I look at my wife's 13inch MacBook Air. The bezel adds almost an inch to each diagonal. So what if Apple made that model ever so slightly larger -- but added a bezel free screen?
You'd have a 15 inch screen on an Air almost the size of the 13 inch. Therefore a '12 inch' MacBook Air might be able to house a 13 inch bezel free screen.
I believe both would be an amazingly popular products.
I look at my wife's 13inch MacBook Air. The bezel adds almost an inch to each diagonal. So what if Apple made that model ever so slightly larger -- but added a bezel free screen?
You'd have a 15 inch screen on an Air almost the size of the 13 inch. Therefore a '12 inch' MacBook Air might be able to house a 13 inch bezel free screen.
I agree with shrinking the bezel down a bit on the Air. I wouldn't say bezel-free because it's nice to have a buffer for the edge of the content and there's a camera in the bezel but they can push it out a bit. The old Powerbook bezels looked smaller:
The screen has to be positioned right vs the curvature of the corner or it looks odd. The Powerbook had sharper corners.
Fitting a 13" screen into a 12" size would be a bit too much IMO. I think they'd get away with drawing a circle round the corner and pushing the screen to the circle edge:
This is an increase of about 4% so an 11.6" Air would house a 12.1" display like the old 12" Powerbook. The 15.4" MBP could house a 16" display.
I'd like to see Apple make a 12" Retina Air, a larger ~15" Retina Air to replace both 13" Air and 13" Pro and then have the 15" Pro. The larger Air could be 14" while the Pro moves to 16" or they can both stick to 15" and reduce the chassis size. Whatever combination suits.
The Jobsing of Aperture leads me to believe that Apple knows its product line is growing too wildly and needs to be pruned a bit. If this translates to hardware, I expect that the 11" will be cut when the line goes Retina.
I know this is anecdotal, but I don't think I've personally seen anyone with an 11" in at least two years. I'd be interested to hear the stories of those who have one and do real work on them. At the Apple Store, it always looks too small for my personal needs.
The wild card is Apple's desire to go low-cost. The stripped down iMac shows that Apple sees a market for the low-cost niche in these turbulent economic times.
The wild card is Apple's desire to go low-cost. The stripped down iMac shows that Apple sees a market for the low-cost niche in these turbulent economic times.
What desire? Apple posted record quarters every single quarter during the recession, which some would say is still on.
The Jobsing of Aperture leads me to believe that Apple knows its product line is growing too wildly and needs to be pruned a bit. If this translates to hardware, I expect that the 11" will be cut when the line goes Retina.
I know this is anecdotal, but I don't think I've personally seen anyone with an 11" in at least two years. I'd be interested to hear the stories of those who have one and do real work on them. At the Apple Store, it always looks too small for my personal needs.
The wild card is Apple's desire to go low-cost. The stripped down iMac shows that Apple sees a market for the low-cost niche in these turbulent economic times.
I still see them in London. But I share your sentiment. To me, the 11" was always a compromise too far; it's just not a good ergonomic design because the screen is too low, whereas the 13" works well. That's partly why I have doubts about a 12" Air.
What desire? Apple posted record quarters every single quarter during the recession, which some would say is still on.
But Apple JUST introduced a low-cost iMac with performance compromises beyond the normal.
I don't think they would do that without a good reason.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Benjamin Frost
I still see them in London. But I share your sentiment. To me, the 11" was always a compromise too far; it's just not a good ergonomic design because the screen is too low, whereas the 13" works well. That's partly why I have doubts about a 12" Air.
The difference is that the 12" Powerbook was a decent machine. I used to own one.
Eventually, I moved to a 15" because of the screen limitations, but the 12" was decent enough for everyday mobile computing.
It just isn't a machine for photographers, serious video work or DTP.
I know this is anecdotal, but I don't think I've personally seen anyone with an 11" in at least two years. I'd be interested to hear the stories of those who have one and do real work on them. At the Apple Store, it always looks too small for my personal needs.
I've seen people travel with them in Airports. They'll fit on the small tables very well and being extra small and light helps in hand luggage. I find them to be far too small though. I used to have a 12" Powerbook too and thought it was a good size but it did have a 4:3 display, which is better for documents and productivity and worse for movies.
The 13" MBA is currently 13.3". If they cut the display down a little, maybe not even as much as an inch and cut the chassis size down a bit to tighten the bezels, they should be able to easily replace both the 11" and 13" Air. Half way between 11.6" and 13.3" would be 12.5" so somewhere around that would be ok.
If Apples new hardware line up went 12", 14" & 16", I could see a lot of people getting behind the product line as the sizes would better suite a wide array of users. This especially if the new screen technologies allows Apple to control the physical size of the machines. That is ship a 16" machine that isn't much bigger physically than today's 15" and the same thing in regards to the 14" vs today's 13".
