Cause the Air's moniker is reserved for light and small, not big and bulky which a 15" will be.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Marc Gurman: M2 Pro/Max/Ultra/Extreme coming, M3 in Q1/Q2 2023
- Thread starter senttoschool
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
That...was my point. "Base device" and "basic" are the same thing; the latter is a derivative of the word "base."
But the point still stands: larger devices have always for Apple been a sign of superior quality. It just doesn't make sense to have a "base device' MacBook that's larger than the higher end MacBook Air.
Last edited:
The "Air" label is used on the iPad Air, which is virtually the same size as the base iPad *and* has a bigger screen. Just do the "compare" tool on Apple's website to see.
Bigger screen isn't out of the question for the "Air" label. Although I don't really think it makes sense either. But the alternative seems worse.
Well, it did happen once before, back in 2009. Although Apple took away the MacBook name by placing the "Pro" moniker, it made a MacBook into a 15" device. Same guts as the 13" MB but in the 15" case.
Okay, but you literally just said it was still called the "Pro." So, not a MacBook, but a MacBook Pro. The whole conversation is about what they'll call it, not whether the guts actually deserve the moniker of Air/Pro/etc.
Also, the 15" MBP model still had the option for more GPU upgrades than did the 13". Apple briefly even made the 13" aluminium MBP just the "aluminum MacBook" for like a year or less and then just renamed it to the MacBook Pro. So point is, there hasn't been a large device called just "MacBook" ever.
Definitely, not perhaps, on the iPad. But my point is, Apple uses the "Air" tag intentionally. It's not just a term thrown around, they're using it to signal a higher end quality of product and apparently one that can have a larger screen on some devices than the base model; it's one less barrier since they've already done that with the iPad. And they've never had a MacBook with a screen above 13". And larger screens are always marketed as higher end.
The logic tells us that "Air" is more likely than "nothing."
And hey if I'm wrong ping me in a year and I'll eat my words 😂 I just don't think Apple will call a 15" product a "MacBook" with no additional labeling.
What happened was that the 13" MB was made into a MB Pro at 13. However, nothing was changed. Then Apple released an inflated 13" MB at 15" but under the Pro moniker. So it was a Pro in name only.
And the 15" MacBook Air will probably be an Air in name only, too (although with the M2 chip it's hard to say the M2 Air isn't a Pro, or the M2 13 Pro isn't an Air).
I'm convinced it'll be called the 15" MacBook Air. If I'm wrong, oh well.
I’d wager it will only be an Air if they go fanless AND move to a new material for some of the body (which they filed patents for years ago).
Their naming conventions have been terrible since the iPhone XS/XR.
I hate to invoke Steve Jobs here (because people who do are annoying), but I think he’d want some better names.
On topic: didn’t Gurman predict an M1 Pro Mac Mini? I’m thinking he pulls this stuff out of his ass.
They skipped the 9... anyways, whatever they call it, people will buy it.
My gut feeling is that they want to phase out the 'Air' brand but don't know how to. The issue is that they've worked themselves into a corner, because with the Air series of Macs' having been so popular (for the most part), many consumers associate that word with a specific type of device. Yes, thin and light, but also the more affordable option.
When the original Air was released as a mid-tier option to the MacBook and MacBook Pro, the customer was paying more for what was then a novel industrial design. Many aspects the Air's engineering were considerably more expensive than the regular plastic MacBook, which meant it was a premium device without premium performance.
But today things are clearly very different. Like the iPad, the 'Air' brand is no longer relevant since it is expected that Apple's lower performing notebook is going to be lighter and more compact. Likewise the iPad Air is almost identical to the Pro in size and weight, but lighter than the entry iPad...
So I believe Apple will adopt the iPhone strategy and let performance be the deciding factor. A range of sizes for both a regular MacBook and Pro. One also has to ask; if Apple were to add a 'MacBook' to the Air and Pro lineup, what would be the differentiator?
