“Ruined” can be in the eyes of the beholder. I think they have ruined the 2024 Mustang, particularly the interior.
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Why have Apple ruined the MacBook Air design?
- Thread starter Ken91
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People just need reasons to complain in this world. The M2 design was what finally made me want to give the MacBook a try, and as you said, it's been a big hit for "most" people.
huh. I guess I’m the opposite of OP. I have an Apple Watch Ultra and I just ordered an M2 Air, partially because I love how it looks 😂
I got one, love it. And honestly, the 'look' of it played ZERO factor in if I was or was not going to purchase it.
Anyone who relies that heavily on the look of it was likely not planning to get one to begin with. I don't get why people seem to think it should be something like a fashion statement.
So I’m a liar? Smart reply…
I felt the large bezels on the previous air was dated for what they charge. I didn’t care for the wedge design either. So yes, the look of it was enough for me to spend the money and give it a try.
Could care less about a fashion statement, but I do care about what I like.
The actively-cooled MacBook Pro uses the same feet design. I don't think your implied argument holds water.
Because the feet wouldn’t help the pro with airflow either? Last I checked the pros bottom gets warm as well. So your comments are both argumentative and baseless. Congrats
I can understand missing the older design of the MacBook Air. It's okay to like an older design for a car, too. But it's also important to change things up so that things don't look the same every decade. The M1 MacBook Air's wedge design goes back to the original released in 2008, 14 years ago. I think 14 years is long enough for one look!
On the other hand, the decision to add a notch to a notebook is one of the worst decisions I have seen Apple make (besides butterfly keyboards). The webcam could have remained in the bezel as before, but Apple instead chose to take a bite out of the screen. The iPhones are getting away from the notch even as the notebooks are receiving them!
On the other hand, the decision to add a notch to a notebook is one of the worst decisions I have seen Apple make (besides butterfly keyboards). The webcam could have remained in the bezel as before, but Apple instead chose to take a bite out of the screen. The iPhones are getting away from the notch even as the notebooks are receiving them!
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Look at any laptop on the market today, Dell, Asus, Microsoft, Lenovo, HP, etc. The design is basically the same. Generally matches the MBA 2. My MBA 2 looks just like my Surface Laptop, except a little more blue. There is only so much that can be done to cram as much as possible into a limited space. Getting rid the wedge design (dated in my opinion), leaves more room for battery, speakers, memory, SSD. All good things in a laptop. The MBA 2 weighs about the same as my Surface. I carried the Surface on travel, a lot. Battery life was not nearly as good as the MBA 2. I find the flat keyboard of the MBA 2 is generally easier to type on than the wedge MBA.
I find the design of the laptop a non-issue. I have used half a dozen laptops over my time. At one time many earth orbits around the sun I lugged a COMPAQ "portable", 28 pounds. Yeh, I appreciate the new laptops and consider the function, weight and shape an absolute technological marvel. I am not one to quibble over trivial design changes.
I find the design of the laptop a non-issue. I have used half a dozen laptops over my time. At one time many earth orbits around the sun I lugged a COMPAQ "portable", 28 pounds. Yeh, I appreciate the new laptops and consider the function, weight and shape an absolute technological marvel. I am not one to quibble over trivial design changes.
So you would rather have an inactive larger top bezel? You can set it up to always use just the screen below the notch with third-party tools. You lose a bit of screen real estate though. So I’m not sure why you want that.I can understand missing the older design of the MacBook Air. It's okay to like an older design for a car, too. But it's also important to change things up so that things don't look the same every decade. The M1 MacBook Air's wedge design goes back to the original released in 2008, 14 years ago. I think 14 years is long enough for one look!
On the other hand, the decision to add a notch to a notebook is one of the worst decisions I have seen Apple make (besides butterfly keyboards). The webcam could have remained in the bezel as before, but Apple instead chose to take a bite out of the screen. The iPhones are getting away from the notch even as the notebooks are receiving them!
At first I thought I would dislike the notch. I had a MBA 1 2020, no notch. I dithered between upgrading to the MBA 2 from the M1. The notch was of particular concern because of my use of Photoshop and Lightroom, both with extensive menus. The MacOS avoids putting menu items in the notch. Over several months I have come to ignore the notch and hardly notice it is there. It does not affect screen real estate as menu items occupy that space at the top. There is no other user interface in that area for most applications. Nothing useful gets blocked by the notch. Thus, in my opinion, it is a non-issue for my needs. The speed, battery life, larger screen, MagSafe, freeing a USB-C port more than make up for any issues with the notch.
