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would apple upgrade the air

bazzz said:
(for me it could be non-retina, 1440x900, I'm fine with that)
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I think that's an important point - if you look at the "competition" (Dell XPS etc.) then the entry level options still have 1080p screens and you pay a significant premium for the higher resolution QHD/3k/"Retina-class" displays. Maybe they can do better than 1440x900 (1680x1050 would match the current default scaled 'looks like' resolution of the other machines).

If you mostly use your laptop at your desk, you can always plug in a 1440p or even 4k display and live with lower res on the road.

Of course, it depends what display panels are available at what price: 1920x1080 is ubiquitous in PCs now so it will be cheap (but its 16:9 ratio which is horrible for general use at small screen sizes - 16x10 is worth a premium).

I still think, that the current 13" air could be the perfect Apple laptop (size, battery runtime, keyboard, etc.); I MUCH prefer it over the current gen. Macbooks / Macbook Pros
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I think the Air has the potential to be a "classic" design (Think: Porsche 911, Kenwood Chef Mixer etc.) even when thinner, lighter options are available (for a price).

I was recently in a PC store ovehearing a couple discussing laptops, and they liked the larger bezels and "wrist rests" saying that there was nowhere to hold the new designs if you actually wanted to use them as laptops.

Plus, for the moment, I'd take 1xTB2, 2xUSB 3 + magsafe over the non-TB MVP's 2xUSB-C/TB3 ports (one of which you have to "waste" with a charger unless you carry around a suitable multiport hub). Swap the 1xTB2 for 1xTB3 if you like, but keep the rest...
 
The Air design dates back to 2010 so it's going on seven years now but there's not anything you can do with it that isn't already in the rMB. I don't think it makes sense to update the Air given the substantial overlap with the rMB so I reckon they'll just let it alone and keep selling it until it's not viable. Sort of like what Apple did with the 2012 MBP.
 
dogslobber said:
The Air design dates back to 2010 so it's going on seven years now but there's not anything you can do with it that isn't already in the rMB. I don't think it makes sense to update the Air given the substantial overlap with the rMB so I reckon they'll just let it alone and keep selling it until it's not viable. Sort of like what Apple did with the 2012 MBP.
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The MBA will be getting an upgrade at WWDC this June. The MBA is still selling very well.
 
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dogslobber said:
The Air design dates back to 2010 so it's going on seven years now but there's not anything you can do with it that isn't already in the rMB. I don't think it makes sense to update the Air given the substantial overlap with the rMB so I reckon they'll just let it alone and keep selling it until it's not viable. Sort of like what Apple did with the 2012 MBP.
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Rumours point to the MBA getting an update, but it will probably be a processor upgrade to Kaby Lake and nothing else. The 2015 MBA model is apparently still selling well and the rMB is still more expensive, and lacks the ports that the MBA has...
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Rory76 said:
Only "source" for this is from Bloomberg article from a week ago. No way is Apple going to upgrade the Air. They might keep selling it as it is, but that's the most I see happening.
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A few months ago I would have agreed with you, but with the iPhone SE and now the 2017 iPad it seems Apple is fine with putting some upgraded internals in an older design to make a budget friendly (or friendlier) device.
 
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Macbook Airs are still the most popular Macbooks I see in the wild. A simple Macbook Air update with a retina screen, latest Intel processor and an additional USB C port would be Apple's best reviewed and selling laptop of all time.
 
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Yebubbleman said:
It is extremely unlikely that Apple will update the MacBook Air. The 2016 13-inch MacBook Pro without TouchBar is, more or less, its modern successor. Apple all but stated as much during their October 2016 keynote and the hardware being used further suggests this as that particular 13-inch MacBook Pro model uses the same ultrabook class of CPUs that the MacBook Air has used (whereas the 13-inch model with TouchBar uses the more traditional mobile dual-core CPUs that the 13-inch MacBook Pro has long since used). This also correlates to Apple, more or less dropping the "Air" moniker from their model names.

