open/save dialogues, so there is no OS consistency. They don't remember where I just was 10 minutes ago, so I have to travel through C:/Documents/Project Folder/Images... CONSTANTLY!!!! The Mac has an open/save that reflects the FAVORITES that's in the Finder, and it has a RECENTS pop-up menu for me...in every app on the Mac. It's superior. And I spend a HUGE amount of time in the open/save dialogues.
3. Can't drag/drop files onto an app in the task bar – you really have to behave like it's 1988 in Windows, to this day. If you have Photoshop open and it's in the task bar, and then you go to the Explorer to look at files in your folder and find a JPEG you want to open in Photoshop, you can't just click and drag it onto the Photoshop app icon in the task bar to open it in Photoshop like you can on the Mac. You have to either right-click on the file, select Open With... and then select Photoshop in the long list of apps, or you have to go back to Photoshop and select Open... and find that file you were just looking at.
4. I printed a project from InDesign. What's the status of that print in Windows versus OS X? It's shocking, the difference. The Mac OS automatically brings up a dialogue of that print and when it's finished, it disappears. With Windows, you gotta find the printer in the Control Panel and then open it up and then select the printer and then close it when it's done.
5. Switching between apps is a pain in the butt. Windows has you switching between windows, not apps. Clicking on the app in the task bar shows you a thumb of all windows open in that app.
6. Windows 10 still has TWO control panels! LOL. Control Panel/Settings. Seriously, to illustrate how awful Microsoft is with user interfaces, just go through the control panels and settings for your computer.

I could go on and on and on.

In short, the Mac OS is SO MUCH MORE efficient than Windows.

In regards to all the system hassles, viruses/malware/spware, I reject the notion that Windows 10 doesn't have the same issues earlier Windows had. I experienced some myself in the 3 weeks I worked with it and watched the IT guy fix them.

Windows is still total crap. It had been years since I used it on a daily basis for a project and I was shocked at how antiquated it still is. Believe me, I would LOVE to be able to go build a custom PC with the latest GPU and configure my hardware however I want and have the same every-day experience I have with Mac OS. I will shout it out to the sky if this happens with Windows. Unfortunately, I'm still picking inferior Mac hardware for superior OS.
 
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And by inexpensive you mean "More expensive than 95% of all PCs currently on the market." lol.
 
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