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10 Years of the MacBook Air (theverge.com)
Ten years ago today, Steve Jobs introduced the MacBook Air. "Apple's Macworld 2008 was a special one, taking place just days after the annual Consumer Electronics Show had ended and Bill Gates bid farewell to Microsoft," The Verge recalls. "Jobs introduced the MacBook Air by removing it from a tiny paper office envelope, and the crowd was audibly shocked at just how small and thin it was..." From the report: At the time, rivals had thin and light laptops on the market, but they were all around an inch thick, weighed 3 pounds, and had 8- or 11-inch displays. Most didn't even have full-size keyboards, but Apple managed to create a MacBook Air with a wedge shape so that the thickest part was still thinner than the thinnest part of the Sony TZ Series -- one of the thinnest laptops back in 2008. It was a remarkable feat of engineering, and it signaled a new era for laptops. Apple ditched the CD drive and a range of ports on the thin MacBook Air, and the company introduced a multi-touch trackpad and SSD storage. There was a single USB 2.0 port, alongside a micro-DVI port and a headphone jack. It was minimal, but the price was not. Apple's base MacBook Air cost $1,799 at the time, an expensive laptop even by today's standards.
When I say *laptop* I use it for email, presentations, business operations and demonstrations. I don't use it for software development or any kind of network or processor intensive tasks.
It's thin, light, rugged with a good screen. Works well with projectors with 6+ hours of battery life (after four years). Microsoft Office's operation is fair (but I think that's more of Microsoft's issue than Apple's OS X).
I'm not an Apple guy (although I am a vehement Win 10 hater), just that this laptop has done what I've needed of it for years for my business, in a variety of different locations (and countries) without a glitch or problem of any kind.
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They really don't give a damn about anything that runs OS X these days and it's a shame. You'd think with all the money they have they'd be willing to take some risks and innovate.
I use a mid-2011 Air for almost everything that doesn't require a huge amount of power to run. Battery could use replacing as it's tough to go 4-5 hours, but it's by far the best laptop I've ever owned.
VNC, SSH w/X, or RDP to connect to beefier desktop or workstation machines completes it.
Trolling is a art,
I remember all the stupid jokes from my fellow nerd buddies. They didn't get it.
The MB Air was the first full powered portable work PC that you could carry around without breaking your back. 1.5 kg, 6 hours of battery time, sometimes more if you dimed the backlight and turned off wifi. I still have mine and it still is usable and useful. Although it does boot rather sluggish with macOS Sierra.
I hope they continue the line and make cheaper mac laptops again. 1500 Euros for a regular MB pro is just too much,
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My laptop has Ethernet, HDMI, Thunderbolt, USB2, USB3, SD slot, head phones and microphone jacks.
The only thing ever really plugged in to it is a USB wireless mouse transceiver. I used to use a bluetooth mouse, but the dodgy Intel bluetooth kept randomly dropping out.
Sometimes I plug an SD card in to it, but that's via a micro to standard SD adapter.
Lots of people don't ever plug anything but the power cord in to their laptop.
Has Apple released anything since Steve Jobs died that hasn't been a total flop?
I write for a living, so I "open" "save" and sometimes even "Print". The most video I'll ever use is Thunderbolt to a 1080 monitor. I bought an 11 inch Air, and pounded on it every day for five years. When it died (J and K didn't work any more, and the screen joint was loose), I tossed it and bought a 13 inch...the 11 being out of production. I was disappointed to see I was buying basically the same machine with a bigger screen and a touch more memory......but it was a bit cheaper, and for open-save-print, still great. The alternative in Windows is half the price, but the time spent keeping Windows 10 running, removing malware, etc pays back quickly. I didn't consider the new Pro, only because the USB was missing. There was room for a USB port, guys....
I bought the refreshed version with the original curvy form factor (and the port access flap). It was the first laptop I ever had with a solid-state drive... and taught me never to buy a laptop without one, ever again.
But much as I loved that one, I prefer this 2015 13" MacBook Pro - it's probably the best laptop Apple's ever made (and, unfortunately, will ever make). It's only 1/2 pound heavier than my Air was, and it's got lots of ports, a better screen, and a much better processor.
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MacBook Air (2008):
1280 x 800 display, 802.11 a/b/g (draft N), 12.8" x 8.94" x 0.76", 3.0 lbs
ThinkPad X40 (2004):
1024 x 768 display, 802.11 a/b/g, 10.5" x 8.3" x 1.0", 2.7 lbs
Considering they had four years, it's a pretty modest improvement over IBM's lightweight notebook.
