The 12" MacBook was announced 10 years ago
On March 9, 2015, Apple announced a redesigned MacBook, notable for a few incredible things:
- 2 pounds (the lightest computer Apple currently sells is 35% heavier at 2.7 pounds)
- 13.1mm thin
- A 12-inch retina screen (something the MacBook Air wouldn't receive until late 2018)
- The Force Touch trackpad (which came to the MacBook Pro line the same day)
It also became infamous for a few less-than-incredible things:
- A single port for charging and data transfer, heralding the dawn of the Dongle Era
- That port was USB-C, which most people hadn't even heard of, and which approximately zero devices supported
- A woefully-underpowered 5-watt TDP Intel chip
- The inadvisably-thin butterfly keyboard, which would go on to hobble Apple's entire notebook line for 5 years (though my MacBooks never experienced any of the issues I had with later MacBooks Pro)
Still, the 2015 MacBook (and the 2016 and 2017 revisions Apple would go on to release) was, without-a-doubt, my favorite computer ever. When I needed power, I had uncompromised power on my desktop. When I needed portability, I had uncompromised portability in my bag.
It was maybe Phil Schiller's best pitch for a new Mac, too. Here's the keynote video, scrubbed to the MacBook part:
Literally the worst thing about traveling with the 12" MacBook was that I'd frequently panic—oh shit, did I forget my computer back there?—when in fact I had just failed to detect its svelte 2-pound presence in my bag. I lost track of how many times I stopped in traffic and rushed to search for it, only to calm down once I confirmed it was still in my possession.
I started carrying it in this ridiculous-looking 12-liter Osprey pack, because it was the only bag I owned that was itself light enough for me to feel the weight of the computer:
This strategy backfired when I carelessly left the bag (and computer) on the trunk of our car, only for Becky to drive away without noticing it (probably because it was barely taller than the car's spoiler), making the 12" MacBook the first computer I ever lost. Restoring my backup to its one-port replacement was a hilarious misadventure in retrying repeatedly until the process completed before the battery gave out.
I have many fond memories programming in the backyard using the MacBook as a remote client to my much more powerful desktop over SSH, even though bright sunlight on a cool day was all it took to discover Apple had invented a new modal overheating screen just for the device.
Anyway, ever since the line was discontinued in 2019, I've been waiting for Apple to release another ultraportable, and… six years later, I'm still waiting. The 11-inch MacBook Air was discontinued in late 2016, meaning that if your priority is portability, the 13" MacBook Air is the best they can offer you. Apple doesn't even sell an iPad and keyboard accessory that, in combination, weigh less than 2.3 pounds. Their current lineup of portable computers are just nowhere near light enough.
More than the raw numbers numbers, none of Apple's recent Macs have sparked the same joy in me that the 11" Air and 12" MacBook did. Throwing either of those in a bag had functionally zero cost. No thicker than a magazine. Lighter than a liter of water. Today, when I put a MacBook Air in my bag, it's because I am affirmatively choosing to take a computer with me. In 2015, I would regularly leave my MacBook in my bag even when I didn't expect to need it, and often because I was too lazy to take it out between trips. That is the benchmark for portable computing, and Apple simply doesn't deliver it anymore. Hopefully that will change someday.