It will almost certainly be a low end macbook. In fact, there's a non-pro 'macbook'[0] that already exists which would be perfect, it was discontinued a year ago, but used ultra-low power CPUs. In fact when they were talking about them (prior to release) they thought they would have ARM CPU's back then.
They are fanless and have a 5W thermal envelope, which fits in with the current A12X too.
The major criticisms of the design at the time was: Butterfly keyboard, the Single USB-C port and the speed of the device (Intel CORE-M is truly, truly painful). But for a $600-$700 machine with an ARM CPU? that's insanely competitive, and is in-line with the "basic" macbook branding.
Optics dictate that Apple show the superiority of the new silicon, and it wouldn't want it immediately pigeonholed as something like Surface X, a compromised curiosity.
Apple's been consistent about ~10 hours of battery life for a while. They've hit their spec and think that most people don't need more in typical usage. So they'll be able to shave battery volume down to continue their trend of thinner without sacrificing other specs.
The recently discontinued MacBook was a vision statement that the hardware could not quite reach, much like the first MacBook Air. Here, I think that statement realized would be a MacBook Pro that is as thin as that MacBook, and is still notably faster than the current MacBook Pro.
I see no need for a standalone Macbook to negatively portray Apple Silcon.
"Macbook" is the heart of the entire PC portable line for Apple. "Macbook"is the grounding of the brand itself.
I think Apple will release the Macbook as the first Apple Silicon machine because of the optics of confidently putting the hardware at the symbolic heart of the entire portable line.
I do not think the 12" that was discontinued should be thought of also as where the machine will be picked up in terms of form factor. This is not how Apple behaves, when tech shifts or they don't like where they left off, they change direction. (i.e. the Mac Pro trashcan -> modern Mac Pro)
Apple Silicon will allow Apple to reintroduce the Macbook as a compelling machine addressing many customer types. This base machine would pave to eliminate the Macbook Air and redesign the Macbook Pro.
With a few models of Macbook and Macbook Pro the portable product line will be simplified and clean up the confusing price / feature / performance comparison problems that exist today.
To the skeptics, Apple Silicon is about thin laptops and fat margins. It makes no sense for Apple to reinforce this. Apple's silicon team is exceptional, and they should prove it.
And they will, delivering thin, light, long-lasting laptops, with high performance and the fattest of margins. The only people they need to prove themselves to are shareholders, and this is gonna do the trick.
> But for a $600-$700 machine with an ARM CPU? that's insanely competitive, and is in-line with the "basic" macbook branding.
I'm skeptical Apple's introduction of their high performance CPUs exclusively on a low end device. A super light/ high performance 12ish inch machine seems right up their ally, but they don't want the new CPU associated with being a low-end "Intel Pentium Gold" type device.
There might be a lower end ultra-thin laptop released, but they are going to go big and push out a high performance CPU right out the gate. They didn't launch their 64 bit A series CPU on a secondary device, they won't launch this on a secondary device either.
I've heard rumours of a low end 12" MacBook, along with a 13" MacBook pro targeting developers as launch devices. No idea if it's true, but it would certainly make a lot of sense.
I don’t know if they would actually do it, but that would be an awesome way to launch: one category-defining device in terms of portibility and performance, and one super high end device to create a halo effect around the new processors
Yes, this would be a good strategy. The "low end" one would likely ship with the same CPU as the next-model iPad. The higher end one would be their new shiny high performance designed-for-MacBook CPU.
With the Intel release they also released two devices at the same time (MBP and iMac, and other models quickly followed).
I’d assume them to do the same: a high end (MBP?) and low end device (MB? MBA?); that’s where ARM will shine first (mobile: battery life; maybe even integrating a modem with esims).
>I'm skeptical Apple's introduction of their high performance CPUs exclusively on a low end device
You can group the Notebook Shipment into a few Categories, $1000+, those are nearly all MacBook. With the remaining going into Gaming Machine ( Which is now being rebranded into Content Creation Machine )
You have the absolute low end, Netbook style that are $300, those are not what Apple targets and they are actually competing with an iPad.