I work as an IT integrator and am constantly visiting customer sites. Last time work refreshed my laptop (~3 years ago) I requested and received a Mac Air. There's been one refresh since, but the Air is still working fine and I kept it, the ultrabooks everyone else got have been swapped out.
The only thing I usually need to carry is a USB to serial cable just in case I need to work on a router. I have a thunderbolt to ethernet adaptor, but don't use it that often - amongst other things, I'm the guy who usually specs and supervises wireless rollouts, so most of the people I visit either have wireless or have it by the time I need to access their stuff. I do carry an charger, but I can't remember the last time I had to use it during a work day. Easily 8-10 hours to a charge.
If I had a normal HP laptop for work, I'd still need to carry a USB to serial adaptor, probably would need a USB-C to Ethernet adaptor (just in case) and I would grumble as much as everyone else about scrounging spare chargers.
for the following reasons:
i worked hp notebook and compaq notebook support for 18 months, the horror stories i'm privi to are phenominal! can you say moses called?
my first daughter went off to the university of alberta - billingual nursing, we gave her a mb air ... had absolutely ZERO problem. she's an alum now and it still works fine!
my second daughter went off to the thompson rivers university - nursing, we gave her a mb air ... had one problem. she's four months from being an alum now. the one problem, she let some russian guy install some software for her, he added a few extras and we reformatted after adding a bios pasword. it still works fine.
my third daughter went off to prince george university - tree hugger (doesn't like blood), we gave her a mb air, with four month to the end of her first year, it's a stalwart machine. no problems.
we gave each an assortment of patch cords, an external dvd drive, hard shell, carry case and made sure each unit was fully loaded ram / ssd / etc - about 2300 per kid and well worth the coin!
my forth child is looking at university of british columbia - engineering. he's a gamer, but he's getting a mb air. if he wants a gaming notebook, he can work part time and buy his own!
your mileage may vary, but on the whole, well worth the coin!
I think the Pentium M, spinning HD, and shorter battery life kept it from being as much of a love affair as the MacBook Air (at least the rev I got). You're right that there wasn't any huge technology advancement, but sometimes you have to hit a certain sweet spot. I just remember this thing felt faster than any laptop I'd used before (primarily from the SSD subsystem), and the battery lasted so long I literally never had to think about it any more. I fell in love. It still feels like fast modern laptop all this time later.
I don't think that Apple has sold nearly as many iPad Pro's as they wanted to,
Signs point the opposite way, since they may a slightly smaller model of Pro and also been pretty good about updating the larger Pro with some decent speed and display increases.
I have really liked mine; my next trip I plan to travel with just an iPad Pro for working with photos, no laptop. Much lighter.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
My son just bought one and that thing is a tiny dangerous wedge.
Stick a bat to it's spine and you could chop down a tree.
It's also faster than my office MacBook Pro 2014. Jelly.
there where several notebooks thinner than a MacBook Air long before it came out. Sony Vaio had a few in 2004
There probably were, but I don't see them on the market anymore. Sony Vaio become history in 2014. The MacBook Air still fills a certain niche, though the specs could do with a little tweaking.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
The entire *remaining* smart watch market is a flop.
Fixed it for you.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The news is that ten years later, the MacBook Air still exists and is only slightly different than the first model. It went from a Core 2 Duo to a dual-core i5/i7, the RAM from 2GB, to 4GB and finally to 8GB. The USB 2 port was upgraded to two USB3 ports, the TN display increased in resolution but is still a TN display which is a shame in 2018 for the price Apple are asking.
Apple should upgrade the CPU to the latest generation, swap the display for a regular TFT with a 1080p resolution and drop the price in half.
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They really don't give a damn about anything that runs OS X these days and it's a shame.
What makes you say that? They've redone the MacBook Pro line with USB-C, the Touch Bar, super fast SSD storage, and still continue with excellent displays. On the desktop they just released the iMac Pro which is really powerful and actually has a decent cooling design, and we know they are working on an totally revised Mac Pro desktop.
You may not like some of the changes they made, but I don't see where anyone could reasonably say Apple does not "give a damn" about OSX hardware.
The only thing that really languishes is the Mac mini - and to some extent the Air (although what they have now is decent).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I believe TurboStar was just referring to inflation, where $1795US in 2007 would be something like $2100US in 2018 dollars.
Glued in batteries, soldered down RAM and flash storage are all complicit in the prime example of planned obsolescence.
Or a recognition that the need to constantly upgrade CPU/RAM/storage has slowed to the point where a decently specced laptop can remain useful for years without needing anything upgraded.
