Hacker News Reader

Comment by gnicholas | Hacker News Reader

Glad there’re back, but these are not Pro features and should not be limited to the Pro line (starting at $2,000). These are basic features that should be on consumer machines. I shouldn’t have to pay 80% more just to get HDMI, SD, and other features that were on Apple laptops 6 years ago.

View on HN

It looks like Apple is trending back to ports and I think that will continue in the future.

It looks like the 13" MacBook Pro will be phased out in the near future (over the next 6-12 months) and I'd guess that the next MacBook Air will become the replacement. There wasn't a lot of difference between the M1 MacBook Air and MacBook Pro before. I think Apple can nicely introduce a replacement MacBook Air with an M1 processor (or M1 Air) with an HDMI port and SD Card slot and it will be quite differentiated from the MacBook Pro with its M1 Pro/Max processors, miniLED displays, additional memory bandwidth, additional CPU cores, additional graphics capabilities, etc.

While this announcement doesn't introduce the product you're looking for, it does signal that Apple is going in the direction you're interested in and it shows that Apple can offer so much for pro users that it doesn't have to worry about a consumer machine cannibalizing their pro line. Apple can literally offer twice the number of performance cores to give pro users a huge incentive to pay $2,000+ instead of $1,000. Apple has miniLED displays with 1,000 nits of brightness (compared to 500 nits on the old MBP and 400 nits on the Air). With their own silicon, they're able to really differentiate the Air/Pro lineup (which didn't really happy last year) and offer compelling reasons to pay more without withholding basic features.

Yes, a MacBook Air with HDMI and SD Card slot doesn't exist yet. However, given how many bells and whistles Apple has given the MacBook Pro lineup, they can give a redesigned MacBook Air those ports and not have to worry that pro users won't buy their pro versions. I'm hopeful that a new MacBook Air will arrive in the Spring with the ports you're seeking.

What can we expect from the new Air? Will this model replace the current Air or will it be an additional more expensive offering?

Probably MagSafe 3 , a notch at 1080p with a screen with thinner bezels, SD card reader, faster SSD, LPDDR5 but still up to 16gb , maybe a hdmi port and Thunderbolt 4.

I don't think the Air is thick enough for HDMI. The Air now is more like the old MacBook, the cheap fanless ultra portable, and wouldn't be surprised if it stays like that, previously it was much less differntiated from the MacBook Pro lines.

You can still do mini- and micro-hdmi, but by that point you may as well do more usb-c.

Mini and micro hdmi are almost non existent in the wild. USB-C is the correct choice for the airs.

The thin MacBook(2015-2019) is latest "MacBook" so it's not old but latest.

> It looks like the 13" MacBook Pro will be phased out in the near future (over the next 6-12 months)

Knowing Apple, they will keep it around for a couple years just to have the price point with the Pro name. They love keeping around older models for price anchoring/upsell.

Apple does like to keep models at certain price points. Just look at the 2nd generation MacBook Air, which stayed with us, un-retina screen and all, from years after the MBP and MacBook, to hit to $999 price point.

A 13" M1 MBP allows them to hit a $1299 price point and say "starting at $1299" when speaking about their pro laptop line.

> I shouldn’t have to pay 80% more just to get HDMI, SD, and other features

Pedantic nitpick, but a USB-C hub costs ~$40, or about 4% more than the base price of a Macbook Air.

But you'd have to carry that around separately and not forget it, lose it, etc. OP is asking for those ports to be on the laptop itself.

My girlfriend bought 100€ worth of adaptors for her Macbook Air and can never find them when she needs them.

For a desktop it doesn't matter, but for a portable device that you need to carry around every extra thing that you need to carry around is just something you are going to misplace.

Get her this: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B0872V4LFP/

Woof. That thing is ugly

Really? Looks very cool to me. Matter of opinion, I guess :)

Yikes. My 2017 MBP is bent and it's always on a flat surface. I shudder to think about keeping it on something like those blocks :-)

I like that it also raises the keyboard at an angle. Remember typewriters? (Dangerous question these days, sorry. ;-)

I'm a hardcore apple fan (from before the iphone) and this hub situation is just pathetic, they should have put in an USB-A in there and call it a day.

You can run into some VGA projectors but most have HDMI now though.

I'm not going to deny that having them built in is better but I had a tiny case that fit my MBA power adapter, USB-C cable pocket wifi, and hub. Since I always needed the power adaptor and it's cable it wasn't hard to keep the hub with me.

This is a single device that I can plug MBP power adapter, mouse, and keyboard USB dongles into: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07QXMNF1X/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...

