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Comment by notafraudster | Hacker News Reader

To me the bigger news here is killing the MacBook. It's a weird product -- crazy overpriced, and with a bunch of concessions in terms of the design, but I like that it's extremely light (33% lighter than a MacBook Air) and has no fan. I had hoped never to buy another laptop with a fan again. Yes, I know performance sucks, which is why I run most of my code on a server instead of locally on my computer. I think really the best other options without a fan are all Chromebooks.

I would guess Apple will revive the fanless model when they switch to ARM processors in 1-2 years.

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I'm a bit disappointed and surprised by this news. Agree with everything you said about the price being ridiculous and the performance being inadequate, but it was all about the form factor - what a gorgeous machine for travel-friendly computing.

I always viewed it as a v0.1 of the future of their light travel-friendly laptop model, and fully expected it to receive incremental performance upgrades and eventually replace the Air. I was hoping that in a few more years, I'd be able to buy one of these as a complement for travel or maybe even to replace (depending on the weight / performance tradeoff) my 13-inch MacBook Pro.

I assume, since they only gave it a minor upgrade once in like 3/4 years and the price was pretty ridiculous, that they just couldn't make it work. I hope, as you say, they can figure it out, perhaps using their own ARM CPUs, and eventually relaunch this model or continue making the Air thinner and lighter with the same performance.

May be a sign laying groundwork for an ARM Mac- the 12" MacBook is the obvious target for initial replacement by an ARM variant. By not having a side-by-side Intel-ARM model Apple minimizes market competition and direct performance comparisons.

The writing was on the wall. I doubt anyone was buying the Macbook. Still, the 12 inch Macbook is one of my favorite devices that Apple has ever made. It’s unbelievably light and portable and people will have no idea what this means until they actually hold it because no other laptop has this kind of lightness/portability. This and the fanless part are the major reasons I bought it and I think the price is justified for these features alone. But I understand that people usually look for other things in laptops which can make this pricing seem ridiculous.

> I doubt anyone was buying the Macbook.

Only because it was out of date, probably. Aside from its specs it served the market of "thin and light computers that are easy to take around" just fine.

The same market that the iPad Pro’s are starting to serve.....

Nope, a lot of people think it’s obsolete because of the Macbook Air. Larger screen, similar thickness, and a more powerful processor. They would still think so even if the 12” Macbook had an upgrade.

Not everyone thinks that a larger screen is an upgrade.

Did you read my original comment?

After I requested work buy me a tricked out MacBook (which I received literally last week), I saw the rumors that Apple would soon update their MacBook line. I was mentally preparing to be gutted when Apple would update the MacBook with two fullspeed USB-C ports and Touch ID....instead they cancel it!

The Air is barely more compact than the Pro (look up the specs, it is a bit thinner on one side and is 0.25 pounds lighter).

The MacBook is a true ultraportable laptop (it is 0.75 pounds lighter than the Air) - sad that Apple doesn't sell one now.

Ah, that's interesting.. I was going to comment saying good riddance to it, since it was more expensive than the air, less power and just felt like it was out of place.. sure if it were _cheaper_ than the air, then great.. but I couldn't see a reason why anyone would buy it. Of course, hadn't realised it was fanless and lighter!

BTW, I have neither, so I don't have much to stand on!

> I think really the best other options without a fan are all Chromebooks.

I own both a 12" MacBook and a Pixelbook, and the Pixelbook is notably chunkier/heavier. (And every other comparable Chromebook is even worse.)

Next best fanless option is probably a Surface device.

I'm a big fan of thin, fanless machines, and have both a 12" MacBook and a Surface Pro 5. While it's much less powerful, I find the MacBook more pleasant to use (even ignoring MacOS vs. Windows 10) -- way better trackpad, keyboard and screen are rigidly attached to each other, wakes from sleep faster and more reliably. The Surface Book solves most of these problems (and, IIRC, has fanless variants), but I think it's too bulky due to the 13.5" screen and hinge design. I haven't seriously considered a Chromebook due to the software limitations or the iPad due to the lack of a mouse cursor (also software limitations).

In short, with the 12" MacBook discontinued, nobody's making a notebook I'm interested in at the moment. That's fine, though, as my 2015 MacBook is still working great (especially since I just had the battery replaced) and presumably I can still get a refurb if I drop this one in a lake or something.

I agree, I wish they would have killed the Air and kept the Macbook.

Ditto. The exact same reasons made me shell out for a tricked out MB. Using it right now on a very cramped plane seat where you'd have tough time opening even an MBP13.

The 12" MacBook just made absolutely no sense in their lineup.

It was lighter and thinner than the MacBook Air - so why was it not the MacBook Air? This is the lack of product logic Jobs killed when he returned to Apple.

Regarding the price: there have been very few other machines with similar specifications (12", fanless, <1kg). All of them were significantly more expensive than the MBP. I can remember for instance of the Asus LaVie Z laptop, which was priced at $1700.

Time to replace the battery of the MBP I've been using since 2015 I guess.

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