RIP MacBook, the latest lightweight baby from Apple



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My 12 inch MacBook was stolen in my car last week, a wink that will miss you. Materially, the loss should not be of much importance – no one has died, she was assured, it's just a laptop, everything is in the cloud anyway – but emotionally, it's Was a key. Over the past two years, I had come to love this little rose gold beauty, my workaholic of two books. It was almost as light as my iPad Pro in its case, but recharged much faster (thanks, USB C!) And could do a lot more.

And now, as I take off the black armband and allow myself to think of a replacement, here's Apple just twisting the knife. As of Tuesday, the 12-inch MacBook is no longer. Indeed, the simple nickname "MacBook" is no more.

In the future, we will have to choose the ironic name of the MacBook Air, which will weigh nearly a pound more and $ 100 more than my last love, or the MacBook Pro, even more expensive, with its Touch Bar highly useless. Which, in its 15-inch form, is the weight of two MacBooks.

Why do the good ones have to die young, while ills like the Touch Bar persist in this world?

Indeed, when will Apple realize that many of us want a notebook as simple and portable as possible, that the bells and whistles are doomed? Much of the market does not need to be the most powerful thing on the planet, if only it's fast enough, and go in a small shoulder bag without tearing our shoulders.

It's not even the first time that the company kills a 12-inch laptop. In 2003, Steve Jobs unveiled (via a memorable announcement featuring Verne Troyer and Yao Ming, above) the 12-inch Powerbook G4. It was a revelation: with a fast processor at 867 MHz, it was just a little slower than the 1GHz Power Mac, the standard desktop of the time. An appropriately sized keyboard was going from one edge to the other. For the first time, you could have it all: desktop performance in a one-size-fits-all environment.

The 12-inch Powerbook has been the subject of three refreshments in three years, almost doubling its speed before being finally stopped in 2006. Yet in 2015, the small laptop that could weigh heavily in memory; Macworld wrote an ode to the machine that "captivated so completely the hearts and minds of a generation of Apple users that we have been calling for since its reinvention." "Something capable. Tiny. Something, in fact, that we come from want to. "

Our wish was realized that year with the launch of the modest MacBook in golden and gray tones. There were some problems in the first model, but as often, Apple corrected them in version 2.0 the following year. We also needed time to recover from our outrage at a single USB port (plus a headphone jack). The dongles are one thing, and if you are some type of user, you will need it only once in a blue moon.

But by 2017, the MacBook was in perfect condition and that 's when I jumped aboard. It is not an exaggeration to say that the device has changed the shape of my days. Carrying the smallest backpack possible, containing only my MacBook, a small USB-C battery and my phone, I could work anywhere with a signal. For this reason, I started doing a lot more cycling and walking in San Francisco, which made my health and happiness improved.

I do not pretend that it was wine and roses. There was the so-called "butterfly" keyboard, which kept its infamy even in the second and third iterations of the laptop. It did not bother me as much as some people; the lack of key depression space seemed to be an acceptable exchange for the very thin frame, and you still get some kind of tactile feedback; it was hardly a keyboard on the screen.

It was necessary to replace it mid-2018 when the key S stopped working (because of crumbs, probably, it was difficult not to open this beauty every time I stopped to take a sandwich). Still, Apple was smart enough to offer users a free keyboard replacement, and you did not even need to bring it to the Apple Store. I had an appointment the same day at a reputable dealer, and the problem was corrected in the time it took to watch a World Cup match.

And now? I will probably browse the refurbished section of the Apple Store, looking for a great deal on a recent Rose Gold MacBook. And I'll wait patiently for the day when Apple will notice my market segment again.

And I will not cry because I confidently predict that there will one day be a third laptop capable of functioning.

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