You have vast majority of the Notebook in $300 to $600. Considering the lowest MacBook offering at $699, is just the same play as iPhone SE at $399.
It is just $100 more than the median of average Smartphone selling price, and it would attract enough number jumping to Mac platform all while sucking out the oxygen for the other PC vendors.
If you look at the history of the MacBook and MacBook Air together, it's pretty clear that Apple expected to eliminate the MBA as a product category years ago; to just have "MacBook" and "MacBook Pro" categories. This was probably due to them believing Intel's roadmap for chip releases, such that they thought they'd be able to hit MBA-like performance targets in the MacBook's form-factor. But Intel's roadmap didn't pan out, and so Apple had to turn around and build more MBA-form-factor devices to hit those performance targets. Eventually, the MacBook went so long between releases that they just eliminated it, and redesigned the MBA a bit to cater more to the people who liked the MacBook form-factor (without really making the MBA any lighter, just smaller-seeming.)
All the MBA computers since 2015 "should have been" devices with a MacBook form-factor and MBA-level performance. Right now, that'd mean an ultralight with a CPU matching or surpassing the performance of the https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-1060N... (which is the highest-specced option for current MBAs.)
Such a computer, if released today, would be impressive, no? It would redefine the MacBook (Air) category to be Apple's primary Mac product line, satisfactory for almost all workloads (in the same way that the iMac has been redefined to be the primary desktop Mac, satisfactory for almost all workloads.) In that world, the MBP would be relegated to halo-product status, akin to the current positioning of the Mac Pro. In Apple Stores, you'd have three differently-sized MacBooks, and then an MBP off in a corner where looking at it for too long summons an Apple Business representative.
I don't see how that's not already "going big" or "making a statement." It'd demonstrate that their Apple Silicon chips can eat Apple's own lunch, with their new mid-range Apple Silicon devices beating their old high-end Intel offerings in price:performance, even before Apple Silicon high-end chips get designed to truly replace them. The Intel MBPs, even brand new, would be immediately branded as a "legacy" category, outmoded even before replacement, only to be purchased if necessary for a specific business use-case.
(Before you suggest: no, I don't think Apple would be Osborning their Intel products if they did this. Businesses and freelance professionals would, for the time being, still have plenty of such "specific use-cases" for an Intel-based MBP. Apple also has lots of enterprise customers locked into long-term upgrade contracts, so part of the demand for the tail end of their Intel-MBP pipeline would be fixed/inelastic demand.)
Maybe not exclusively, but it would make more sense as users of their more 'budget' machines likely won't be put off by its inability to run Windows and running existing Mac software more slowly due to emulation (unless it's been recompiled in the latter half of 2020).
Edit: Thanks to the replies letting me know that Rosetta is still a thing. I somehow forgot. Updated.
> inability to run existing Mac software (unless it's been recompiled in the latter half of 2020).
You will be able to run existing MacOS software on the new hardware under emulation. The Dev kits run emulation fairly well on a 2 year old iPad CPU so I would expect whatever new hardware they release will as well.
Most Mac software should be ready with an Apple Silicon recompiled version when or soon after they ship. Apple has been showing how easy it is for most software to retarget the new chips will very little work.
the 12" macbook is my favorite laptop of all time. Mine is the 2016 version and it's starting to feel dated and I'm hoping that they rerelease this on the new silicon first. I'll be smashing the buy button the day it's out.
I think my favorite computer was my late-2010 MacBook Air. It was such a departure from the big & clunky Windows laptops I'd owned up until that time. And of course I have fond memories of my first computer, an IBM PC Jr (although I really wanted the 2nd disk drive, and copying floppy disks with only one drive & 128kb of RAM was suboptimal).
