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Report: Super-Lightweight 12-inch MacBook Powered By Apple Silicon to Launch This Year

Good place to start, show off the battery life, performance, and portability. If they can clean up macOS, it may be enticing for someone like myself who has relied on iPad Pro for the last 3 years. I just worry about the reliability, hardware and software.
 
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NewUsername said:
12" is too small. I've used an 11.6" MacBook Air for years, then switched to a 13.3" model. In comparison that screen is HUGE. I wouldn't want to go back to 12".

On the other hand, a 12" MacBook Air, 14" MacBook Pro and 16" MacBook Pro would make a lot of sense to me.
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Absolutely. One could also add a 14" Air to the portfolio - lighter, sleeker, less power, less graphics and less ports than the Pro of the same size.

Would remind me of the old lineup - Air in 11/13, Pro in 13/15. (Back then, only the Pros had Retina displays so this differentiation no longer exists.)
 
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miq said:
Uhhhm why not? The old 12in MacBook was always sold alongside the air.
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The MacBook was a natural transition for the MacBook Air back in 2015. I'm willing to bet the Air was only kept around and updated after Apple realized Intel's fanless chips weren't going to perform half as well as Intel initially promised. There were no updates for the non-retina Air for years after the MacBook's release. This time Apple will have their own chips, so I'm guessing they are going to have only one name with multiple sizes, like the old days with the Air.
 
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aleni said:
The amazing thing about the iPad Pro is it has no fan.
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It is !

I'm interested to see if they'll do a Mac mini-mini.

It would not need to be any bigger than an Apple TV and could potentially run off any USB-C charger or power bank.

A revised macbook though would be awesome. I was never too impressed with the benchmarks, but from a technical standpoint the logic board and fanless design was absolutely amazing considering it was an Intel Core Processor (granted "M")
 
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pray2crom said:
What I like to know is how much better are apple's "silicon" chips in video rendering compared to intel machines using AMD GPUs? Apple divorced themselves with Nvidia so cuda is out of the question so now we are stuck with open cl and metal. I am still not buying the hype that a lone a14(xxx) can outperform the current offerings.
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Apple MacBook with A14x running lumafusion for macOS via Catalyst. I think it can give many a windows laptop a run for their money.
 
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nothingtoseehere said:
Absolutely. One could also add a 14" Air to the portfolio - lighter, sleeker, less power, less graphics and less ports than the Pro of the same size.

Would remind me of the old lineup - Air in 11/13, Pro in 13/15. (Back then, only the Pros had Retina displays so this differentiation no longer exists.)
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Yes a 14” ultraportable would be my dream alongside a powerful desktop.
Had the macbook and 13” MBP and both were a little too small, with the 13” usable. 14“ is perfect IMO for an all round laptop.
The 12” is also too close to the ipad pro. When I had a macbook I just ended up using the ipad all the time and the macbook gathered dust as it was too small to be productive and the ipad was quicker.
 
alecgold said:
15-20 hours of battery life would mean a REAL workday of power!!
I can’t wait until there is a 13.3 or 14”. 12 is just a tad too small.
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Exactly, my current macbook is too small
Finally some real innovation to battery life would be coming since the MacBook Air achieved 12 hours
 
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malko said:
I don't know why everyone is still talking about the performance of the 5,5 years old 2015 model as soon as the 12" MB is up for discussion. I'm writing this on a 2017 Macbook 12" with i7 and 16 GB ram and it's just very marginally slower than the two years younger Macbook air (2019) that I've tried it against. Both user experience and benchmark tests like Geekbench suggest single digit difference in %.

Many seem to be of the opinion that the 12" Macbook didn't really have a place in the lineup, but personally I think that applies more to the Macbook Air line, which is clumsier and noisier (fan) while not being faster than the 12".
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Well the original 2015 model really was a bit underpowered, and in particular the integrated gpu was actually too weak to push a 4K display at 60Hz, never mind that if you use USB-C for that you can hardly use it for anything else. Later models fixed that part at least. Also had the very first iteration of the butterfly keyboard, although I was lucky: it never went wrong for me. I have the 2018 MBA now and yes, it's also a bit underpowered (nb: for me, only felt when building java projects), but at least I can plug it into a thunderbolt 3 dock (I've only ever used one of the ports on the MBA) and it's a perfectly adequate desktop experience. If the "underpowered" bit was a real deal-breaker of course I wouldn't have bought either (it was never a surprise), but I have a 27" imac for when i want the oomph, for a laptop portability is king and why i have a particular fondness for the 12" model.

... even if, as others have observed, during lockdown it doesn't travel further than between the bedroom and the living room... such a weight to carry, sam... ;)
 
I hope that the MBP 13” is first because the prospect of the return of the MB makes me quiver. One port, butterfly keyboard, even with Apple Silicon, it would be underpowered.
Also, why would they resurrect the MacBook, when it has been discontinued, wouldn’t it make more sense to keep the MacBook Air and Pro names.
 
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Brookzy said:
If they do just call it "MacBook", my naming OCD will be triggered again! 😂

The current MacBook Air should be MacBook.

This new rumoured thing should be MacBook Air.

And then MacBook Pro, and the lineup makes sense.
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Yeah, they (inadvertently?) flipped the meanings of MB and MBA when the popularity of the latter made it the de facto basic Mac laptop. I don't really see them fixing this without a major reset - they wouldn't just drop the "Air" from the next spec upgrade of the current MBA.
 
This is what I call a 'cruel rumor', as I doubt we will be so lucky. For me, the 12" was the best laptop I ever owned. Unfortunately, it wore out, and I haven't gotten around to replacing it yet. Wait?
 
Grey Area said:
Yeah, they (inadvertently?) flipped the meanings of MB and MBA when the popularity of the latter made it the de facto basic Mac laptop. I don't really see them fixing this without a major reset - they wouldn't just drop the "Air" from the next spec upgrade of the current MBA.
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Bring back iBook branding.
 
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Yebubbleman said:
I am skeptical of this. A MacBook Air would make way more sense. Hell, even a 13" Pro would make more sense. Making the first jump on a machine that isn't even in their lineup anymore wouldn't make much sense.
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Funny how we see things differently.
To me it makes complete sense to have the MB as the first Mac using Apple silicon. The recent MBs have been entirely about form factor, lightness and battery duration. A perfect fit for an A14x processor.

As for more powerful Macs, they will need more powerful processors, specifically designed for Macs (as opposed to iPhones and or iPads) and those are not ready yet.
 
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zlt1228 said:
Contrary to the mainstream opinion here, I would argue that this might not be true. The 12-inch MacBook, being supposedly the entry-level Mac, was not in a clear space in the lineup in 2016. On the one hand, there was the MacBook Pro, starting at the same price, while being much more powerful. Apple wanted the MacBook to be a ultra thin and light parallel to the Pro, but it did not go so well. This is caused, on the one hand, by the thermal constrains of the chassis, and one the other hand, the high manufacturing cost of the ultra dense motherboard and the terrace battery. Apple quickly reverted that with the reintroduction on the MacBook Air. I doubt whether Apple will make the same mistake again.
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I still think the original MacBook was a proof of concept and when achieved, shut down temporarily. Wasn't there a Senior Hardware manager recalled from retirement to guide this ? Now it comes back as (IMO) originally intended.
 
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