This all said, if you like the MacBook Air and want a successor product, then good news! One already exists in the form of the 13-inch MacBook Pro without touchbar. And if you want something to replace your 11-inch Air, the 12-inch MacBook should suffice for most use cases.
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Sure he can buy a base model 13" non-touch bar MacBook Pro for a whopping $1500.00 ($500.00 more than the current base model Air) and what would he get for that extra $500.00? Sure, a retina screen and better processor. But, he would also need to buy a bunch of dongles for the Pro's USB-C ports (thus far most peripheral manufactures are not converting to USB-C), an SD card adopter, no more mag safe connection and a lousy, shallow "butterfly" keyboard that is no match for the classic chiclet keyboard on the Air and previous Pro's and which many users dislike and whose keys have a tendency to stick. Good luck with that. When looking at Apple's current lineup of laptops one is reminded of an old saying attributed to the Duchess of Windsor: "You can never be too rich or too thin". In Apple's case it means sacrifice features on your computers for thinness and price them so one has to be practically rich in order to afford them.
 
Adelphos33 said:
Macbook Airs are still the most popular Macbooks I see in the wild. A simple Macbook Air update with a retina screen, latest Intel processor and an additional USB C port would be Apple's best reviewed and selling laptop of all time.
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Isn't that called "the MacBook"?
 
lockerc18 said:
Isn't that called "the MacBook"?
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Sort of. The new retina air is more the 13" MBP without the touch bar. The people who think the MBA will ever get a retina screen can keep dreaming since that would drive up the cost and defeat the purpose of keeping it in the lineup. I can see it sticking around as the budget option for a while longer and it possibly getting a processor upgrade if continued sales warrant it, but I don't think a new retina MBA is in the cards... certainly not at that price.
 
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MBA still has what others laptops dont at a lowest price point... sdhc card slot, 2 USB ports, MAGSAFE, and if you max it out i7/512/8gb ... 14 hours battery life .. nothing comes close to it.

I would love to see 12" at a 1000$ mark and i7 cpu ... but i dont think that will happen anytime soon.

Remember students prefer paying 999$ for a laptop rather than 1600$
 
Is the display of the MacBook Air any good? The retina issue notwithstanding. Let's take aside the resolution. Brightness and viewing angles? It's a TN panel as I understand. Why Apple didn't ship it with IPS even back in the days? Would that make it so expensive? Most people rather did not like it than did even back in the days as far as I know.
 
fruitninja said:
Is the display of the MacBook Air any good? The retina issue notwithstanding. Let's take aside the resolution. Brightness and viewing angles? It's a TN panel as I understand. Why Apple didn't ship it with IPS even back in the days? Would that make it so expensive? Most people rather did not like it than did even back in the days as far as I know.
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I don't hate it. The brightness and viewing angles are good for me, the brightness especially. I watch videos a lot and play retro games and I like the graphics when I do.

Whenever I compare it to an IPS monitor, the colors just don't seem to pop on the MBA. In use it's okay, but in comparison the MBA looks bad.

Which is the main reason Apple does it. The MBP needs to look better than the MBA. Any improvements to the MBA make the Pro look worse, especially in the screen/aesthetics department.

In my mind the nontouch Pro is the MBA replacement, like Apple said... but it needs to go down to $1299 at least to be a mainstream option like the $1000 air.
 
@Pugly, does the distinction between Air and Pro really has to be between TN panel non-Retina vs. IPS Retina displays? If it were IPS non-Retina vs. IPS Retina, that wouldn't count for a significant enough distinction for enough people to go Pro?
 
@fruitninja Yeah that's what I think. The air already is nearly perfect from a casual user perspective and even for power users it's great... make the screen high quality and putting down another $300 to $500 for a pro model becomes a hard sell. And the Pro has a better screen in all aspects: color reproduction, viewing angle, and resolution... An IPS screen would improve the colors and viewing angle.

The 13"Air vs 13"Pro comparison is about all the little extra nice things the Pro has above the Air. They both do basically the same thing, but all the little upgrades make you think... "it's only $300 more, maybe I should get a Pro."
 
The fate of the Macbook air 13" will be tomorrow. If they update it, ok but if they doesnt, its clear its dead and they will make the 13" until there will be no more high demands
 
fokmik said:
because the Macbook will always use 5W cpu fanless device...than 15W like the 13" MBP
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That is true. But my point is, who absolutely needs and cannot live without a 15W processor in an Air successor? I think most users of the Air (students, writers, casual people, moms and paps, even light developers, whoever) are perfectly fine with the performance of the fanless 5W series of CPUs (the current generation m5 is renamed to i5 and the list price of the new m5/i5 is the same as of the m3 as someone pointed out in the other thread if that means anything, and they are getting better and better in general) if you need the 15W CPU, go Pro. That sounds like an easy differentiator to me. So no, you didn't manage to explain the overall situation to me. :cool:
 
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