In designing the newer laptops, Apple got rid of the bezels by enlarging the screens and pushing the screens into the bezel area. Compare the 13” M1 MBA to the 13.6” M2 MBA or the 13” MBP to the 14” MBP.I can understand missing the older design of the MacBook Air. It's okay to like an older design for a car, too. But it's also important to change things up so that things don't look the same every decade. The M1 MacBook Air's wedge design goes back to the original released in 2008, 14 years ago. I think 14 years is long enough for one look!
On the other hand, the decision to add a notch to a notebook is one of the worst decisions I have seen Apple make (besides butterfly keyboards). The webcam could have remained in the bezel as before, but Apple instead chose to take a bite out of the screen. The iPhones are getting away from the notch even as the notebooks are receiving them!
That left no bezel for the camera and two sensors. Their solution was to keep a small part of the bezel to hold those components thus the notch was born. If they had enlarged the screens and kept the bezel the result would have been a larger and heavier case.
The are below the notch is the same size as the older screen. they essentially moved the menubar out of the content area and into the bezel giving us more available content space. the notch can be seen as just part of the menu bar which sits in a part of the menu bar that was not used as much as other areas.
Overall they managed to enlarge the content area of the screen without making the MBA larger and heavier. that is a clever bit of design work.
I will admit that even when Apple makes a decision I disagree with, it is often evident in their products that they carefully labored over their decisions before making them.
Lol. Congrats on being angry for no reason. I hope you wake up on the happy side of the bed tomorrow. 😘
As opposed to your lovely comment? What would you call that? Time to grow up a bit. The fact the only thing you could try and respond to was not liking my attitude, even though it matches yours. Maybe take a look in the mirror instead of making a fool of yourself
it would have been even betterer though if they had added the screen space without that notch = even more added space.
my new Windows laptop i 'm supposed to receive within the next couple days has small bezels PLUS a 1080p camera (the one excuse Apple gave for the notch being a necessity)
though i wouldn't be surprised if that camera was not exactly awesome, as it is just a mid-range Dell.
having said that, it's just a webcam anyway. even 720p is good enough for that IMO so i would have gladly traded in a 720p camera for a notch-less screen if Apple really couldn't have solved this in other ways
One of the things I have come to appreciate over the past few years as Apple's design language has shifted is just how good Jony Ive was at creating designs that trick your eye. The iMac G4 had a screen that seemed to float in front of you, an illusion aided by the highly reflective chrome finish on the monitor support arm. The 2012 iMac seemed thinner than it actually was due to the curved back and 5 mm thickness at the point where the back met the screen. Was it significantly thicker in the back? Sure, but not many people saw that since these computers often live up against a wall and you only really see the front and the sides. For iPhones and iPads, the curved edge style introduced with the iPad mini and iPhone 6 really hid each devices true thickness because the curve (and the way it reflected light) made it harder for your eye to find the true edge of the product. If you put an iPhone 11 Pro and an iPhone 12 Pro on the table next to each other and looked at them from a normal viewing distance (i.e. not really close up at eye level), the 11 Pro looks thinner due to the curved edges. But the 12 Pro was actually thinner. Your eye just has a much easier time finding the edges on that device.
The Mac laptop designs of the peak Ive era (i.e. the unibody, 1st gen retina, and butterfly keyboard retina designs) all used the same eye fooling tricks as the 2012 iMac. The cases curved to a thinner width along the edges, even though the middle around Apple logo was thicker. This left the impression of thinness. I had a 2014 15" rMBP and I think that machine being the thinnest laptop I ever owned. But the 14" 2021 MBP I am typing this on is actually the same exact thickness. It just feels more chunky because it's not using the curved case trick to fool my eye. The wedge MacBook Air design is design along the same lines as the curved case. By having one end of the wedge be so thin as a few sheets of paper, it basically fools your eye (and brain) into forgetting that the other end of the wedge is actually about 40% thicker than the max thickness on the new M2 model.
So, the Ive designs were really good at leaving the impression that the devices were thinner and more modern than they actually were. That's not a bad thing if aesthetics are your primary concern (and I'm sure the marketing team loved that about the designs). But, curves and wedges generally come with a tradeoff of wasted space internally. It's hard to fill a curved space with electronic components and batteries that are naturally rectangular. And Ive did push the thinness aspect of his designs to the point where it impacted functionality in the last few years he was with Apple. The iPhone 6 was so thin it could bend under normal use and didn't have room for a very big battery. The 2016 MacBook Pro didn't have enough thermal headroom to properly cool its processor and also shipped with a subpar keyboard, all in an effort to make a thinner design. That was a bridge too far for most people I think.
