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Comment by CoolGuySteve | Hacker News Reader

Back when I worked at Apple the dirty secret was that the cheapest models, despite all the marketing of the MacBook Pro, made up the majority of sales.

Back then it was the white plastic MacBook but now it's the 11" MacBook Air that occupies that slot.

That model and its crappy TN screen is vastly inferior and more expensive than similarly-sized ultrabooks. The only redeeming feature it has is MacOS.

Instead of replacing the Air, Apple introduced the MacBook at a premium price point. It seems like a marketing failure to me that a lower spec MacBook (1080p, slower SSD) wasn't released and the Air discontinued.

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Quite a few years ago I saw someone at college using a white plastic laptop and man I thought that looked sharp. I glanced at the top of it and saw it was a Mac. At the time I didn't own a Mac and I didn't follow their product lines, but that was a hell of a good looking laptop, I thought. That was actually the first time I'd ever seen a Macbook, I don't come from a very well-off or tech-forward area. Everyone at the time owned a Dell Inspiron 150x. When I looked it up I was really disappointed to see that it had been discontinued.

I have an aluminum Macbook and sure it's nice... but when I think about Macbooks, I think about that white plastic machine. Shiny, almost see-through. It really stood out to me in a world of dull metal and chunky black plastic and laser-etched designs on laptops. My 2015 looks nice, I guess, but in my mind it doesn't look nearly as nice as that shiny, translucent white Macbook I saw years ago.

Now, I never used one and I'm sure a lot of people here have, and I'm sure there are a lot of negative stories about them cracking or discoloring or being squeaky or something. But I still remember the first time I saw one, and it stuck with me. That was the same when I saw an aluminum Macbook, it was nice. They don't look all that special these days, the design is getting stale. Everyone has a Macbook-looking laptop, from a distance I can't tell the difference between a Samsung Chromebook and an 11" Macbook Air.

I hope they can wow us with a new design again in the future.

The latest chassis with touch pad is their latest iteration and will be used for at least couple of future models. They are quite locked to the existing look currently.

I still have my old white Macbook. It has never discolored for me and it's still running pretty fast.

I donated white 2007 to the local Lego robotics team and it's still winning.

That case (basically the same as the iBook G4) was a beast. In the pre-Magsafe days, I had an iBook G4 survive three surprise drops to a hardwood floor without so much as a ding on the case.

I miss that in the new Macs -- my 2013 MBP has picked up a couple of battle scars. But incidentally, I just bought a ThinkPad, and it took a bit of a tumble the other day, and there is zero evidence of this on the case. Once I get past the couple of interface and power-management deficiencies, I could get used to this.

Yeah, discontinuing the Air is crazy. The "entry level" laptop from Apple now (excluding their late-year models they kept around) is now $1299 and features a Core M3 processor. For people with a 2014+ Air that is a downgrade in performance for more money than they paid initially.

The MacBook Air (Early 2015) isn't discontinued. They're still being manufactured and it's still a marquee item with its own header on Apple's website.

The date nomenclature of Apple's products is the product release date and not its manufacturing date.

Huh? No, Apple's entry-level laptop is the $999 MacBook Air 13″, which has an i5.

The 11″ MacBook Air was discontinued, but the 13″ is still around.

It is, but should we really count a laptop with a horrible looking TN panel, 1440x900 resolution, and a processor two generations behind that costs $1k to be a viable option for people? That laptop should cost $700 max in 2017.

The only reason they have it is likely for education sales, since they have no other reasonable laptop right now.

Anecdote: Most of my non-technical friends are happy to use iPhones and purchase Macs that they can afford (the lowest price point, as bad as the specs are) because to them it's all the same. "It's an iPhone. / It's a Mac."

They don't care what the exact specs are as long as they can use their browser, word processing, watch netflix, and do minor photo editing. They don't know what IPS or TN are, and don't seem to care.

Hell I have a 15" mbp all spec'ed out and most of what I do is browser, terminal, netflix.

Yes, why wouldn't we count it? It's an entry level laptop for a reason; it's going to have entry-level specs.

