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Portables (Apple) Apple

Apple Discontinues 12-inch MacBook (theverge.com) 144

Posted by msmash from the End-of-road dept.
Apple has stopped selling the 12-inch MacBook just four years after introducing the laptop as the slimmest in its lineup. From a report: The previous generation MacBook Air -- the one without a Retina display -- is no longer available in Apple Stores either. The 12-inch MacBook hadn't been updated in two years, but it still filled a spot that stood out from other models: it was thinner and lighter, though that also came with being less powerful. At $1,299, its price put it directly up against the entry-level MacBook Pro, which outperformed it, with only a small gain in weight and size.
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Apple Discontinues 12-inch MacBook More

Apple Discontinues 12-inch MacBook

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  • Newsworthy (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * on Tuesday July 09, 2019 @09:56AM (#58895734) Homepage Journal

    I look forward to stories about models Dell has recently discontinued as well. Maybe even Lenovo.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jellomizer ( 103300 )

      Apple Success and its Problems is due to it having very few models to pick from. Dell and Lenovo have Professional Models, Gamer Models, Home Models, Budget systems, and sub classes within that.
      Apple has Mac Pro, iMac, iMac Pro, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro and a Mac Mini

      Now this has helped Apple by allowing them to be rather standardized on what they sell, and not spending money making hundreds of different models, And also customers will normally up buy a system to meed their needs. if a Mac Mini doesn't have

      • And also customers will normally up buy a system to meed their needs

        Wise customers would instead chose another computer maker which has a model which better suits the needs.
        There is a reason why nobody buys all-in-one, non-Apple PC. This form factor is only good for a very small niche. In the Apple world, however, it's the cheapest desktop when the mini is not enough.

        • Wise customers would instead chose another computer maker which has a model which better suits the needs.

          You seem to think macOS is the same as Windows or Linux.

          It's not.

          • MacOS hasn't been used for for nearly 17 years. I has been replaced with OS X

            That said, OS X Updates haven't been that spectacular, as Apple is putting most of their OS developers behind iOS vs OS X.

            Now Linux and Windows lately have been rather lackluster too. But with Linux it is Free and you mostly can put it on whatever hardware, and Windows still has a good chunk of the Commercial Apps and Drivers supported. Also Linux and Windows has modernized as well. So unlike the mid 2000's Where OS X was the mod

            • Re:Newsworthy (Score:5, Insightful)

              by Known Nutter ( 988758 ) on Tuesday July 09, 2019 @11:53AM (#58896228)

              MacOS hasn't been used for for nearly 17 years. I has been replaced with OS X

              Before you go all-in with the stupid pedantic fuckery, fact check your shit.

              The Mac's operating system has been named macOS since macOS 10.12 Sierra, released in 2016.

              Get your shit together.

            • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

              by Junta ( 36770 )

              Apple changed the name back to macOS:
              https://fortune.com/2016/06/13... [fortune.com]

            • People can and do refer to OSX as MacOS. Regardless of being built on a completely different codebase from OS9/8 or System 7 and earlier (which are as different from OS9 as OS9 is from OSX) they are still all under the MacOS family. I know Apple employees and the really die hard Apple fans love to be as anal about it as Porsche fans are with their cars. But you can get over it. People will continue to call it MacOS and also pronounce OSX as an acronym instead of a roman numeral. You know what they mean, don

            • Comment removed based on user account deletion

            • MacOS hasn't been used for for nearly 17 years. I has been replaced with OS X
              That is why he wrote macOS. Note the spelling. OS X is no longer in production, it got renamed to macOS two years ago.

          • Sure, so the good way to put it is that Apple customers are stuck with buying a more expensive computer than what they need, to run their favorite OS.
            There is nothing positive about it for the consumers. For Apple and its shareholders, I agree it's always a good thing when you can gouge of your die-hard user base as much as possible.

            • Re:Newsworthy (Score:5, Interesting)

              by cayenne8 ( 626475 ) on Tuesday July 09, 2019 @12:37PM (#58896416) Homepage Journal

              Sure, so the good way to put it is that Apple customers are stuck with buying a more expensive computer than what they need, to run their favorite OS.

              There is nothing positive about it for the consumers. For Apple and its shareholders, I agree it's always a good thing when you can gouge of your die-hard user base as much as possible.

              Well, you can look at it a different way....there are many companies that are "premium" brands....take a Porsche for example. It is one car company amongst many out there. Many cars sell for MUCH less than the cheapest Porsche, but no one bitches and moans that Porsche is gouging their customers or making them buy a more expensive car than they want.

              This happens with many products, and some companies find that they wish to only garner customers that can afford a more premium brand, and if you do this, you have to be willing to accept that some people simpler are NOT your customer, but there are many that are.

              You as a customer have to figure what is worth what to you and purchase accordingly.

              I mean, I don't see any Porsche equivalents to the Yugo models out there...some companies simply don't offer or work with entry level products, but it doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of other companies that DO offer entry level or commodity level versions of those same product categories.

              • Porsche customers get a Porsche for the luxury and the "social status" that goes with it.