When the original Air was released as a mid-tier option to the MacBook and MacBook Pro, the customer was paying more for what was then a novel industrial design. Many aspects the Air's engineering were considerably more expensive than the regular plastic MacBook, which meant it was a premium device without premium performance.
But today things are clearly very different. Like the iPad, the 'Air' brand is no longer relevant since it is expected that Apple's lower performing notebook is going to be lighter and more compact. Likewise the iPad Air is almost identical to the Pro in size and weight, but lighter than the entry iPad...
So I believe Apple will adopt the iPhone strategy and let performance be the deciding factor. A range of sizes for both a regular MacBook and Pro. One also has to ask; if Apple were to add a 'MacBook' to the Air and Pro lineup, what would be the differentiator?
There were a few. No way to tell if it’s going to be used or not but there are ceramics, special carbon fiber weaves, etc.
These are years old at this point, I think Apple is just aware that they’re going to need to use different materials if they want to reclaim the bragging rights in weight, which who knows if they care. If they do, that would be the Air line.
The only thing I can see working for Apple to loose weight and maintain the sturdiness is a Carbon Fiber compound. But unless they have figures out a way to make it cheap, I highly doubt it.
Reasonable so far....
Needle scratch. The notch has lasted through five full years of iPhone refreshes so far - X, XS/XR, 11, 12, and 13. Hard to see that as a symptom of update cycles which are too fast, or rushing to get $NEWTHING out the door.
Also, through-display cameras aren't guaranteed to ever appear in an iPhone. There are fundamental physical problems with making a through-display camera (and the display above said camera) work to Apple's standards, which is probably why Apple's been content to let Android competitors ship this feature first. That's kind of the opposite of scraping the bottom of the barrel for new-every-year, no?
As for the camera bump, this also can't be seen as a consequence of refreshing phone designs too fast. It's also been around for a long time, and the reason it exists seems pretty simple to me - people like thin phones, and they also like their phones to have cameras which are better than the limits of a camera module which can fit in a phone as thin as they want.
Apple's been well known to go too far on thinness, but even after backing off a bit there's still a need for cameras significantly thicker than the phone body.
You'll usually only get the benefits of 6E under the top setup and highest bandwidth grab.
MacBook Pros did have annual updates until Intel’s 10nm crap the bed.
Not only does it make perfect sense, it’s exactly how it was. When the Air launched, there was the 13” MacBook and the 15” MacBook Pro. The Air launched in 11” and 13”, and was thinner, lighter, and less powerful.
The Air at 12 and 13.6” makes perfect sense, a MacBook or MacBook Studio at 15” with a single fan and perhaps a touch of additional I/O makes perfect sense, MAYBE even M1 Pro option, and then of course the MBP at the top of the lineup.
The 12” MacBook was an wonderful design, I used one for 5 years, but calling it MacBook made no sense. And it only saw 3 models. MacBook moving forward should always be bigger and more powerful than Air.
Not really disagreeing, but the original 13" Air launched in 2008 (no 11" version) certainly turned heads - the whole 'pulling it out of a brown envelope' stunt was iconic - but it was something of an expensive, executive toy and I don't recall it being a runaway success.
The 11" and 13" models that appeared in 2010 were a major re-design and were always priced competitively the entry-level Mac, for anybody who could live without ports and an optical drive... and the killer feature was that they were now SSD only. The base, spinning-rust-based MacBook might have been technically faster if you threw graphics or video work at them, but for general "productivity" use (which is arguably what the entry-level Macs are for), the SSD in the 2010 Air made a night-and-day difference in how snappy and responsive it felt.
...but what has 'gone wrong' since 2012 and the launch of the Retina MacBook Pros is that the 15/16" option has focussed more on graphics/video/audio production and become unaffordable for people who just want a larger screen for word processing/spreadsheets etc. (unsexy, but still necessary) or even many development jobs (you don't need a big GPU to write Wordle knockoffs). That would be the hole that a 15" MacBook Air would fill - and it probably doesn't need any more than a base M2 to fill it (wringing out a second external display would be nice, but not essential).