Given that I still have this idea in my head that the 12" device rumored is an ARM based device. Frankly if Apple got the OS capabilities right id go for An ARM based device in a heart beat.
I still see them in London. But I share your sentiment. To me, the 11" was always a compromise too far; it's just not a good ergonomic design because the screen is too low, whereas the 13" works well. That's partly why I have doubts about a 12" Air.
But Apple JUST introduced a low-cost iMac with performance compromises beyond the normal.
I don't think they would do that without a good reason.
The economy is getting far worst every month. Businessman have to keep tabs on what is happening with the economy both domestically and world wide. As such I don't think they are seeing a pretty picture.
The difference is that the 12" Powerbook was a decent machine. I used to own one.
Eventually, I moved to a 15" because of the screen limitations, but the 12" was decent enough for everyday mobile computing.
It just isn't a machine for photographers, serious video work or DTP.
As you get older even a 15" can seem a bit small. Of course that has lot to do with not seeing well. At my age I can admire the 11" Air and at the same time know that I'd never be happy with it as my only machine.
I've seen people travel with them in Airports. They'll fit on the small tables very well and being extra small and light helps in hand luggage. I find them to be far too small though. I used to have a 12" Powerbook too and thought it was a good size but it did have a 4:3 display, which is better for documents and productivity and worse for movies.
I suspect iPad has absorbed most of the demand for the 11" machine. If ultra mobility is needed it is a far better choice than the 11" machine. If extreme mobility isn't needed I suspect most people would opt for a bigger less cramped machine.
The 13" MBA is currently 13.3". If they cut the display down a little, maybe not even as much as an inch and cut the chassis size down a bit to tighten the bezels, they should be able to easily replace both the 11" and 13" Air. Half way between 11.6" and 13.3" would be 12.5" so somewhere around that would be ok.
I still like the idea expressed above of 2" increments starting at a 12" machine. Some of the new LCD technologies should allow for much smaller borders around the screen so the hope would be bigger screens in similar sized machines. A 16" screen in a 15" sized machine would be especially appealing.
I realize that there isn't exactly enough room to do this on most of Apples current machines. The idea though would be to minimize any physical increase in size.
I want a 14 or 15" macbook air. Ready to buy when it comes out.
Ah I loved my 12" MBP. My MBP 15" is still trucking nicely. My wife has MBA 11" Air and it's a cute little thing. If they keep it, they should make it even smaller with less bezel, which they could do. Harkens back to the Apple Duo days of subnotebooks. It's a cool option. In fact they should just make a touchscreen MacBook Air that runs iOS. An answer to MS Surface. Then again, they want to sell you two products, not one.
I want a 14 or 15" macbook air. Ready to buy when it comes out.
If they went 15", they could share the display panel between the Air and Pro and just switch out the base unit. This means their laptop line would only have 2 panels vs 4 if they dropped the old Air.
This may be why the laptop line is taking so long to update. It looks like Broadwell is off the table:
That would have brought faster Iris Pro graphics. If they instead go the route of introducing a Retina Air, they won't want to do it near the April refresh. It's best to leave a 6 month separation. That would mean October.
A 13" Retina Air is not different enough from a 13" Pro to have both so I reckon they have to make a single model and I think it makes more sense to make a 14/15" Retina Air than a 13" model as the lower Retina model can take over the 13" rMBP role.
That site lists February 2015 for ULT chips for the Air. Maybe Apple could get chips for a late 2014 launch of a Retina Air but the 15" Pro would have to go with a Haswell Refresh and NVidia 800 series GPUs.
The iMac is probably going to go Retina this year too and will get Thunderbolt 2 to be able to drive Retina TB displays and I expect the Retina Airs will be able to drive these displays. A potential setup could be:
A future revision of Thunderbolt will also allow enough power to charge the laptop so you'd have one power cable at the back of the display and one thunderbolt cable to the laptop.
If they went 15", they could share the display panel between the Air and Pro and just switch out the base unit. This means their laptop line would only have 2 panels vs 4 if they dropped the old Air.
This may be why the laptop line is taking so long to update. It looks like Broadwell is off the table:
If the Broadwell delay in fact happens the way it has been reported, I have to imagine that it will be screwing up many of Apples plans. We may not see new MBP until 2015 .
That would have brought faster Iris Pro graphics. If they instead go the route of introducing a Retina Air, they won't want to do it near the April refresh. It's best to leave a 6 month separation. That would mean October.
I don't think Apple is so hung up on dates. They will ship when hardware is available. The longer hardware is delayed the greater the need to ship when that hardware finally comes.