                Nobody is "up buying" to get a porsche. Many people buy Apple products for the luxury and the social status also. But some others don't care about that and only like OS X. They are "up buying", paying more than what they need, just to get OS X.

                • Porsche customers get a Porsche for the luxury and the "social status" that goes with it.

                  I've owned a Porsche, and a few other fun sports cars, and I never bought them with anything in my mind that someone else would have thoughts pro/con about my car....

                  I like performance vehicles, and I got a good deal on one. It was a 1986 911 Turbo....it had actually been raced before I got it and likely as not did not have a street legal set up. It was cool looking, but those cars are far from "luxury"....

                  While I

                  • I don't know if you live in Germany or some other places where having a fast car has some benefits, but here I risk too much by driving over 120 km/h so even the slowest cars on the market are more than fast enough.

                    Anyways it doesn't matter whether you buy your car because it looks cool to you or your friends. You didn't get these sport cars because it was rationally the best/most reliable/cheapest car that suits your needs. You got those because of what I consider irrational (the cool factor, the look, etc

            • There is nothing positive about it for the consumers.
              Stupids comment on /. ever.

        • Wise customers would instead chose another computer maker which has a model which better suits the needs.
          Well, if you still not get it, I throw it at you again: other computer makes usually have no models that suits the needs of one who wants or needs to run macOS/OS X ... wow, that was so easy again.

          • Which is why most people don't buy macs. They make very poor choices when your OS of choice is Windows/Linux/BSD/whatever. Or when you can build a hackintosh.

    • But no one would click on a story about Dell and they probably go through models at a much higher rate and they've got something like a dozen different product lines, whereas Apple had 3 and they should have axed this thing a lot sooner since it has no real reason to exist when they're still selling the MacBook Air.

    • I look forward to stories about models Dell has recently discontinued as well. Maybe even Lenovo.

      You do realise that most of the clicks these Apple stories get are guys like you coming here to spew your venom? Unfortunately nowhere near enough people harbour enough pathological hate for Dell or Lenovo to generate the kind of click rate that wold make your wish a reality.

      • Nerds are indifferent to Dell, whereas we despise the 'culture' that Apple espouses.

        Apple truly is the Bose of computing. They make a Buick class product in a Chevy market, yet try to pretend it is Mercedes.

      • Thug Apple makes itself easy to hate. Hate hate hate. Hate you too, Apple buttboy.

    • How many companies sell computers with OS X? How many run Windows? You have to take an aggregate of all announcements of model discontinuation from all the other companies and compare it to the number of Apple ones to get a comparison that is worth looking at, and yes, I have seen plenty of "Non-Apple company $COMPANY discontinues line $LINE" stories on Slashdot over the years, as have you.
    • The news here is "Idiots will still pay over $1000 for a laptop". With Dell it's more like "people still buy laptops".

  • Is Apple finally waking up? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DontBeAMoran ( 4843879 ) on Tuesday July 09, 2019 @10:04AM (#58895764)

    A good, powerful Mac mini with RAM slots, a real-world selection of ports, good CPU choices and even a faster ethernet option:
    Check.

    A new Mac Pro that actually makes sense for real Pros and a matching production-grade display:
    Check.

    Finally dropping the "nobody asked for it, still prone to failure after three revisions, its lack of key travel makes it like we're typing on a desk" Butterfly keyboard:
    Check.

    Dropping the MacBook, a laptop that never made sense whatsoever in terms of power, weight and price:
    Check.

    Somebody did something at Apple in the last few years that really shook things up.

    Was it really "Jony" Ive who nearly destroyed the company with his obsession with thinness? After all, we recently read that he wasn't really the main guy in charge of those project in the last few years...

    • A new Mac Pro that actually makes sense for real Pros

      Where is that?

      • Didn't you see Apple's keynote? It's not available yet, but even LTT are really impressed by the design and specifications.

    • Re:Is Apple finally waking up? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ilsaloving ( 1534307 ) on Tuesday July 09, 2019 @10:49AM (#58895964)

      I'm not holding my breath. Apple's fucked up too much and for too long.

      Until they go back to the late 2000s where you could upgrade the ram and storage yourself, and they don't force you to use a dongle to connect literally anything, I'm treating any gains towards consumer-friendliness as an accident or maybe the results of a weekend of heavy drinking.

      Also, what's this about them dropping that idiotic keyboard? This is the first I've heard of it.

      I've personally written off Apple entirely. Even if Apple does recover something resembling good sense, I'm still going to be leary of buying from them again because I don't feel like getting screwed over a second time.

      • I have not "written them off".
        But they have nothing hardware wise that I want at the moment. Perhaps a iPad Pro that also suits me as a second monitor to my laptop ... but that would be it. (And before idiots give stupid comments: I use it at an iPad, but _also_ as second screen for my laptop).
        However the high end iPads are simply to expensive and have no glossy screens, which is the most annoying thing on a tablet or laptop.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by starless ( 60879 )

      Dropping the MacBook, a laptop that never made sense whatsoever in terms of power, weight and price:

      Your needs are not necessarily the same as everyone else's.