The Air series we’re solid machines for a good while until they stopped updating them. It was such a good price/performance/portability balance that I didn’t miss having a Pro machine for a few years there, even doing relatively heavy tasks like photo editing and development.
I have a 2019 Macbook Pro now. The only reason I bought it was a friend really needed a computer any computer, and I gave her my 2014 Macbook Air. I bought the pro because it's a bit nicer for mobile development & running VMs.
I recently found a pic of my friend holding up my Air that I had just got delivered at the office. She has this look of awe on her at how thin the thing was.
I think Airs are the ideal machine for the majority of the population that just needs to reliably accomplish basic tasks. It's probably the cheapest if amortized over its lifetime.
At least until iPads can do everything laptops can.
Mine is a Macbook pro 2012 and it is still phenomenal.
2yrs ago, my screen used to flicker. I contacted everyone and they said 'change motherboard' and Mac support people were like buy a new laptop. so I kept the laptop in cupboard for a few months and I open it to check if it works, had decided to sell it and buy a new one and viola, it was working perfectly fine.
2012 mbp15r, maxxed out specs at the time (16GB DDR3, 500MB SSD), daily driver for eight(!) years, and has maybe 5 tiny dead pixels as the only sign it's the worse for wear. Current gig requires use of client-provided 2019 mbp16r with approximately the same size, weight and perf. I don't hate it, but it's hard to believe my ancient personal box is about as capable. They really don't make em like they used to.
>I don't hate it, but it's hard to believe my ancient personal box is about as capable
Exactly my point. The funny thing is, I bought the 2012 model at half the price of the new models and I have 0 complaints about it. No fancy keyboard issue, no fancy thermal issue. Nothing.
and to think that since then, they've made more problems than laptops!
They really don't make them like they used to. I just want a better battery backup that's it. I get 6-8hrs because I did a lot of research about how Li batteries drain (it is best if you do not let it drain below 50% because Li batteries' lifecycle depends on the high-low charge discharge cycles so if you keep discharging battery to 0% then you're scrwed in a few years)
I'll buy the 2012 model again, if this one dies out, but won't ever buy the latest models.
I have the non-retina version of the 2012 and it is still going strong. Battery is still fine, screen has nothing wrong with it, and I upgraded the RAM to 16GB as it only came with 8, then shoved in a 1TB SSD to replace the incredibly slow 750GB hard disk. Dual boots to Windows 10 and all is great! I honestly don't know what I'm going to do when it breaks because I don't like the work MBP I have (2016 too) and I don't like the direction macos is going.
I'll really miss this 2012.
I replaced my 2012 15" MBPr after 5 years with a 2017 only because it kept overheating and throttling, but in day-to-day use, the performance difference was really hard to notice. Biggest difference was probably in graphics performance when using an external display.
I recently sold my 2016 Macbook (loved the device, the form factor, it was great — but the thing was becoming horribly slow and was starting to drive me nuts).
Got an iPad Pro (2020 + the keyboard) instead. Don’t know what I was thinking... :) Guess I wanted to try it out and see if it could work (and torture myself a bit).
The iPad pro is fun, great device for browsing on the sofa, and the keyboard is good for emailing and such. But multi tasking still sucks, apps in the background get killed or take forever to refresh content, etc. I’d go back to a Macbook but one that doesn’t take a second to swap between tabs in Firefox.
It just seems that they could juice up the power in the MacBook Airs a bit and then there wouldn't be enough of a gap between an Air and Pro to justify having the normal "MacBook" in between.
That said, the current Airs are still pretty weak on processing power and if they're not going to juice them up then a middle option would be welcome. Plus it would be a good proving ground to launch ARM with a model that's not currently available new.
I have a 2020 Air and it's pretty great but I recently saw it struggling when there's graphics-heavy stuff, namely driving a 5k external monitor while on video calls.
I also have a 2016 12" Macbook and love it. It's my full time personal machine, having replaced an older iPad and MBP. I love the form factor and weight, but I like it more than an iPad due to having an actual keyboard and ability to run real software.