A 13" Retina Air is not different enough from a 13" Pro to have both so I reckon they have to make a single model and I think it makes more sense to make a 14/15" Retina Air than a 13" model as the lower Retina model can take over the 13" rMBP role.
I don't see a problem, all they need to do is keep the professional features on the 13"MBP. That is TB 2 ( 2 ports), faster graphics and a faster CPU in general. In fact it is about time the 13" MBP went quad core.
That site lists February 2015 for ULT chips for the Air. Maybe Apple could get chips for a late 2014 launch of a Retina Air but the 15" Pro would have to go with a Haswell Refresh and NVidia 800 series GPUs.
Which has to piss Apple off to no end!
I do wonder though if they might have worked out a deal with Intel for custom chips. Sooner or later Intel will have no choice but to offer custom SoC solutions for customers and Apple is one of the few progressive companies here.
The iMac is probably going to go Retina this year too and will get Thunderbolt 2 to be able to drive Retina TB displays and I expect the Retina Airs will be able to drive these displays. A potential setup could be:
A future revision of Thunderbolt will also allow enough power to charge the laptop so you'd have one power cable at the back of the display and one thunderbolt cable to the laptop.
The TB ports on a laptop are sources of power, I've seen no evidence that the power can be sourced from other devices to charge the laptop. It would certainly be interesting if true. I actually have problems with supplying that much power over flimsy cables and connectors. Sometimes it just doesn't make sense to keep tacking on features to a port just because. We will need to see what happens, Apples long delays between hardware updates is a bit frustrating.
The TB ports on a laptop are sources of power, I've seen no evidence that the power can be sourced from other devices to charge the laptop. It would certainly be interesting if true. I actually have problems with supplying that much power over flimsy cables and connectors. Sometimes it just doesn't make sense to keep tacking on features to a port just because. We will need to see what happens, Apples long delays between hardware updates is a bit frustrating.
That would require significantly more power than they put out. Weren't they something like 5-10W output? Apple's chargers are typically 85W. I don't know if that is peak or extended throughput, but on some generations it still needs to be supplemented by the battery if cpu + gpu are under a considerable load.
Comments
Broadwell is Q2 2015, so even if this fantasy product exists, it can’t use it.
They also made no mention to the iPods which will have gone a full two years so I think it'll get an update.
I honestly don't think Apple will be updating the iPods again. Truly I believe they will be discontinued within the next 3 years.
Broadwell is Q2 2015, so even if this fantasy product exists, it can’t use it.
I think the same. But the thought of the possibility of buying today a new MBPr and in October see an overall upgrade stops me from buying
You'd have a 15 inch screen on an Air almost the size of the 13 inch. Therefore a '12 inch' MacBook Air might be able to house a 13 inch bezel free screen.
I believe both would be an amazingly popular products.
I agree with shrinking the bezel down a bit on the Air. I wouldn't say bezel-free because it's nice to have a buffer for the edge of the content and there's a camera in the bezel but they can push it out a bit. The old Powerbook bezels looked smaller:
The screen has to be positioned right vs the curvature of the corner or it looks odd. The Powerbook had sharper corners.
Fitting a 13" screen into a 12" size would be a bit too much IMO. I think they'd get away with drawing a circle round the corner and pushing the screen to the circle edge:
This is an increase of about 4% so an 11.6" Air would house a 12.1" display like the old 12" Powerbook. The 15.4" MBP could house a 16" display.
I'd like to see Apple make a 12" Retina Air, a larger ~15" Retina Air to replace both 13" Air and 13" Pro and then have the 15" Pro. The larger Air could be 14" while the Pro moves to 16" or they can both stick to 15" and reduce the chassis size. Whatever combination suits.
I think 12“ is too small for the MBA. I don‘t think Apple will go below 13“.
Yeah, an 11" MBA is highly unlikely!
You said it.
The Jobsing of Aperture leads me to believe that Apple knows its product line is growing too wildly and needs to be pruned a bit. If this translates to hardware, I expect that the 11" will be cut when the line goes Retina.
I know this is anecdotal, but I don't think I've personally seen anyone with an 11" in at least two years. I'd be interested to hear the stories of those who have one and do real work on them. At the Apple Store, it always looks too small for my personal needs.
The wild card is Apple's desire to go low-cost. The stripped down iMac shows that Apple sees a market for the low-cost niche in these turbulent economic times.
What desire? Apple posted record quarters every single quarter during the recession, which some would say is still on.
I still see them in London. But I share your sentiment. To me, the 11" was always a compromise too far; it's just not a good ergonomic design because the screen is too low, whereas the 13" works well. That's partly why I have doubts about a 12" Air.
What desire? Apple posted record quarters every single quarter during the recession, which some would say is still on.
But Apple JUST introduced a low-cost iMac with performance compromises beyond the normal.