Most people do not open their laptops to upgrade anything. Of those that do, most will only do so to add RAM and even then will not do it themselves. Those who want or need a machine that they can maintain themselves are a small niche that's growing smaller, even if we've been around longer than what is now the majority - people who want a laptop as an appliance.
The Air is not aimed at you. Or me. Or a bunch of folk on this site. But there's a large chunk of people for whom it's ideal and very well designed for _their_ needs. Serviceability is not a priority to that market segment and that has nothing to do with planned obsolescence.
This "dongle madness" is spreading. I'm looking for a new laptop and it seems that most anything that's even close to the size of an Apple will have only USB-C, headphones, and a power port (if it doesn't use USB-C for power), and maybe a SD card slot.
I'm not complaining. I like it really. I don't have to look for the video port to plug in a monitor, the Ethernet port to connect to the network, the serial port to the router (or whatever I need to program at the time), and the mouse port for a mouse. It's just one port does it all and the adapter circuitry is so small it's part of the plug or cord. The MacBook Pro with it's two or four ports means I'm not likely to need a hub or dock in most cases. With just one port then I'll need a dongle of some sort but with the power bricks and adapters so much smaller now I'm still ahead on space in my bag. For most things I expect I'll need just a cheap USB 2.0 A to C adapter which can be had in three packs for $10 or so.
I've had people complain about not knowing what kind of port or cable to use since one USB-C port can be for power, video, Thunderbolt devices, and USB devices. After some research in this I see that the specifications require iconography on the cable end to indicate the capability of the cable. Sometimes the icon might be hard to read or otherwise a bit ambiguous but I'm not sure I still see a problem. Maybe I'll change my tune once I get my new computer.
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Back then, there were clear differences between their 3 laptop lines. These days, MacBook and MacBook Pro use almost the same body design and have almost the same limitations (no ports, no user-replaceable RAM and disk) as the Air.
When it's time to replace my 2012 MBP, I may have to get me a Hackintosh.
I had many notebooks and always preferred portability over horsepower. I mostly ran Linux on them - IBM, Asus, HP, Dell - and it took me a bit to move to MacOS. The under-the-hood BSD was good enough to ease my apprehension leaving Linux to make the change, but the hardware was the closer. Now I still prefer Linux (my desktop is Fedora, don't judge) but you'd only pry my Air out of my hands with a newer, better Air. Give me 16G RAM and a better screen resolution and I am never leaving.
The Toshiba R-100 was thinner and more powerful.
Beware the small power bricks. They are small because they are not very powerful, and can't supply enough current under heavy load so the laptop has to draw power from the battery. That not only discharges the battery, but it also wears it out faster. And of course, the battery is not user-replacable.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
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Last time work refreshed my laptop
I misread that as "retrashed" for some reason...
The only thing I usually need to carry is a USB to serial cable just in case I need to work on a router.
And of course you'd have to do that with just about every modern PC notebook too.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
there where several notebooks thinner than a MacBook Air long before it came out. Sony Vaio had a few in 2004
Ohh? They made another one but the X505 in 2004? Because that was .38-.83 inches thick while the the MacBook Air from 2008 was 0.16 in to 0.76 in thick.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
The problem is the transition era. We saw the same thing when computers started coming out with only USB for peripherals (original iMac and then a load of PCs). First you need USB to PS/2 adaptors and so on, then all of your new peripherals start using USB and you wonder why you ever needed PS/2, serial and parallel ports. In a few years, everything will be using USB-C (already almost everything is USB and USB 3 is fast enough for pretty much everything else, and the few other things can still use a USB-C port) and you'll wonder why everyone was complaining. Until then, there's going to be an annoying transition period when the computers use USB-C but no one yet has the newer peripherals.
That said, I yesterday stopped by a colleague's desk and saw that he has about 1cm of USB flash drive connected to his computer via a 10cm USB-A to USB-C dongle and couldn't help laughing.
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That was the caption on a funny pic from back then. It cracked me up.
Why? I have money. I work for a living in the IT sector and not even I care to do this kind of crap anymore. It's not *worth* my time. It's limited and valuable and I'm hardly gaming these days. I can pay Apple money, get a well supported *NIX system, get access to certain applications (like MS Office) that don't run well on Linux, and if something breaks I can take it in to a store and get it fixed. I have the Applecare plan too so if some liquid gets spilled - no biggie. A few bucks and it's fixed. Peace of mind. I no longer care to go out and research whole desktop builds or go scouring the web for that ONE compatible motherboard that works with the rest of my laptop components. That's probably what 80-85% of the population does.