As you say it's getting a bit long in the tooth and I've been lamenting that there's really no replacement for it. I've been holding out hope that apple silicon will change that.
I agree, still running a 12" 2015, it's an incredible machine that just doesn't feel as though it has been replaced. Makes the Pro and Air feel like heavy weights.
The 12-inch Macbook is my favorite Mac, despite I have multiple MacBook Pros and a MacPro! Although people might find it strange. It's simple, beautiful, extreme on the design, and also extremely slim, light, and quiet. I'm pretty sad that they've discontinued this product, I hope they'll bring it back with an Arm processor.
It's almost as heavy and as thin as the iPad, but it is a full-sized computer with a full-sized keyboard. I can play with Emacs for 20 hours writing and scripting without charging.
Also another unpopular opinion - I also love the butterfly keyboard of the 12-inch Macbook, it's quite uncomfortable but once I get used to it, I feel I can type pretty fast and it feels good. It feels firmer than the old Macbook Pro because the latter feels a little bit shaky. It also feels more clicky than the later Macbook Pro with the butterfly keyboard. It seems to me they have received too much criticism on the butterfly keyboard so they were trying to make it less edgy, but that made it lost the characteristics as well, thus they withdraw butterfly keyboard eventually.
I have a later 2017 revision of that one, never really had an issue with CPU speed. Mine has RAM maxed to 16Gb though, perhaps that helps. It's a great machine: a real computer but with iPad pro dimensions.
I’ve been force-feeding myself the new iPad Pro with magic keyboard as my primary laptop for the past few months (why? So I can experience what kids are largely experiencing these days, and empathize). It’s definitely a “real computer”, just optimized in a different way than I’m used to. Doesn’t feel like a budget computer either, it’s incredibly powerful for something that uses less than 18 watts and has no fan. IPadOS has some rough edges but they’ve been getting quickly smoothed out.
I am so tempted to go buy an iPad Pro, demoting my Mac to a development-only machine.
Everything on iPadOS just seems more refined, more fluid and more fun than on MacOS. Everything from 120 Hz display, to instant waking from sleep, to battery life that is actually consistent. The overall user experience just seems lightyears ahead of the Mac, assuming your workflows are compatible with the software limitations.
If you have the cash, I'd suggest you do it. I bought one kinda on a whim and I don't regret it at all. It's pretty much replaced my ThinkPad.
iPadOS is indeed more refined, but not all of it - there's a fair number of very specific things that are a total PITA on the iPad but a breeze on my desktop Mac. That makes doing serious work on the iPad a little challenging, though it's still possible, but for most serious work I still use the desktop. But for almost anything else, I prefer the iPad's mobility and UX. It's the best drawing tablet, ebook reader, web browsing and netflix machine I've ever had, all in one.
Well I very much need Emacs and Unix-like environment for work, so iPad doesn't quite cut it. That said I've got a 11" Pro: mostly as a portable second display via Sidecar for MB12 but also some pen-based apps like Sketchr3d. It's nice and if you have a workflow that suits it, no doubt it's usable.
Pretty sad to see people touting this as a workaround solution.
It's still a workaround - possibly the most basic one for any kind of thin client there is.
I want a consistent IDE as well and right now, you can't run vscode properly on an iPad.
I'm still hopeful that future apple silicon macs will be able to do local development with more grunt than current macs. I guess we'll see.
And yes, for doing development on the iPad basically everything is a workaround, but that doesn’t automatically make it worthless. Neither does the fact that it’s basic. I don’t get your criticism.
Then, contrary to what you said previously, VS Code never was an IDE in the first place because it's an Electron app, it's built on web tech.
That also means there's literally zero difference running VS Code in the browser vs. the electron app save for the browser toolbar (which Safari hides if you add a bookmark to the homescreen, which also nets you an app icon. At that point this "workaround" gives you exactly the same experience as a native app. Not sure what issues you're still seeing there.)