Ultimately, we are left with a tradeoff. The new designs aesthetically look worse. They seem thicker than they are due to the boxy designs (and the feet on the new MacBooks really trick your eye in a bad way). That's an aesthetic downgrade. But in exchange, we have gotten devices that can fit more components and batteries inside the same footprint and that offer vastly better usability for their intended purposes. The 2018 iPad Pro (and subsequent Air and Mini) design allows for an Apple Pencil experience that is so much better than the earlier Pro models. The boxy iPhones offer better grip while holding due to more surface area on the sides. And the new MacBooks offer better performance on the Pro end of the line (along with more ports) and a new Air design that is actually thinner than before. Yes, Apple could have made the M2 Air and even thinner wedge. But you would have lost out on battery life with that design, and I don't know if that would have allowed for passive cooling of the M2 chip.
I really am impressed with the aesthetic qualities of Ive's designs looking back on them now. But I really value the usability gains from the more recent Apple designs.
The Mac laptop designs of the peak Ive era (i.e. the unibody, 1st gen retina, and butterfly keyboard retina designs) all used the same eye fooling tricks as the 2012 iMac. The cases curved to a thinner width along the edges, even though the middle around Apple logo was thicker. This left the impression of thinness. I had a 2014 15" rMBP and I think that machine being the thinnest laptop I ever owned. But the 14" 2021 MBP I am typing this on is actually the same exact thickness. It just feels more chunky because it's not using the curved case trick to fool my eye. The wedge MacBook Air design is design along the same lines as the curved case. By having one end of the wedge be so thin as a few sheets of paper, it basically fools your eye (and brain) into forgetting that the other end of the wedge is actually about 40% thicker than the max thickness on the new M2 model.
So, the Ive designs were really good at leaving the impression that the devices were thinner and more modern than they actually were. That's not a bad thing if aesthetics are your primary concern (and I'm sure the marketing team loved that about the designs). But, curves and wedges generally come with a tradeoff of wasted space internally. It's hard to fill a curved space with electronic components and batteries that are naturally rectangular. And Ive did push the thinness aspect of his designs to the point where it impacted functionality in the last few years he was with Apple. The iPhone 6 was so thin it could bend under normal use and didn't have room for a very big battery. The 2016 MacBook Pro didn't have enough thermal headroom to properly cool its processor and also shipped with a subpar keyboard, all in an effort to make a thinner design. That was a bridge too far for most people I think.
Ultimately, we are left with a tradeoff. The new designs aesthetically look worse. They seem thicker than they are due to the boxy designs (and the feet on the new MacBooks really trick your eye in a bad way). That's an aesthetic downgrade. But in exchange, we have gotten devices that can fit more components and batteries inside the same footprint and that offer vastly better usability for their intended purposes. The 2018 iPad Pro (and subsequent Air and Mini) design allows for an Apple Pencil experience that is so much better than the earlier Pro models. The boxy iPhones offer better grip while holding due to more surface area on the sides. And the new MacBooks offer better performance on the Pro end of the line (along with more ports) and a new Air design that is actually thinner than before. Yes, Apple could have made the M2 Air and even thinner wedge. But you would have lost out on battery life with that design, and I don't know if that would have allowed for passive cooling of the M2 chip.
I really am impressed with the aesthetic qualities of Ive's designs looking back on them now. But I really value the usability gains from the more recent Apple designs.
I happen to like the wedge design because the front of the laptop is lower, so my wrists don’t touch the front edge, like they did with my 2013 MacBook Pro.
I also like the wider bezels because your fingers never touch the screen when you open the laptop; plus the display assembly is stronger.
Edit: I have tried typing on an M2.
I also like the wider bezels because your fingers never touch the screen when you open the laptop; plus the display assembly is stronger.
Edit: I have tried typing on an M2.
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it's all subjective; i love my M2 air, the first air i've ever taken an interest in. i initially ordered the M1 air, but returned it immediately (i got it from apple online; as soon as i opened it, i knew i didn't like the design, the wedge, the bezels..).
the M2 air just feels sleek, modern. it's light, fast. it's never (yet) gotten really warm. and it does everything i need it to do.
the M2 air just feels sleek, modern. it's light, fast. it's never (yet) gotten really warm. and it does everything i need it to do.
I’m the same. Initially bought an M1 air then sold it on eBay 6 months later and bought the M2 (discounted).
I was pleasantly surprised how much I liked the M2 design. It feels thinner and easier to handle, and the notch is a non-issue.
I’d say both designs are good, though, and it doesn’t matter which one you get.
I was pleasantly surprised how much I liked the M2 design. It feels thinner and easier to handle, and the notch is a non-issue.
I’d say both designs are good, though, and it doesn’t matter which one you get.
Same boat as you that way, couldn't pull the trigger on the m1, bezels look so dated compared to most laptops in its price range. Also appreciated the brighter and more colour accurate screen on my m2. Overall just a nice design in my opinion and glad I held out for this design instead.
Too much "sleek minimalism" was what got us laptops with a single port and a butterfly keyboard.