Upcoming MacBook Air Models Rumored to Feature Two New Display Sizes but Miss Out on Mini-LED Technology

[ian87w]

The rumors are simply throwing anything on the wall to see what sticks huh.

15" model: unlikely. This is just rehashing old rumors. From Apple's perspective, they already sell a larger screen laptop, the 16" MacBook Pro. Why would they let people spend less money?

Mini LED and promotion: again, unlikely, because Apple sell MacBook Pros with those exact features as one of the main selling points. Apple is about upselling.

My guess the lineup will be simpler than what people think.
M1 MacBook Air: remains for $999 because that's how you milk a 2 year old product. Just like how Apple kept the old and tired non-retina MacBook Air in the past as the lowest tier.
M2 redesigned MacBook Air: will probably stars at $1299. With a higher base tier at $1599, bridging the gap to the 14" MacBook Pro.

 

[Shanpdx]

The rumors are simply throwing anything on the wall to see what sticks huh.

15" model: unlikely. This is just rehashing old rumors. From Apple's perspective, they already sell a larger screen laptop, the 16" MacBook Pro. Why would they let people spend less money?

Apple knows the sales numbers; other than MBA sales, we need to know how numbers are for these $1999+ products ...

Without that number, we have to assume apple is expanding the line up.

SSD is a game changer in PC; PC market is saturated, many factors affecting the market, Smartphones, tablets, SSD, technology itself, workload moving to Cloud and so on. Post Covid era laptop sales growth will dive into negative side, so many things are going on...

 

[Shanpdx]

I don’t think anyone has speculated on the cost differences between TSMC and Intel really except knowing Apple makes more money off their own SoC sales. It’s more to the greatly reduced power and thermal differences that effect laptop design that also factor in production costs. Also we still have no idea when Apple will produce successors to M1 family, it’s all assumptions. Like speculating it’s at a 2 year instance.

with intel CPU cost, apple had hard time differentiating products with the performance of the CPUs are very saturated on the Laptop CPU (15W) and they even used same CPUs on iMac, MBA and MBP...

but with their own SOC, then can really differentiate the consumer and Pro product (with M1, M1 Pro, M1 Max and M1 Ultra models)

and apple is not compelled to release new products every time new generation of CPUs released from Intel (even if the performance gain is very little) otherwise people start complaining apple is putting two year old intel CPU. Intel's iGPU was very bad and intel was kept working on the same, not sure if it is any good now... Apple is adamant not put nVidia discrete graphics on the laptops...

there is a lot of things went in the planning with Intel CPUs, and Intel was struggling with process nodes and new architecture and thermals.

I like that now AMD is on the game, with ARM, Intel and AMD all competing for the market, it is really nice position to be a consumer!

 

[Shanpdx]

Confirmed. Jony Ive had a hand in this.

Jony Ive to form independent design company with Apple as client

Sir Jony Ive, Apple’s chief design officer, will depart the company later this year to form an independent design company.

www.apple.com

Cupertino, California — Apple today announced that Sir Jony Ive, Apple’s chief design officer, will depart the company as an employee later this year to form an independent design company which will count Apple among its primary clients. While he pursues personal projects, Ive in his new company will continue to work closely and on a range of projects with Apple.

If I am not wrong, IMHO

Earlier - Ive designed and decided the products
Now - Ive's company designs and apple chooses which design they like to use

That is the difference...

 

[MTD's Mac]

For me, it's not about the absolute thinness at all.

The tapered wedge is specifically the great part.

Makes it easy to pick up and with the air, it seems to get the front edge down closer to the surface better, which really helps with typing and arm/wrist/hand comfort right there.

Also, the huge new "feet" on the Pros are just -- oof -- not great (to me)
Totally overkill there. I hope that's a Pro thing only and/or they are way more minimal on the new Air

Makes sense. Yes I’ve been wondering about the feet too. One mock-up based on rumors had long, thin strips instead of round feet. Time will tell!