I'm talking about local vs remote development. Can you even spin up a webserver on an ipad to run codeserver? Or does it rely on an external webserver to run and build your application.
If you know what a thin client is, then you're effectively describing that for an iPad. Anything is a thin client - even your phone.
> Except you've made it a DIY thing and claiming that it's a the solution for doing development on an iPad which is clearly false.
Why not? You're basically claiming that solely because it's remote it's completely unfit for development purposes. That doesn't really make sense to me. Especially with VS Code being an Electron app the browser version is equivalent to the desktop app.
Just to be clear, I totally concede that there are certain tasks where you do run into limitations, e.g. handling files is rather a PITA, but other tasks like plain coding are perfectly fine. And if you can save the former type of work for your PC then an iPad plus code-server is actually not going to cause you any trouble with workarounds.
It's no question that a "real" Unix system is more powerful, but a VPS has been surprisingly usable to me. Many commandline tasks are more enjoyable on the iPad than on my desktop. The rest, I just fall back to my desktop. Try it - you might be surprised how powerful it is.
Thanks for the tip, I might try it at some point, would need the keyboard folio first tho.
Am no stranger to bizarre setups. Have used remote shell on Palm PDA with foldout keyboard over IRDA via cellphone GSM modem; now this was cumbersome setup. Had Agenda VR3 Linux PDA and coded on it. It's really comfy with mb12 now tho and I like network independence.
I code on the planes all the time, somehow it's really easy to get in the flow. So I like how this setup works on the foldout tray and without network to count on. Doing tons of field work too. In late January had to code for 6 hours with my ass on a tunnel tarmac north of Trondheim. Though of course most of the time I work within network range.
The "best" CPU that comes in that lineup is the Intel Core i7-7Y75.
I have a GPD P2 Max[0] which also has 16GiB of ram and a Intel Core m3-8100Y...
Not to brag but my CPU does seem to bench higher[1][2], and for me it can be painfully slow at times.. Though perhaps the OS is doing me no favours (Sway+Arch/Chromium)
I think the 12" 2017 model with the i5 was the best one. The i7 got a little hot, and the m3 was pretty slow. The i5 (I'm still using it today and it works great) doesn't suffer from heat issues nearly as bad as the i7.
I've used some fanless Ideapad before this with Core M as well, let's just say there is no comparison. With that one a tiling WM was very much a necessity.
My office PC is a very generously specced desktop, but for user interaction tasks like coding, browsing etc there is no appreciable difference with MB12.
Lightroom or Ableton are almost impossible to run on a CORE-M. It's painful specially after a 10/15 minute editing session when the fans kick in and not only you have to deal with a noisy laptop but also your CPU gets underclocked and switching between your full screen Lightroom or Ableton back to Chrome sometimes takes more than 30 seconds.
WoW and LoL are very lightweight compared to pro image or sound editing software, specially because they are doing a lot of the heavy stuff in your GPU.
Even the Mac Pro is also kinda bad with that software to be honest, specially if you spend more than half an hour using it, because of the thermal issues.
You can both be right. Machine defects, or just aging, can cause the battery to expand and internals to coat with dust - causing thermal throtting, excessive fan usage, and significantly worst performance, after even just a year or so.
I loved my macbook (failed to survive a rainstorm, alas) and wrote a ton of code on that supposedly non-pro machine while traveling all over the world. I hope it does reappear as an apple silicon machine.
However I suspect that if they can they’ll start with a “pro” machine that beats Intel specs as their first out of the gate, to demonstrate that it’s not a compromise option.
I primary drive the latest version and its my favorite mac to date (and I have the pro + imac + ipads + iphones). I have found that if you have a little bit of patience for loading, everything works just fine and the form factor beats everything for real work on the go.
If they are really creating an ARM macbook, this will be a great product and this chassis is definitely the right one to start with.