I guess what I'm really asking (given the original subject of the post being declining Mac sales) is who is going to buy it? You can buy a Chromebook with a 13" IPS touchscreen that looks better than the Air for $250. The air is a decent machine for doing dev work, but compared to what its competitors it is a complete rip-off. Its only selling point is running OS X.

> Its only selling point is running OS X.

I mean, that's the strongest decision when evaluating a new machine for me. If someone wants to replace my machine, they also need to replace the software on the machine, and I don't think the Chromebook is even aimed in the same direction as Mac OS X. It doesn't have the breadth of software, hardware, or even file interaction necessary to get through the classes I took in college, let alone my self education.

If you know exactly what you need from your machine, the chromebook may very well be sufficient. I don't think you can depend on it as a general purpose computer quite yet.

Well what do most people (not just devs) like about macbooks? I would say build quality, "it just works" (macOS), and status as an apple product. The entry level macbook air still has those things. As for the chromebook comparison, macbooks have always been more expensive than its competitors at the same spec level, so this is nothing new.

I feel like saying it isn't a viable machine because of old specs isn't necessarily true since people will still buy it.

Yes we should because it is most likely the best selling Apple laptop at this time based on my experience at the company. That's what I'm trying to tell you.

You're correct, I didn't notice that the 11" was discontinued.

They've effectively raised the price of their entry-level computer by $200 which would explain a slowdown in sales.

I guess we saw with the different Apple Watch versions, Apple is exploring just how much utility they can capture as margin.

> Back when I worked at Apple the dirty secret was that the cheapest models, despite all the marketing of the MacBook Pro, made up the majority of sales.

Isn't that normal for almost every product though? You advertise the top of the line knowing that most will come in and look for something similar that fits their budget.

"That model and its crappy TN screen is vastly inferior and more expensive than similarly-sized ultrabooks. The only redeeming feature it has is MacOS."

Except it's made from a block of aluminum, has excellent build quality and will easily last 5+ years of day-in-day-out use.

All I wanted was an 11" MBA with a higher res screen.

They could have reused the exact same form factor and dies and tooling, etc. I would have happily upgraded to that.

Just a reminder: the original Macbook Air was introduced 9 years ago for US$1799, a very premium price point for a, at the time, really weak machine. Give it time!

Yes, and they had a strong lineup of other models to choose from back then.

I don't think the 11 has ever sold in great quantities. I had one for years (recently replaced with the new 15 pro) and I rarely ever saw another 11 in the wild. If I did it was usually at WWDC.

The 13 air however would easily be their most popular laptop. Those things are literally everywhere.

> now it's the 11" MacBook Air that occupies that slot.

They don't sell that model any more. 13" is the only MBA now.

http://www.apple.com/us/shop/buy-mac/macbook-air

What Ultrabooks do you think are better bang for the buck?

My Asus UX305 has a very similar design to the 13" Air but a Core M CPU, no fans, and a great 1080p matte IPS display. The track pad is excellent as well.

It cost me $600.

That all being said, I switched from MacOS to Ubuntu a couple years ago because I was finding the increasingly frequent notifications and general ugliness/usability of newer MacOS versions were becoming very Windows XP-esque.

I might very well be the only person who prefers Unity to MacOS.

Linux runs on UX305 very well. Tried Fedora/Gnome and have been running Slackware/KDE for a while now with no issues with either.

I like the Dell XPS 13 quite a bit.

Earlier in my life, I always ended up buying Dells, mostly because they were the best purchases for me.

Then at one point I needed a new laptop, and the 11-inch Air was the only one that really fit the bill hardware-wise. There was the Yoga, which I almost purchased, but I didn't quite trust it despite its appeal and positive reviews.

After about about a year or so, it seemed like Apple abandoned that small laptop market, and multiple other vendors started releasing really competitive products in that space, especially HP and Dell.

If I was purchasing a new laptop, it would almost certainly be an XPS 13. This sales news isn't anything new.

These things seem to go in cycles--I suspect in 7 years or so we'll be talking about how Dell isn't keeping up with Apple again.

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