 

[MTD's Mac]

I also think we should clarify the difference between the wedge, and the Jony Ive contouring. They seem to get lumped together.

We could maintain the wedge, yet move to the radius that the new MBPs have adopted.

Good point. Last gen MacBook pros had the same sort of contouring, but not a wedge profile. When I handle a new MBP it makes both of the older unibodies feel like they’re cheating to appear thinner than they really are.

 

[reallynotnick]

13” MacBook Air is 13.3” and 2560x1600, which works out to 227 ppi.

Notch/strip in MacBook Pros are 74 pixels. If we were to assume the same Air screen size plus extra notch, it would be 2560x1674 at 227 ppi = 13.5”.

That’s very close but not exactly 13.6”. Not sure if that’s rounding error, slightly incorrect rumour, or if they’ve tweaked the below-notch screen size a bit.

The old 15” MacBook Pro was 15.4” and 2880x1800, which works out to 220 ppi.

Let’s say they increased that pixel density to 227 ppi and added the 74 pixel band. That would get you 2880x1874 which is 15.2”.

EDIT to add tl;dr:

Old 13" MacBook Air 2560x1600 resolution + 74 pixel notch bar, at prior 227 ppi = New 13.5" 2560x1674 screen.
Old 15" MacBook Pro 2880x1800 resolution + 74 pixel notch bar, at new 227 ppi = New 15.2" 2880x1874 screen.

I also question if Apple will want to push for 254 ppi on these models like they do with the Pros, I know they were running these 2560x1600 screens scaled to "look like" 1440x900 so it seems to be more in line with what Apple wants at 254 ppi. They could stick with 227 ppi, but I'd love to see them move it to 254 as I did enjoy working on an old Air with a 1440x900 screen.

 

[madebybela]

I don't want to believe Apple would ship a MacBook with white bezels AND a notch but I also I didn't believe they'd ship a MacBook with a notch to begin with so-

 

[svish]

At the lower price point of MacBook Air, was not expecting it to have mini LED. Happy to hear exact dimensions of the screen. 15.2" screen will be good!!

Want to see colours on the larger MacBook Air also.

 

[Artemis70]

The smarter way this should have been done:

MacBook Air bumps 14 inch
MacBook Pro 15 inch
MacBook Pro 17 inch

I want the form factor of the current MacBook Pro 14" (that I have). If the Pro becomes bigger to accommodate a 15" screen, that will be hard to swallow.

 

[calstanford]

15" model: unlikely. This is just rehashing old rumors. From Apple's perspective, they already sell a larger screen laptop, the

What kind of argument is that? Don't sell a 15" because they sell a 16" already? Seriously?

Apple sells a 10.9" consumer iPad ("Air") and a 11" iPad ("Pro")

 

[icymountain]

I imagine the slight increase in screen diagonal is due to the notch: if removing the lines the notch spans across of, the diagonal of the remaining area should be about the same.

I do not necessarily see it a bad thing though: I like to have the option to have a laptop with as small a footprint as possible and Apple is not as strong as it used to be in that area (no more 11" MBA, no more 12" rMB, current lightest laptop more than 25% heavier than either of these two).

 

[ian87w]

What kind of argument is that? Don't sell a 15" because they sell a 16" already? Seriously?

Apple sells a 10.9" consumer iPad ("Air") and a 11" iPad ("Pro")

But does Apple sell a 12.9” regular ipad? No. Does Apple sell a non-pro Max iPhone? No, at least not yet. Did Apple ever sell a 15” regular MacBook? No. Only MacBook Pros get 15” or larger. The lineup is clear, if you want larger screen, you pay the premium.

 

[Unami]

Erm, no.. we should go with metric measurements like the rest of the world. Even the article is confusing when we're talking about "15 Inch" displays being different sizes. if we measured in CM we'd know the true size (and people from outside the US would understand it easier).

actually, even in metric countries we usually measure screen size in inches. I have no clue how big my 48inch tv or my 27inch monitor are in cm although I do measure everytheing else in metric units.