      For me it's an excellent machine, as I travel a lot internationally, which makes its weight and size very suited, while
      still being powerful enough for what I need it for - which is primarily presentation of powerpoint/keynote slides,
      videos, as well as the usual email/web access etc.

      But I would have preferred it to have one additional USB-C port though.

      • I'm sure it is. One question I'd ask, though, is whether the things you've mentioned makes any difference compared to, say, the 13" MacBook Air?

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by starless ( 60879 )

          I used to have a MacBook Air 11", and I found the Macbook's lower weight than even that very nice.
          For me, the 13" Air is relatively bulky (harder to cram into spaces on planes, trains and automobiles) and heavier, and
          I don't need additional compute power. (I have a 12 core linux machine for my serious processing needs).

          Before I got it, I was concerned about the single port on the Macbook, but in practice that hasn't been a real issue.

          • I think I replied to a comment below.

            But have you considered an iPad Pro? You say you don't need much for computing power. You need to be able to show Keynote slides and handle email/web access.

            Granted, dragging around a separate bluetooth keyboard might be more nuisance than it's worth. But I'm not sure I see anything you're doing that couldn't be done on the iPad.

    • I really liked that little MacBook; it was so light and tiny I it felt like I wasn't carrying anything. Used it in clamshell mode on my desk and when traveling all over the world. And wrote probably 100K lines of C++ on it. Got a 15" MBP from work, didn't like it, and went back to small.

    • A lot of the tech podcasts I keep up with have spent the last week splitting their time between ryzen and apple. It seems the consensus is that the new "pro" division is likely responsible for the changes. Ive may have been the progenitor of the butterfly kb and one port wonder but he hasn't had a direct hand in them for some time. Word is he has been transitioning out for months now as well. Big product changes aren't done overnight, the decision to drop butterfly and the macbook were likely made awhile ag

    • Somebody did something at Apple in the last few years that really shook things up.

      All I know is that I want to find the fucker that moved the Network Utility from the Utility folder to some godless, unfindable Library folder in a dark ally so I can give them my opinion on the subject. That single action has cost me more time and frustration than anything of the other changes both at home and work.

  • One-port wonder (Score:5, Informative)

    by b0s0z0ku ( 752509 ) on Tuesday July 09, 2019 @10:16AM (#58895814)
    One USB-C port for both charging and data. Good riddance to the one-port wonder...
  • A good year ago I treated my Godchild niece on a Mac laptop to support her university studies. In essence I gave her the choice between the entry Macbook pro and the Macbook since they were approx the same cost. This was before the Macbook air refresh. I found the extra power of the pro worth the heavier yet still very doable weight. Now, she preferred the Macbook, mainly because... she preferred its colour options.
    Anyway she is still happy with it, using mainly word and simple spreadsheets with it for stu
  • and the old 11" Macbook Air at 2.38 pounds (11.8" x 7.56") was ideal for that. You could easily pack it with you for long-distance, long-term travel, and easily use it in an airline seat.
    And it had a proper keyboard!!! Imagine!
    A processor and screen and battery upgrade to that one would be truly awesome.

    The newer 13" Macbook "Air" is 2.75 pounds, which, relatively speaking, sucks for long-term travel portability.

    Ideal realistic travel laptop specs today:
    Under 2 pounds. Same size as old 11" Macbook Air but with smaller bezel screen so 13" retina screen. 15 hour (for real) battery. Decent current mobile processor.

    • I had one of the old 13" MacBook Air - the second gen of the original somewhat curvy style. It weighed just a tad under 3 pounds. I realize it varies from person to person, but for me - 3 pounds was light enough that my bag didn't feel noticeably heavier with that laptop inside.

      I really loved that laptop.

    • Consider the iPad Pro [apple.com]?

      Under 2 pounds

      1.39 pounds.

      Same size as old 11" Macbook Air but with smaller bezel screen so 13" retina screen.

      iPad Pro is 11 x 8.5 x 0.23 compared to 11" MacBook Air's 12 x 7.5 x 0.5. Similar.

      15 hour (for real) battery.

      Mmm...about 5 hours short on the iPad Pro.

      Decent current mobile processor.

      A12X.

      You'd have find a decent bluetooth keyboard to go with it.

    • Wait - a 6 OUNCE increase in weight (that's 168 grams for folks hindered with metric-only mindsets) makes a product go from great to sucks? You must shudder when people like me carry a 8 pound Lenovo P71 workstation-class laptop.

      Seriously, if 6 OUNCES is the difference between great and sucks, you need to question if packing an extra pair of socks is worth it, if carrying a small bottle of water is worth it, or if you're seriously WAY under-doing any exercise at all...

      For me, unless it has a quad core proc

  • Making Way for Mac on ARM (Score:4, Interesting)

    by 0101000001001010 ( 466440 ) on Tuesday July 09, 2019 @01:41PM (#58896992)

    I don't interpret this discontinuation as Apple leaving the small clamshell market. Look at the iPad Pros. Same weights (with keyboards), same screen sizes (going by averages and sq in to correct for 16:10 vs 4:3), same ports (1 USB-C lol). But the A12X is a way more powerful processor than Intel's Y-series.

    This might be Apple trying custom processors at the low end.

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