Summary

The author expresses a sense of loss over the discontinuation of the M1 MacBook Air, highlighting its design features and speaker quality as superior to its successors.

Abstract

Apple's decision to discontinue the M1 MacBook Air in favor of the M3 model has left the author nostalgic for the older design, particularly its lack of a notch and superior speaker system. The M1 Air's tapered wedge shape, which made it thinner at the front and thicker at the back, was not a personal favorite of the author, but the absence of a notch and the presence of traditional speaker grills are sorely missed. The author criticizes the notch design of newer MacBooks for offering minimal benefits in screen real estate and detracting from the device's aesthetics. Additionally, the author laments the change in speaker design in the M2 MacBook Air, which uses sound bouncing off the screen rather than the forward-facing speakers of the M1 model, resulting in inferior sound quality in their opinion. Despite the M2's price reduction and performance improvements, the author considers the M1 MacBook Air to be the pinnacle of the product line and regrets its phase-out.

Opinions

The author does not appreciate the wedge shape of the M1 MacBook Air but prefers it over the notch design of newer models.
The notch in the newer MacBook Airs is seen as unnecessary and detrimental to both screen real estate and aesthetics.
The M1 MacBook Air's speaker system is considered superior to the M2's, which uses a less effective method of sound projection.
The author would have preferred the retention of the M1's design elements, even at the cost of a slightly thicker laptop.
There is a sense of disappointment that the rumored MacBook Air with iMac colors and white keyboard was not realized in the M2 model.
The author owns and enjoys using the M1 MacBook Air, considering it the best iteration of the MacBook Air lineup.

I Miss The M1 Air Already

Recently Apple released the M3 MacBook Air. And in doing so they killed off the M1 MacBook Air. A bit of a surprise to me, I thought they were going to keep that M1 MacBook Air around forever as the ‘cheap’ MacBook Air. Then they could market the MacBook Air as starting at $999 despite it being an old model.

The above is a screenshot from before the M3 Air came out. I thought that M1 Air would stay there forever. Guess not. Instead it looks like Apple is now still selling the M2 MacBook Air at $100 off.

Pretty nice. But if I wanted a last-generation MacBook Air I’d just go refurbished. But, anyways, this isn’t about the M2 Air. This is about the M1 Air. Rest in peace.

When Apple killed the M1 Air there was very little fanfare. But some people did report on it like The Verge.

The MacBook Air's wedge is truly gone - and I miss it already

The M1 MacBook Air has been discontinued now that the M3 MacBook Air is here. Rest in peace to the Air's iconic wedge…

www.theverge.com

They said how they missed the wedge. That is the tapered shape of the old Air where it’s thicker at the back and thinner in the front. To be honest I never liked the wedge very much.

There’s really no benefit of the wedge. I haven’t seen anything to suggest it’s more ergonomic. It certainly doesn’t feel any different. To me the wedge is just there to make the laptop seem thinner than it actually is which I don’t really care about.

And the old Air did not just have a wedge. It also had a really fat bulge on the underside which made it look way thinner than it actually is. Not a big fan of that.

But there are two things about the M1 Air I will really miss:

1. The Lack Of A Notch

With the death of the M1 MacBook Air all MacBooks now have a notch. And I’ve always hated the notch. It seems so unnecessary.

People say it gives you more screen real estate. No it doesn’t. Well, it does… but only in certain situations. Only when you’re in the normal desktop mode. And then it doesn’t give you that much because in order to accommodate the notch the top bar has to be much thicker.

But I don’t care about the normal desktop mode. I’ll tell you a secret: I have my dock visible all the time and in the centre taking up so much space.

If I cared about screen real estate I would either hide the dock or move it to the side. I do not care about screen real estate in desktop mode. Where I do care about screen real estate is in full screen mode. Like this.

But in full-screen apps the entire notch area is blacked out which makes me go, “Good job, you made the laptop uglier for zero benefit.”

And it doesn’t make the device look any nicer. On phones you could argue the notch/Dynamic Island makes the phone look nicer because it makes the bezels more uniform around the screen. But the M2 Air? Do these bezels look uniform to you:

They would if you just ignored the bottom bezel. And, wait a second, why are the top corners rounded but the bottom ones aren’t? It just makes me mad.

I just don’t like the notch. And don’t even get me started on how menubar items interact with the notch in weird ways.

2. The Speakers

This is my M1 MacBook Air:

What do you see? Speaker grills. Now I’m not sure if there are actual speakers under the speaker grills, they could be there for aesthetics. But what I do know is that the M1 MacBook Air sounds a lot better than the M2. I mean, some people say different things but in my opinion the M1 sounds much better.

This is because the M2 uses some weird system of bouncing the sound off the screen. Apple was quick to promote how they have some new speaker system. But they should have just kept the old system. I don’t understand why they didn’t. The new M2 MacBook Air is the same width as the M1. They could have done it. I would have gladly taken a slightly thicker Air if they kept the speaker system facing you.

Especially the 15 inch model. Now they just have a bunch of nothing on the left and right of the keyboard. A bit disappointing.

You know, it all reminds me of HTC’s BoomSound ad back in the day.

Speakers sound best when they are facing you.

OK, I don’t hate the new MacBook Airs. I did when they came out because they were a lot more expensive than the M1 Airs they were replacing. But the price came down eventually and now I don’t have a problem with them.

But at the same time I can’t shake the feeling that the new Airs are still a downgrade. Because before the M2 Air there were some rumours of beautiful MacBook Airs with iMac colours and white keyboards.

Absolutely stunning. And with speaker grills on the left and right side! I wish this would have been the M2 Air. But instead we got a MacBook Air that is different but not necessarily better (except for the faster chip) and that’s such a shame.

I have an M1 MacBook Air and I love using it. It’s peak MacBook Air for me. And the fact that the M1 is going away… I miss it already.

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