 

[ozthegweat]

Here now both sizes in one image:

 

[Shalev Lazarof]

just make it 1 POUND!...

 

[smoking monkey]

I'm supportive of there being a plastic model I suppose, but I wouldn't want them to ditch aluminium for it. Maybe as a new just "MacBook", like back in the polycarbonate days.

I had a shot of the Surface Laptop Go recently, and it's a really decent machine (plastic body). Extremely good value, and we'll like them in enterprise for that.

The clamshell was plastic or whatever it was and it was awesome!
Another plastic Mac lappie could really make it a fun machine.

 

[Unggoy Murderer]

Will they support multiple external 6k Displays?

Maybe one 6K similar to the M1 machines now, but I think we're limited to one on M1 portables at the moment anyway. Maybe in the future we'll get multiple monitors out of the base M1, but I wouldn't expect to see two or more 6K display - that's a lot of pixels to push.

 

[Unggoy Murderer]

Erm, no.. we should go with metric measurements like the rest of the world. Even the article is confusing when we're talking about "15 Inch" displays being different sizes. if we measured in CM we'd know the true size (and people from outside the US would understand it easier).

I live outside the US and I don't struggle to know an inch or two when I see one (and I was born in the 90's so growing up with metric was a thing for me).

If you want to know the exact size of Apple's MacBook displays, look at the tech specs. The imperial measurement for display sizes is pretty much standard worldwide, and manufacturers other than Apple will use a non-exact measurement to describe their display sizes. The MacBook were 13.3" for years, but nobody had a meltdown over it.

 

[darngooddesign]

I like the idea of this, but last time they tried (the polycarbonite MacBooks) the palm rests went all to hell after a couple years' use.

The plastic top and bottom cases were very durable while the separate, thinner palm-rest and screen bezels cracked and chipped at their edges. Meanwhile, my 22 year old plastic Powerbook has no chipping around the edges because the plastic is thicker; it does have other issues due to the cheap 90s plastic becoming brittle over time. Since Apple is moving to a less curved design language, they could make the top-plate and bottom case a single piece of thicker unibody polycarbonate.

 

[Argon_]

The plastic top and bottom cases were very durable while the separate, thinner palm-rest and screen bezels cracked and chipped at their edges. Meanwhile, my 22 year old plastic Powerbook has no chipping around the edges because the plastic is thicker; it does have other issues due to the cheap 90s plastic becoming brittle over time. Since Apple is moving to a less curved design language, they could make the top-plate and bottom case a single piece of thicker unibody polycarbonate.

I hope they stay away from plastic. Conceivably, if they want to save machine time on their lines, they could spec a stamped aluminum display housing and bottom case for a hypothetical MacBook SE, much like the construction of the first gen MBA. This would save time on the CNC machines, for only a small drop in perceived quality.

IMO though they should maintain their current build quality focus, and not cut such corners. It's a major selling point that their lowest spec laptop is better built than many competitor's offerings that cost twice as much.

 

[cubeover]

imo, the macbook air does not need miniLED nor does it need ProMotion nor to be made out of metal. i'd much rather it be made out of some quality plastic material (aside from some metal on the bottom for heatsink). this way, the laptop would be lighter and better at taking fall damage and maybe even a little cheaper

Were you working for Nokia design team?

 

[fedeARTPOP]

I still think the curren design is so elegant and fancy, going to white body will be weird at first ?

 

[Shanpdx]

Here now both sizes in one image:

View attachment 1981141

one with black bezels please

 

[flapflapflap]

Maybe one 6K similar to the M1 machines now, but I think we're limited to one on M1 portables at the moment anyway. Maybe in the future we'll get multiple monitors out of the base M1, but I wouldn't expect to see two or more 6K display - that's a lot of pixels to push.

even on M2?