<story><title>Apple Updates Air, Pro Laptops, Kills Off the MacBook</title><url>https://tidbits.com/2019/07/09/apple-updates-air-pro-laptops-kills-off-the-macbook/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>wwweston</author><text>Macbook Pro &amp;quot;improvements&amp;quot; over the last 3-7 years:&lt;p&gt;* No more matte display&lt;p&gt;* RAM soldered to the board&lt;p&gt;* SSD soldered in&lt;p&gt;* remove all ports except USB-C&lt;p&gt;* make keyboard worse&lt;p&gt;* remove function keys, replace with touch surface that&amp;#x27;s redundant at best&lt;p&gt;But it&amp;#x27;s very thin!&lt;p&gt;And even thinner was the recent Macbook, and if the law of &amp;quot;diminishing returns&amp;quot; matters as little as the usual defenses of all the above tradeoffs in pursuit of light&amp;#x2F;thin imply, you&amp;#x27;d think that that&amp;#x27;d be worth keeping.&lt;p&gt;Maybe there &lt;i&gt;is&lt;/i&gt; a limit, and Apple&amp;#x27;s actually reflected on that?&lt;p&gt;Or... maybe it&amp;#x27;s just a recognition that the Air and Macbook had come to a place where there was little distinguishing them. And that really, the MBP is less and less designed&amp;#x2F;deployed with actual professionals in mind and more and more meant for a prosumer subsegment. In which case reducing focus to two models (general purpose consumer laptop, light netbook) makes sense.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Eiriksmal</author><text>&amp;gt;So what are we to make of the four-year-old MacBook’s demise? ... The laptop got mixed reactions from the get-go. Its high portability and lovely Retina screen were welcomed compared to the bulky, non-Retina MacBook Air of the time.&lt;p&gt;Pure insanity. We&amp;#x27;re now referring to the original MacBook Air as &lt;i&gt;bulky&lt;/i&gt;!?</text></comment>
<story><title>Apple Updates Air, Pro Laptops, Kills Off the MacBook</title><url>https://tidbits.com/2019/07/09/apple-updates-air-pro-laptops-kills-off-the-macbook/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>wwweston</author><text>Macbook Pro &amp;quot;improvements&amp;quot; over the last 3-7 years:&lt;p&gt;* No more matte display&lt;p&gt;* RAM soldered to the board&lt;p&gt;* SSD soldered in&lt;p&gt;* remove all ports except USB-C&lt;p&gt;* make keyboard worse&lt;p&gt;* remove function keys, replace with touch surface that&amp;#x27;s redundant at best&lt;p&gt;But it&amp;#x27;s very thin!&lt;p&gt;And even thinner was the recent Macbook, and if the law of &amp;quot;diminishing returns&amp;quot; matters as little as the usual defenses of all the above tradeoffs in pursuit of light&amp;#x2F;thin imply, you&amp;#x27;d think that that&amp;#x27;d be worth keeping.&lt;p&gt;Maybe there &lt;i&gt;is&lt;/i&gt; a limit, and Apple&amp;#x27;s actually reflected on that?&lt;p&gt;Or... maybe it&amp;#x27;s just a recognition that the Air and Macbook had come to a place where there was little distinguishing them. And that really, the MBP is less and less designed&amp;#x2F;deployed with actual professionals in mind and more and more meant for a prosumer subsegment. In which case reducing focus to two models (general purpose consumer laptop, light netbook) makes sense.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ppeetteerr</author><text>I really (really!) appreciate how thin they are. The new 15in is as heavy as the old 13in. Really nice when you have to carry it around all the time. The biggest pain point is the lack of ports (4 ports including power) is not enough. The older models had around 5+ ports and still required dongles. Everything else aside from the keyboard is a minor issue (e.g. getting more ram today versus in the future is just a question of deferring costs).</text></comment>