I don't think they would do that without a good reason.
I still see them in London. But I share your sentiment. To me, the 11" was always a compromise too far; it's just not a good ergonomic design because the screen is too low, whereas the 13" works well. That's partly why I have doubts about a 12" Air.
The difference is that the 12" Powerbook was a decent machine. I used to own one.
Eventually, I moved to a 15" because of the screen limitations, but the 12" was decent enough for everyday mobile computing.
It just isn't a machine for photographers, serious video work or DTP.
I've seen people travel with them in Airports. They'll fit on the small tables very well and being extra small and light helps in hand luggage. I find them to be far too small though. I used to have a 12" Powerbook too and thought it was a good size but it did have a 4:3 display, which is better for documents and productivity and worse for movies.
The 13" MBA is currently 13.3". If they cut the display down a little, maybe not even as much as an inch and cut the chassis size down a bit to tighten the bezels, they should be able to easily replace both the 11" and 13" Air. Half way between 11.6" and 13.3" would be 12.5" so somewhere around that would be ok.
Given that I still have this idea in my head that the 12" device rumored is an ARM based device. Frankly if Apple got the OS capabilities right id go for An ARM based device in a heart beat.
I still like the idea expressed above of 2" increments starting at a 12" machine. Some of the new LCD technologies should allow for much smaller borders around the screen so the hope would be bigger screens in similar sized machines. A 16" screen in a 15" sized machine would be especially appealing.
I realize that there isn't exactly enough room to do this on most of Apples current machines. The idea though would be to minimize any physical increase in size.
I want a 14 or 15" macbook air. Ready to buy when it comes out.
Ah I loved my 12" MBP. My MBP 15" is still trucking nicely. My wife has MBA 11" Air and it's a cute little thing. If they keep it, they should make it even smaller with less bezel, which they could do. Harkens back to the Apple Duo days of subnotebooks. It's a cool option. In fact they should just make a touchscreen MacBook Air that runs iOS. An answer to MS Surface. Then again, they want to sell you two products, not one.
If they went 15", they could share the display panel between the Air and Pro and just switch out the base unit. This means their laptop line would only have 2 panels vs 4 if they dropped the old Air.
This may be why the laptop line is taking so long to update. It looks like Broadwell is off the table:
http://www.macrumors.com/2014/07/09/broadwell-early-to-mid-2015/
http://www.cpu-world.com/news_2014/2014052801_Intel_Broadwell_GPUs_to_use_HD_5x00_Iris_6100_and_Iris_Pro_6200_branding.html
That would have brought faster Iris Pro graphics. If they instead go the route of introducing a Retina Air, they won't want to do it near the April refresh. It's best to leave a 6 month separation. That would mean October.
A 13" Retina Air is not different enough from a 13" Pro to have both so I reckon they have to make a single model and I think it makes more sense to make a 14/15" Retina Air than a 13" model as the lower Retina model can take over the 13" rMBP role.
That site lists February 2015 for ULT chips for the Air. Maybe Apple could get chips for a late 2014 launch of a Retina Air but the 15" Pro would have to go with a Haswell Refresh and NVidia 800 series GPUs.
The iMac is probably going to go Retina this year too and will get Thunderbolt 2 to be able to drive Retina TB displays and I expect the Retina Airs will be able to drive these displays. A potential setup could be:
Retina 15" Air
dual-core i5 ULT chip
8GB RAM
128GB SSD
$1299
Retina Thunderbolt display $999
A future revision of Thunderbolt will also allow enough power to charge the laptop so you'd have one power cable at the back of the display and one thunderbolt cable to the laptop.
I do wonder though if they might have worked out a deal with Intel for custom chips. Sooner or later Intel will have no choice but to offer custom SoC solutions for customers and Apple is one of the few progressive companies here.
The TB ports on a laptop are sources of power, I've seen no evidence that the power can be sourced from other devices to charge the laptop. It would certainly be interesting if true. I actually have problems with supplying that much power over flimsy cables and connectors. Sometimes it just doesn't make sense to keep tacking on features to a port just because. We will need to see what happens, Apples long delays between hardware updates is a bit frustrating.
The TB ports on a laptop are sources of power, I've seen no evidence that the power can be sourced from other devices to charge the laptop. It would certainly be interesting if true. I actually have problems with supplying that much power over flimsy cables and connectors. Sometimes it just doesn't make sense to keep tacking on features to a port just because. We will need to see what happens, Apples long delays between hardware updates is a bit frustrating.
That would require significantly more power than they put out. Weren't they something like 5-10W output? Apple's chargers are typically 85W. I don't know if that is peak or extended throughput, but on some generations it still needs to be supplemented by the battery if cpu + gpu are under a considerable load.