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.

Comments

Best *laptop* I've ever owned

[mykepredko]

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.

Re:Best *laptop* I've ever owned

[Midnight Thunder]

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.

There are plenty of people who do use the MacBook Air for development and it does well. Maybe this is more amongst web developers?

Back in 2014 I bought my MacBook Air because I needed to replace my ageing MacBook Pro that had suffered a coffee spill and I was on a tight budget, but still wanted to stay with an Apple branded computer. We are now in 2018 and it is still doing a good enough job. Certainly if graphics processing matters then it isn't a great choice, but otherwise it is a good general use computer. I am a developer and I use mine mainly for NodeJS and Java development.

I wish they were still trying

[silverkniveshotmail.]

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.

Re: I wish they were still trying

[jellomizer]

Actually cutting costs is a game to prolong failure.
Gateway 2000 back in the early to mid 1990s were well known for its quality. Sure they cost a bit more but it was worth the extra price. Then they started to cust costs and make cheaper products which made people to hate the product.
Dell in the mid 1990s to mid 00. Play the same story.
Mid 00 - mid teens Apple has the spot.
Now the question what is the quality computer line up that is coming up next?
Lenovo the think pad line has consistently kept its quality. HP? Acer? Microsoft?

In general while the tech crowd is more or less happy with getting a lot of cheap hardware. Most consumers want a good piece of hardware even if it costs extra money and even if it has a higher total cost of ownership.
Because we can get a computer at half the cost and during its lifetime we just need to replace half of its components. We still save money. But that is for the people who likes to fix these things. For average person such issues stress them out and having to fix their box is scary and resent having bought the product in the first place.

Re: I wish they were still trying

[Plumpaquatsch]

Macs should be a cash cow for Apple.

They are. Apple now makes more money with Macs alone than they made all together 11 years ago. You know, back when many experts where claiming that since the iPod made them more money than the Mac, they'd stop making Macs in a few years and focus on iPods (even the ones that expected an Apple phone predicted that). Pretty much what the same experts say today.

Re: I wish they were still trying

[TheRaven64]

The only extra cost is maintaining OSX, but I have heard there are only a few dozen employees working on it full time, and there is a lot of source duplication with iOS.

That's quite misleading. Apple's CoreOS team, which is responsible for the XNU kernel, libc, and a few other bits is very small (and 95% of what they do is applicable to both macOS and iOS). On top of that, there are a lot of frameworks that are shared between iOS and macOS, and a quite large compiler / tools team that develops XCode, contributes a lot to LLVM/Clang/LLDB, maintains Swift, and so on, which is also shared between all operating systems (XCode is Mac only, but it is primarily used for iOS development these days). I think AppKit is about the only framework that is macOS only. There are also a lot of Mac-only Apple apps, and that's where the real costs come from.

Neat device. Got meself one back in Q1 2011.

[Qbertino]

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,

Re:Released by Steve Jobs

[grub]

Apple Watch is a new one that is raking in cash. Updates on other devices have proven very successful. Their valuation is far higher than at any time Jobs was in charge.

Re:Ah yes, the beginning of the dongle era

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Released by Steve Jobs

[grub]

Apple Watch has the highest sales of any smart watch or luxury watch. I see them everywhere.
Seven million units according to Forbes.

Re:How many of them still boot and run on battery?

[another_twilight]

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.

Re:Ah yes, the beginning of the dongle era

[blindseer]

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.

Re:Released by Steve Jobs

[TheRaven64]

I've seen a few, though to be fair most of them were on Apple employees. The one use I've seen for them that I actually like is two-factor auth. I saw a colleague use this and it seems pretty convenient. The watch connects to the computer via Bluetooth and when you need to do 2FA the watch beeps and prompts for a fingerprint and then signs the request. It's more convenient than carrying a U2F token around with you, but not quite so convenient that I would actually want one.