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If that is the case glad I got my MBA 13" when I did.. the battery life on that thing is incredible and no matter what Apple does, adding a battery hogging retina display will no doubt reduce it significantly, this is the reason that I decided against a macbook pro.

Battery life will be same or less by 1-2 hours at most. Even if you didn't get your MBA at this time the (eventually) old model (the one you have) will still be available or purchase for a while.
 
How about a 15" MB Air so ppl can actually use the thing? Every time I pick an 11" model in the Apple Store, I simply can't imagine attempting to use it as anything more than a portable movie player. I know a lot of users - myself included - for whom the only drawback of the 13" MBA is a dearth of screen real estate. You can design on a 15" screen if you really want to, but losing those last two inches make it challenging to fit in all the tool palates. (I rock a 17" now and sometimes even that's not enough.) Of course we don't need MB's in every size and configuration, but I'm nearly positive that 15" MBA would find a greater market that an 11" or 12", even with a retina display. Hear my prayers, Apple. Hear them and be benevolent!

Agreed that the 11" feels small, but the 13" MBA is 1440x900, the same screen real estate as the standard res 15" MBP so it's not really "losing" two inches of room for tool palettes, they just appear a little smaller on the screen.
 
If that is the case glad I got my MBA 13" when I did.. the battery life on that thing is incredible and no matter what Apple does, adding a battery hogging retina display will no doubt reduce it significantly, this is the reason that I decided against a macbook pro.

Actually the battery life on the new 13 rMBP is fantastic which is why I got it instead of the vastly more powerful 15 variant. The battery life even using fcpx is surprisingly good unless it is performing analysis....
 
My logical guess, and it's just a guess, no scientific or imperical evidence here.... Just pure opinion... Is that those will be discontinued.

It'll definitely depend on the price they can offer an rMBA at, but if it starts around $999, then that'd be my guess too.
 
I'd like a smaller bezel and an edge-to-edge keyboard please.

In a 11" form factor, but with that 12" screen.

You used to make it, you called it the 12" PowerBook.

Can I just get an Intel version of that please?
 
Seems like a One-size fits all to me....IF they can make the price reasonable.

Make this bad boy $999 and call it a day.

Above this model should exist nothing but 13 & 15" Retina MBP

I've been eyeing on MB air for months and couldn't decide between two sizes. This will solve my dilemma. :)
 
Would be great if they could reduce the bezel on the 13'' model. I'd love a bigger screen, but I don't want the bigger body that goes with it. The bezel is quite big atm to be honest.
 
I'd like a smaller bezel and an edge-to-edge keyboard please.

In a 11" form factor, but with that 12" screen.

You used to make it, you called it the 12" PowerBook.

Can I just get an Intel version of that please?

Not quite. Remember the 12" PB used a 4:3 aspect ratio display. This could very well mean the 11" MBA's footprint is already wider than the 12" PB's footprint which is why they don't need to make an edge-to-edge keyboard.

Is the MBA keyboard more compressed than their other keyboards? If it is I'd like to see enlarged but going edge-to-edge for its own sake is not something we should be requesting.
 
Two thoughts:

#1 the importance of keeping the same DPI is more important from a hardware software perspective than a user perspective. I agree the returns greatly diminish after 200dpi on a keyboard/clamshell design.


#2 I don't believe this system WILL replace the MBA (in the short term) because I believe it will be the first Mac OS based system to use an ARM chipset. I think this because the greater performance per watt of ARM will be necessary to drive the higher resolution and still maintain a comparable experience while keeping power draw to a minimum. Likewise with their own chip and in-house ARM-motherboard experience I think Apple can create much more efficient chipsets and keep battery life comparable.

The first fan-less Apple laptop? Maybe. Certainly stronger, thinner, lighter.
 
i don't see how anyone could see this as illogical. Having 2 screen size options that are both too small for any serious work has always made no sense to me. Might as well split the difference, while keeping the price low to satisfy the only real reason why people buy a MacBook air - price and small size. I can imagine the majority of people only differentiate the size of the current Air based on price, given that there is such a small difference in screen sizes on an already small machine. By splitting the difference, you have one less configuration to manufacture and you don't really alienate the majority of potential Air customers, given that it is not a machine built for performance or physical screen real estate anyway. Then you are still left with the differentiation between Airs and Pros being the processing power and graphics, just as it was back in the original MacBook vs Macbook Pro days. You don't always have to use "retina" as a designation of product class, and it seems obvious that Apple is eventually trying to get to this point with their entire line (excluding the iMacs, which likely will maintain their resolution for a few more years until 4K becomes more reasonably priced and GPU technology catches up).
 
