Apple Stops Selling 12-Inch MacBook Laptops
by Anton Shilov on July 10, 2019 11:00 AM EST
Apple has stopped to list its thin-and-light 12-inch MacBook notebook on its website. Since the company has not updated its most compact laptop for two years, the removal of the product from the website may indicate that the MacBook is gone for good, or Apple is prepping a new generation of the machine that will be released at a later date.
Apple introduced MacBook in its current ultra-thin form-factor in 2015 and eventually replaced its 11-inch MacBook Air with the new ultra-portable laptop that offered a better display, thinner design, and lower weight, albeit at a higher price. To make this level of portability possible, all three generations of Apple’s MacBook relied on Intel’s Core Y-series processors with a very low TDP yet moderate levels of performance. One could say that Apple’s MacBook bridged the gap between 10-inch tablets and 13-inch laptops, yet its adoption by end users has never been high mostly because 12-inch mobile PCs target a very niche market.
Apple introduced its new breed of 13-inch MacBook Air notebooks in October 2018. These laptops employ Intel’s codenamed Amber Lake Y processor, feature a decent display, and a very long battery life. While these machines are bulkier and heavier when compared to MacBooks, they have a number of advantages and are cheaper.
Now that Apple has its new MacBook Air along with high-performance iPad Pro tablets, its MacBook may no longer serve its purpose in its current form, which is why Apple has removed it from its website. The laptop will still be available from resellers for a while, but it is evident that Apple believes that demand for this product will shift to other computers it offers.
It remains to be seen whether Apple decides to address the market segment that its MacBook used to serve with a new product any time soon, but for now MacBook is gone.
Related Reading:
- Apple Announces 2018 MacBook Air: Entry-Level Laptop Gets Essential Refresh
- Apple Refreshes Mac Laptops: Pro, Vanilla, & Air All Get New CPUs
- Apple Refreshes MacBook with Skylake-based Core M and New Rose Gold Color
Source: Apple (via MacRumours)
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Destoya - Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - link
My main laptop is a 2013 Sony Vaio Pro 13 and it's held up relatively well in no small part because of its NVME drive and 8GB of RAM. The integrated gpu can't keep up with a lot of modern content (1080p60 youtube for example) and the battery life isn't what it once was, but for general usage it's still very usable.RedGreenBlue - Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - link
I believe it. I actually had a tri-core Phenom II HP Envy from 2010 up until a few years ago. If the body had held up ( plastic frame stripped screws and broke apart by the screen hinge) it could have held on until 2017 with an ssd upgrade. We’re in a new era of CPU advancement now. I expect a lot of chips will be outdated soon as software takes advantage of more core.RedGreenBlue - Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - link
That Phenom II was in a socket s1G or something like that. Could have upgraded to a quad core black edition and overclocked it. 35 watt TDP heatsinks though..KateH - Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - link
with the Macbook Air finally getting a refresh last autumn and the iPad Pro being a thing, this machine doesn't seem to fill a unique niche anymore. honestly i don't understand why this existed at all instead of them just updating the Air sooner...johncuyle - Thursday, July 11, 2019 - link
First sentence is really hard to parse. "Apple has stopped to list its thin-and-light 12-inch MacBook notebook on its website." This construction is similar to, "Bob stopped to smell the flowers in his yard." The meaning is that Bob stopped (performing an unspecified activity) and, instead, smelled the flowers in his yard. It appears that Apple has stopped listing the MacBook on its website, which is the opposite of the meaning of the sentence you actually wrote. I'm not usually bothered by grammar errors and frequently err myself, but one that's big enough that your intended meaning is opposite of the meaning of what you wrote is significant enough to warrant comment.Lau_Tech - Thursday, July 11, 2019 - link
Always thought it was a dumb idea to begin with. Has Apples laptop division done anything right the last four years?