And anything extra would be done with hobby machines and definitely not my main one. Ones whom I can afford to leave in a dust pile until I have the inclination to pick back up the work.
Retina requires a GPU that's four times faster which in turn requires four times as much more power. They'd be wise to stick to a lower resolution display for the battery life alone. Going from 1440×900 TN to 1680×1050 IPS would increase the battery requirement by a bit, but not as much as retina.
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But they are stretching out the transition era by not going USB-C for the phones as well.
I have travel dongles for HDMI, VGA, DVI, Ethernet, and serial for different needs; at least my Air doesn't need an SD adapter too...
Apple isn't, but most non-Apple phones have USB-C at the high end and it's gradually propagating to the low end. Apple is in a bit of a difficult position, because Lightning is very similar to USB-C (similar size, reversible, carries USB 3 signal). It's not a huge improvement for consumers (there aren't many peripherals that you plug into both a phone and a computer, so you need a USB to Lightning cable anyway, and there's little difference between carrying a USB-A to Lightning or a USB-C to Lightning one) and there are now a bunch of phone / tablet peripherals that use it. In contrast, for most other manufacturers, USB-C is a better connector than microUSB (it's more resilient and it's reversible), so there's a bigger incentive for them to upgrade. I imagine that Lightning will go away at some point though.
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1.36kg seemed pretty light back then, and the 2010 version came in a hair lighter at 1.35kg. Of course, the 13-inch MacBook Pro was a whopping 2.04kg. But then the 13-inch MacBook Pro (Retina) came out at only 1.48kg, and now the second generation (sans Menu Bar) is down to 1.37kg - only 10 grams more than the original MacBook Air.
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My current Air 11" is the nicest computer I ever bought. It is my home computer, good enough for hobby photo and video editing, and so deliciously portable. Only dongle I have is one for SD cards. I use wifi at home and 2 usb ports are sufficient.
Because it is so portable I didn't mind bringing it along on my business trips next to my work computer - though my iPad Pro 10.5" has now taken that role. I splashed out a bit when I bought it in january 2014 - an i7 processor with 8gb ram and 512gb add was top of the line then, and it still works smoothly with the current OS.
I need to replace the battery though, it holds like half the original time now. So that will happen in the next month or so, and I should be ok for another few years.
What if it breaks? I would probably buy the Macbook 12", not the Pro.
I hate the Air. It's a great machine for its purposes, sure, but it stole the "low end" position from the MacBook a few years later. While it definitely has "low end" components, miniaturized to achieve its size goals, that miniaturization does not lead to a low-end price. Apple does not make it easy to get into Mac hardware on a budget. The Mini suffers the same problem. Shrinking components to hit a size goal leave me with an underpowered machine at the price point I'm looking at. Smallness is not a feature I'm particularly interested in. It's like paying a double Apple premium. It's frustrating to be a "bang for the buck" shopper and every option available is dressed up with glitz I don't want.
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Sure. I'm not saying it wasn't *any* better. Just that it wasn't the revolution that some people make it out to be. This article calls it a "remarkable feat of engineering," which I think is a stretch. Reading it, you'd think there had never been a laptop of that size.
As far as battery life goes: the X40 had two available, and you could swap it out whenever you wanted. You could choose to take on a little extra weight for more battery life. Or you could carry several batteries. Go nuts. Whatever you want. You had choices that you really didn't get from Apple.
I don't think it is correct to say that the GPU needs to be four times as powerful for a display with four times as many pixels. For 3d gaming, yes. But for text rendering, I don't think that a higher resolution web page takes four times the processor power to lay out. The same number of character glyphs need to be painted on the screen; they are bigger, but still nothing that challenges even the weakest GPU. The difficult part is rendering the glyphs at the higher resolution, and that is CPU-bound. Sure, a more powerful GPU would help, but it doesn't need to be four times as powerful. As anecdotal evidence I note that for a couple of years I ran two 5k monitors from a single NVS 510 desktop video card. This is a pretty weak GPU, much less powerful than a Geforce or Quadro. Performance was fine, since I didn't do gaming but only text. (I've since upgraded to Quadro K1200 cards, faster but still hardly monsters.)
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Not to mention that, for some bizarre reason, Apple chose to go with Lightning connectors for charging the latest versions of its wireless keyboard, mouse, and trackpad!
Seriously, Apple - WTF?
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I wonder if they're planning on switching the phones to USB-C and had a bunch of Lightning sockets that they needed to get rid of...
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