1) They could use either panel in the 13" or 15" MBPs they also benefit from economics of scale.

Not necessarily.

13" MBP Retina = 2560x1600
15" MBP Retina = 2880x1800

Effective screen space equiavlent is: (because UI doesn't get smaller on retina)

1280x800
1440x900

If you just cut those down for an 11" MacBook Air, you get effective space of:

1083x676
1055x659

Not much real estate (though sharp).

arn
 
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I don't get the logic here. Why would it matter for a laptop what the exact PPI are? Isn't the whole point of a retina display that you can't distinguish pixels and they scale screen elements to whatever you want?

Also, I don't think apple would make a small technical detail the main point in what screen size they offer. They would clearly base this decision on customer demand and user experience. Only then they would choose the technology they need to produce the laptops.

Ever heard of manufacturing?

They could literally use THE SAME display panels as the iPad Air, but just a little larger. They just cut the sheets differently........and if you'd actually read the article you would understand this.
 
#1 the importance of keeping the same DPI is more important from a hardware software perspective than a user perspective. I agree the returns greatly diminish after 200dpi on a keyboard/clamshell design.


#2 I don't believe this system WILL replace the MBA (in the short term) because I believe it will be the first Mac OS based system to use an ARM chipset. I think this because the greater performance per watt of ARM will be necessary to drive the higher resolution and still maintain a comparable experience while keeping power draw to a minimum. Likewise with their own chip and in-house ARM-motherboard experience I think Apple can create much more efficient chipsets and keep battery life comparable.

The first fan-less Apple laptop? Maybe. Certainly stronger, thinner, lighter.

I very much doubt Apple has any interest in designing their own laptop chips when Intel is clearly doing just fine in that area for them. I can imagine having to support 2 different chip technologies in OSX is a burden, based on the interim when they went from PowerPC to Intel around 2006. And based on what it sounds like Intel's main focus is currently, I'd say they've already got plenty of ultra low power mobile computing chips in the pipeline.
 
the problem with this rumor is that apple most likely will not have both an ipad pro at 12" and a macbook air at 12". These are the same devices, which leads me to believe apple is releasing their first tablet with a keyboard dock.

perhaps it runs both osx and ios?
 
Apple will call the current MBA models simply MacBooks.

This new retina-12 inch MBA will be the "New MacBook Air"

Line-up 2014:

15.4-inch MacBook Pro w/Retina Display
13.3-inch MacBook Pro w/Retina Display

13.3-inch MacBook
11.6-inch MacBook

11.88-inch MacBook Air w/Retina Display
 
Not necessarily.

13" MBP Retina = 2560x1600
15" MBP Retina = 2880x1800

Effective screen space equiavlent is: (because UI doesn't get smaller on retina)

1280x800
1440x900

If you just cut those down for an 11" MacBook Air, you get effective space of:

1083x676
1055x659

Not much real estate (though sharp).

arn

I agree that the iPad's 264 PPI being right between the 260 to 270 PPI of what doubling of the current MBA resolutions would probably be more ideal for usability, but from the standpoint of economics of scale I'd think being able to use more of their MBP sheets would save them more money.
 
just cut the bezel and keep it the same size as the current model, whatever that ends up as is good. Oh and make sure the battery lasts as long as the 13" does now while you're at it
 
PLEASE do not screw up the 2014 Air between now and my date of purchase.

oh, this is why I'm about to buy a little and efficient mba 11" sometime in the coming months. I got no need for fancy retina stuff as this will be my little mini music production center when out and about and very few audio-related software has gone retina (not even) yet...
 
Unless they intend to replace it with an 11" iPad, this is just silly.

Actually it's a bit silly either way. How do you decide between an 11" and 13" MBA?

Replacing it with an 11" iPad would be silly. An iPad with an ARM processor can't replace an x86 MBA.
 
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