Are their hubs yet that can turn one USB C port into several? Or do they still only turn one USB C port into several USB A ports?
A couple years ago what I read was that the hold up was that this required more complicated chipsets that would not be available for a few months and would be expensive. More recently, I've read that this won't happen until USB4.
It's a strange thing, you can get these super complicated docking stations with all sorts of different ports, but can't get a 4-port hub that's only usb-c connectors.
Oh wow, thanks for that link, I have never come across that!
Also, when I google with your phrase, there are no hits like that on the first page. I wonder if google is customizing my searches away from what I want...
This is the only way you can end up with >1 USB-C port, afaik. It's not currently possible to split USB-C like USB-A, so the only way you can get a second USB-C port is if you have a Mac and use a Thunderbolt dock.
I just wanted to point out, Butterfly Keyboard on MacBook wasn't much of a criticism at all. It was trade off that is possibly worth it in the name of the thinnest Notebook.
Butterfly Keyboard get most of its criticism when it moved to MacBook Pro, Because now you are putting up with a keyboard that ~50% of the people find it to have worse typing experience at the expense of a possible ( or not as we have seen other vendor capable of doing without it ) 1mm decrease in thickness.
Personally I still want the old 1.5mm Scissor Keyboard.
This is the laptop I have been using for 5 years now. As a web developer it is amazing that this 5year old mini laptop can drive a 4K screen through usb-c but driving too many stuff at once does slow it down a lot.
Thinking about switching to the new iMac right now.
Agreed, and I want to add one prediction (which is maybe just a hope):
It will have a SIM card slot, and get at least 12 hours of battery life while using LTE.
This would be a truly compelling product, filling a niche Apple has tried to inhabit a couple of times, with the distinct possibility of getting it right this time.
With tethering, I'm not sure I want a SIM card in my laptop! If nothing else, AT&T will charge me extra for that (I'm already paying extra per month for my Apple Watch to have LTE connectivity).
Whilst I don't take my phone running because I can use my Watch for music and can make calls on it while out, I don't think I'd ever be somewhere with my laptop and no phone.
The problem with that is that MacOS has no concept of “low data mode”. If it has a connection, apps are going to use it. You can deny apps from being able to use data over cellular on iOS. Also, well behaved apps will usually give you an option to either not use data or in the case of streaming apps, use less data.
It is also true of tethering, which is quite popular.
Now, I can tether my phone to my laptop. Indeed I did so fairly often, before global house arrest.
But this is true of my iPad as well, and I opted for the cellular model instead. I'm glad I did, it's a better experience, hands down, especially when I'm traveling and want to conserve my phone's charge rather than burn it at maximum.
But if you felt differently, Apple sells a WiFi only iPad, you could simply not pay the extra for the cellular model when checking out. This would almost certainly be true for this imaginary Macbook as well.
I wouldn't buy it at all, I'm a professional developer with mild presbyopia, and purchased the standard-fancy model of the 16". But if I were an incoming freshman again? Bet I'd be pleading with my parents to get the cellular model.
Unlike a touchscreen, an LTE modem doesn't demand any changes to a desktop operating system to provide a good user experience. Again, tethering. Cell bandwidth gets cheaper every year.
The Mac mini is a vital part of the lineup, but it is so much of a utility computer. That's why they utilized it for the Developer Transition Kit. It's hard to market it since it's nearly invisible on a desk and there's no Apple monitor that is reasonable to pair with it. For 'Apple Silicon' for xmas, one would assume several notebooks and maybe something like an iMac with a built-in display.
They are fanless and have a 5W thermal envelope, which fits in with the current A12X too.
The major criticisms of the design at the time was: Butterfly keyboard, the Single USB-C port and the speed of the device (Intel CORE-M is truly, truly painful). But for a $600-$700 machine with an ARM CPU? that's insanely competitive, and is in-line with the "basic" macbook branding.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacBook_(2015%E2%80%932019)