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Apple Might Discontinue the MacBook Air (gizmodo.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Just in time for its tenth anniversary, Apple might finally be killing the MacBook Air, according to a new report from Digitimes. If this is true, it'd be the first axing of a laptop line from Apple since the iBook and Powerbook were axed back in 2006. It would also be about damn time. Apple quietly killed the 11-inch MacBook Air back in 2016, but the larger 13-inch version has lingered on, getting a mild processor refresh last year that still left the laptop using a 5th generation Intel processor. That's three generations behind the processors currently found in the MacBook Air's competition, and it is the primary reason the laptop was excluded from our piece looking at the best laptop to be had for under $1000.
I wouldn't be surprised if it is dropped. The newer MBPs have a very similar keyboard to the MB, and people wind up either buying the MB if they want a small laptop, or a MBP if they want something better. Plus, with all the USB-C adapters, including ones that actually work and can charge the laptop while you can use your external hard disk, there isn't as big a demand for the MBA as there was before.
Even the MacBooks can give you an i7 and 16 gigs of RAM. The 512 gigs of storage is a tad puny, but the machine's size is decent.
A picture is worth a thousand words. It's key selling point - form factor - has been nearly eliminated. The MacBook Pro is almost exactly the same size, and has a lot more power for only a few hundred more.