You're being obtuse, not pedantic

Now you're being pedantic!

Yeah and it interferes with wifi (on MBP 13" from 2019).

FWIW I've had nothing but trouble with USB-C hubs. I use my most recent one exclusively as an Ethernet adapter.

For a MBP hub, the most reliable solution I found was "buy a hub with two USB-C ports."

I think between the higher price point & dual ports, they had enough to put a proper microcontroller in there, which seemed to make everything happier.

If I'm ever in the market for a USB-C hub again, I'll keep that in mind!

Does it support 4k@60hz ?

HDMI, yes. USB-C ones are another story though.

I have one of these, and it works fine except when it gets jostled and all my peripherals are disconnected.

Also it’s not powered (those are closer to $200), which means it can’t charge my iPhone or anything else.

However, it does take away from Apple's "just works" marketing if you need to research compatible adapters and half of them just don't work properly for anything beyond 1080p60.

Wouldn’t be all surprised if at least some of those ports will make it back whenever they release the redesigned 13 inch MacBook Pro and MacBook Air. Probably time constraints that made them release them with the old design. Just my guess.

Do you think there will actually be a redesigned 13" MacBook Pro? My assumption was that it was being replaced with the 14", but maybe I'm mistaken!

I would guess we might see new 13" and Air devices next year

Hopefully they bring back a 12" model.

I would be surprised if there are lower-end MBP (smaller than the 14") but a 12" might be better differentiation than 13" vs 14".

I just want a pastel orange MBA though.

That would be amazing. Still miss my 12” PowerBook…

Don't their current 13" models have about the same footprint as the old 12" laptops from way back when?

12" models were about an inch narrower.

According to everymac.com, the 12" PowerBook G4 (2004) had an amazing 10.9"x8.6" footprint (and the 12" MacBook (2017) was 11.04"x7.74" - and 2.03 pounds.)

Personally I think they will keep the 13” MacBook Pro as the entry level one with a lower tier cpu compared to 14” and 16”. Their old line up had an entry level 13” while the 15” was more capable so that’s what I’m basing it on but my guess is as good as any.

Air will replace the 13” in all likelihood. The difference between the two were minimal to begin with. If the Touch Bar is going away, there’ll be virtually no difference at all.

Can’t see an advantage for them in updating to a new 13” design. 14” is pretty much the same size physically, no? 1/3 inch difference. I guess they’re only keeping it now so they have a starter offering at a low price point.

To get the low price point in a year or two they can just have the low end 14” be the starting Pro machine. Only advantage to the 13 now is the touch bar, if you like that.

Built-in SD would allow for cheap permanent storage upgrades to the cheaper macbooks. Apple may be listening to what people want in laptops, but I don’t see them cutting into their own upsells by that much.

In a certain way, yes. A quick search on Amazon shows I can get a 1TB SD Card for $150-300. However, the rated speeds are in the 100-200 MB/s range rather than the over 2GB/s for Apple's 2020 MacBook Air (never mind the faster speeds of their new MacBook Pros which is 7.4GB/s).

Yes, the $400 that Apple charges to upgrade from 256GB to 1TB is high compared to the $200 for an SD Card. At the same time, the storage is 10-20x faster. I think the storage is different enough that Apple doesn't have to worry too much. Sure, some people might try that strategy and walk around with a laptop with a card sticking out a bit and some third party will make a microSD adapter that doesn't stick out, but I think most users will probably opt to pay for the storage and Apple can ignore the small number that buy niche products.

I think between saving money on their Apple Silicon processors and being in a great place to have serious differentiation between the Air and Pro line, Apple doesn't have to worry.

found a (new) 1 TB usb-c flash drive that does up to 1000 MB/s read and 900 MB/s write.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1655140-REG/kingston_...

Oddly I have an "half sd card" that I can use for extra storage in my old 15 inch work MacBook. Its like an SD card with a food that fits perfectly (almost flush) when iserted into the sd slot. It has a lip so you can remove it easily.

I though I'd have a mountable extra storage.. But ultimately it would sometimes unmount on sleep (you could unplug and replug..) and it was a little slow. If I wanted to use the SD card from my camera, I had to remove it. I replaced it with an external ssd. which is bulkier and corded...

this wasn't the exact thing, but it gives an idea what its like: https://www.amazon.com/Transcend-JetDrive-Storage-Expansion-...

Could be nice for a permanently mounted disk for Time Machine backups.

Why not consider a used one previous model with ports if you need them so much, but unwilling to pay extra for overpowered machine?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com