Yeah I owned an 11 inch too and had none of those issues. Maybe it was only on 1st gen airs? I think the 11” was a generation or two later which may have solved those things? Can’t remember lol
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The MacBook Air Turns 17 Today
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The thing is, anyone else doing it just comes across cringe or dorky. Jobs was just cool and exciting, just like Apple used to be. M chips aside, I actually think we would have had an Apple car or global satellite network, something outside of the standard me too products apple releases.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY 🎂! How the years have flown from the 1st device!
It doesn't have to be -- that's just Apple nickel-and-diming you more than they need to. There are 120Hz 3K OLED panels in $500 PC laptops but Apple still puts a standard panel in a $1100 laptop.
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It was genius marketing to have Steve pull it out of an office transit-envelope with one hand.
I'm not truly convinced the transit-envelope wasn't specially made for the reveal. But still. The message it sent, when normal laptops of the time were about an inch thick in places and weighed several kilos, was incredible.
I'm not truly convinced the transit-envelope wasn't specially made for the reveal. But still. The message it sent, when normal laptops of the time were about an inch thick in places and weighed several kilos, was incredible.
It really is incredible how well the tapered design made things "feel" super super thin
The current design just feels chonky, despite being very thin
I love the wedges -- so great to hold and slide in and out of bags, etc
Got my wife one of those first units. Since there were screws in the cover, I was able to replace the HDD with a SSD at one point. That made it much more usable. She used it for many years.
I, too, had several of the 11" MBAir. It was the ideal size for the ever decreasing in size airline fold down table.
One has to fly first class to deploy a 16" laptop today....
I, too, had several of the 11" MBAir. It was the ideal size for the ever decreasing in size airline fold down table.
One has to fly first class to deploy a 16" laptop today....
Just hold a new MBA in one hand and a Dell Latitude in the other. 🤣
We had an XPS 13 in last week for a manager, it felt so heavy, compared to my M1 MBA.
I got one of these original models a few years ago. Getting it to boot off an external SuperDrive was not as easy as it should have been, but it's such a neat design. They definitely got the design perfected in the 2010 models. The first few models felt kind of cheap, despite the high price tag, but the 2010 onward models felt really solid.
A friend of mine had the 11". The one thing I remember is that is was sooooo light and the magnet closure was too strong and you needed two hands to open it. I think that left a bad taste in my mouth about the wedge design.
Although I've used a bunch of the 13" clam shell airs and they didn't have that problem.
I still think the M1 is an incredible machine.
We've lost so much in the effort to save a penny here and there.
I got the MBA 11 from the enveloppe... It was such a gem.
I still have it but the battery is gone.
MacBooks Air are still my favorite laptops.
I still have it but the battery is gone.
MacBooks Air are still my favorite laptops.
Ah, the MacBook Air...
For the longest time, as a lifelong Windows user, this was the laptop that I admired. I was always looking for a Windows equivalent, having tried the Dell XPS13 and the Surface Laptop most recently. It wasn't until last year, having been in the Apple ecosystem for some time in just about every other way, that I decided to finally get a Mac. My first and so far only Mac which I'm typing this very message on; an M3 MacBook Air. And when I eventually replace it, I expect it will be with another MacBook Air. Perhaps an M6 or M7 by that point.
So yeah, the MBA will always hold a special place in my heart. I understand that the first iteration certainly had its flaws, but it really was a game changer for ultraportable laptops.
For the longest time, as a lifelong Windows user, this was the laptop that I admired. I was always looking for a Windows equivalent, having tried the Dell XPS13 and the Surface Laptop most recently. It wasn't until last year, having been in the Apple ecosystem for some time in just about every other way, that I decided to finally get a Mac. My first and so far only Mac which I'm typing this very message on; an M3 MacBook Air. And when I eventually replace it, I expect it will be with another MacBook Air. Perhaps an M6 or M7 by that point.
So yeah, the MBA will always hold a special place in my heart. I understand that the first iteration certainly had its flaws, but it really was a game changer for ultraportable laptops.
I still remember being a Windows user and seeing that. I was in utter shock at how thin Apple made a laptop. My first Air was in 2010 with the unibody design. I loved that thing, it was so much more powerful than people realized. I created animations and 3D levels with it in Maya that I then ran in Unity.
That featured image of the Manila folder and mba making a “17” is absolutely brilliant
Kudos!
Kudos!
Agreed. MR is that your work or is that from Apple?
Apple should release M4 Air today. Don't know what kind of game TC is playing by delaying the release. Each year they should release all the computers at the same time to make it easier for us to make a purchase decision.
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The 2008 MBA model that Jobs pulled out of an envelope 17 years ago was really a niche product. It was expensive laptop and not mainstream.
The 2010 model was the truly innovative everyday ultra-portable that was marketed to a wide customer base at a more affordable price. The 2010 MBA changed the laptop market, and many tried to copy it. Also, the 2010 MBA was the first to offer the 11 inch version in addition to the standard 13 inch. It was the 2010 model that Steve Jobs described as the result of an iPad and MacBook if they "hooked-up". While Apple continually made spec updates and minor improvements, the 2010 body and footprint survived over 7 years until it was replaced by the Retina display MBA.
I had the 2014 MBA that was based on the 2010 model, and it was a terrific computer. All of my kids used MBAs in high school and college, and they really stood the test of time. Great computers.
The 2010 model was the truly innovative everyday ultra-portable that was marketed to a wide customer base at a more affordable price. The 2010 MBA changed the laptop market, and many tried to copy it. Also, the 2010 MBA was the first to offer the 11 inch version in addition to the standard 13 inch. It was the 2010 model that Steve Jobs described as the result of an iPad and MacBook if they "hooked-up". While Apple continually made spec updates and minor improvements, the 2010 body and footprint survived over 7 years until it was replaced by the Retina display MBA.
I had the 2014 MBA that was based on the 2010 model, and it was a terrific computer. All of my kids used MBAs in high school and college, and they really stood the test of time. Great computers.
The MacBook Air was how we got a lot of the execs and VP's at a company I used to work for to convert to Mac's. They were always looking for thin and light systems for travel and such. We had great success with the Air in that effort, and it eventually led to us adopting Mac's as a standard option for deployment, as opposed to just being for developers. We got to a point where around 80% of our workforce was on Apple hardware. Good times!!!
My ThinkPad died about 18 months ago. Just before the launch of the Intel Core Ultra NPU processors. We had an old MacBook Air M1 in a cupboard, doing nothing. It was bought as a device to register iPhones into the MDM system, but it turned out it wasn't actually needed and it was stuffed in a cupboard.
I talked my boss into letting me use it, while I waited for the first generation Core Ultras to be released, they disappointed, but Snapdragon Elite was announced, so I thought I'd wait until they appears, but I found the MBA so nice (I use a Mac mini at home), I haven't even been tempted to hand it in against a new Lunar Lake or Snapdragon laptop.
Just waiting for the M4 Air to drop, I'll probably get one of those to replace the M1 Air... At the beginning I had to use Parallels and WoA to run a few applications, but I only start it up a couple of times a month now to test a few things.
Maybe just a little hyperbolic of a take... If the original Air is the worst computer ever in your experience, you should try some cheap laptops from many different vendors (or some not-so-cheap ones). Or, there was the Mattell Barbie PC that was released in 1999. Or the IBM PCjr (1984), which wasn't great. The original Apple III was likely a much worse computer than the original Air.
The original Air had some serious limitations but it wasn't a terrible computer.
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