
MacBook Air 2018 Teardown - nnx
https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook+Air+13-Inch+Retina+2018+Teardown/115201
======
komali2
Wait, does the Air actually have more ports than the MacBook? What's going on?
I thought the MacBook replaced the air, an the MacBook pro is a merger of the
MacBook and MacBook pro?

Have the MacBook and MacBook air "switched"?

~~~
nostromo
Yup. The Macbook Air is _heavier_ (and has more ports) than the Macbook.

I suspect this is because Apple gives so little attention to Mac now and
updates products two or three times a decade. So when one product is updated,
the rest of the lineup seems incongruous.

~~~
ericsoderstrom
Anyone know if one of those lines will be discontinued? Seems odd to maintain
both the macbook and macbook air

~~~
macintux
No one outside Apple (and maybe inside too) knows for certain. They don't
share information like that in advance.

------
js2
> _Soldered, non-serviceable, non-upgradeable storage and RAM is a serious
> bummer on a $1,200+ laptop._

I don't mind the RAM. There's only two options upfront: 8GB and 16GB and I
know what I need. The non-serviceable storage however, even with the
Thunderbolt 3 ports for external storage (because who wants external storage
on a laptop), is a bummer.

I just recently upgraded an 11" Air from 128 GB SSD to 1 TB SSD. It seems that
storage demands only go up over time; that's much less so the case with RAM or
CPU these days.

~~~
ww520
The soldered RAM is really bad, making adding RAM impossible. I get it. They
want you to buy a new Mac every couple years. It's really annoying.

I've considered adding SDXC 512GB card to the SDXC slot to expand storage,
less thing to lug around than an external Thunderbolt drive.

~~~
bunderbunder
I'm pretty ambivalent about the RAM thing. The CPUs they're using don't
support more than 16GB of RAM, anyway, and I'd guess that nobody who both
cares and has the tech knowledge to be likely to upgrade RAM is going to be
buying the 8GB model in the first place. For me, the deeper problem there is,
why should I be feeling anguish about being able to upgrade them memory in a
(non desktop replacement) latpop in the first place?

20 years ago, when we were collectively trying to squeeze more and more out of
personal computers at a fairly decent clip, it made some sense. At this point,
though, things have tapered off outside of a few special cases like large-
scale data crunching and serious gaming, neither of which was ever really a
primary use case for Macs in the first place.

What's left for reasons why you might need ever more RAM are things that feel
kind of silly. On my personal computer, the big RAM suckers in recent memory
have been ad-heavy news websites and (bafflingly) the Slack desktop app. In
both cases, I'm pretty sure the reason why they get away with sucking more and
more RAM is that we're rolling over and buying more RAM instead of putting
some more pressure on software developers about being wasteful.

I rather wish Grace Hopper were still around to give a memory consumption
version of her "nanoseconds" lecture.

~~~
2muchcoffeeman
Well Slack is an electronjs app.

I think developers are still chasing the ‘write once run anywhere’ Holy Grail.
This time it’s JavaScript.

~~~
bunderbunder
Running in Electron accounts for a few tens of megabytes, tops. I'm not
convinced it's really all that much worse than the runtime environments for
popular interpreted and managed languages.

The other 2-3GB (I'm not even kidding) seemed to be a result of keeping a copy
every single attachment and Giphy image that anyone posts in memory,
indefinitely. Like with any good memory leak, the solution was to bounce the
application.

I use vscode quite a bit, and it doesn't eat RAM in a way that seems
reminiscent of what people like to blame on Electron apps. Perhaps what we
like to lay at the feet of Electron is more appropriately blamed on there
being a lot of JavaScript developers who haven't been sufficiently educated in
how to manage memory.

------
lostgame
The fact that we are still seeing 128GB non-upgradeable SSD’s on a base-level
Mac is insanity.

For any poor soul who has had to do mobile development work on one of these,
the ‘you are low on risk space’ notification is like a spectre that haunts
dreams.

The environmental impact alone of non-upgradeable units is a serious issue in
my eyes. Previous Macs have lasted me up to 8 years or so with nice and
consistent upgrades over the years.

The small amount of thinness or whatever it is has been the trade off is not
worth it.

We’ve lost the exterior battery button, we’ve lost MagSafe, the butterfly
keyboards have had scathing reviews at best, and, in what seems like the most
open statement of ‘we’re not even the same company any more’, they’ve even
removed lost the trademark glowing Apple on the back.

It has moved beyond the point where I need to draw the line and will be
building the most compatible hackintosh I can as my next laptop.

~~~
kristianp
It's not exactly a development machine, with a 7W processor. But if you want
to do dev on one, you can buy one with a 256GB (or more?) SDD.

~~~
lostgame
I think you’re missing my point that as time goes by, the need for storage
space has a tendency to increase, and thusly, without the ability to upgrade,
and with asinine prices from Apple for their SSD’s instead of about half that
for a very nice quality SSD of the same capacity, I’d prefer to buy a baseline
8GB/128GB unit and upgrade it myself for 1/3rd of the price like I have for
every other single Mac I’ve bought in my 15+ years of purchasing them.

Furthermore, a MacBook Pro, which one could certainly call a development
machine, still starts with a baseline, non-upgradeable 128GB unit.

Virtually no ‘pro’ task, Image Editing, Software Develoment, Video Editing,
Audio Editing, that Macs have typically and historically been used for, are
suited to these 128GB drives and create machines that need to be thrown out
and add to e-waste instead of having any meaningful longevity.

I know this because I do these types of tasks all the time, and was forced
into a 2017 13” MBP with a 128GB SSD and paltry 8GB of RAM earlier this year
due to having it given to me as a work machine. Using it was an unpleasant
experience unlike any computer I’d used, much less a Mac.

And why? For aesthetic purposes? For greed/profit? What’s the use of their
‘all-aluminum’ eco-friendly goals, if they create machines that intentionally
have a 3-4 year shelf life baked into them? It’s mind-boggling.

We pay a premium for Apple devices, and more and more, especially as the
prices seem to constantly be creeping upwards at this point, the conscessions
we need to make to use them have become far greater than the benefits.

RIP Apple computers. Hello, Apple, Inc.

~~~
romwell
>I think you’re missing my point that as time goes by, the need for storage
space has a tendency to increase

Hahaha, my Acer laptop from 2008 had 160GB storage space, and it was not much
by the standards of the time.

So no, we're still not back to 2008-level storage space needs on a laptop.

~~~
lostgame
But that Acer laptop from 2008 would no doubt let you upgrade the RAM and HDD,
which is my overall point.

Apple has turned their products from some of the most high-class computers and
devices on the planet, to, it seems, greed and drivel.

------
spiderfarmer
It's amazing. Everyone I spoke to, everyone who reviews Macs for a living and
everyone who comments on it seems to agree: Apple makes a long, confusing list
of Macbooks that all seem to compromise on the features that made them popular
in the past. There's not a single Macbook that's universally loved by its
target audience and that's quite a feat.

~~~
save_ferris
This just shows just how much has changed in the last few years.

Their push to increase revenues on a per-unit basis as opposed to reaching
more customers will leave them incredibly exposed when someone else finally
comes along and builds a laptop that developers are happy with at a fraction
of the cost of whatever the next gen-MBPs are priced at. It might not be next
year, but they're not gonna be beloved forever if they keep this up.

~~~
mediocrejoker
Until a team with resources comparable to the OS X team puts in the effort to
polish some Ubuntu derivative and make it work flawlessly with one or a few
particular hardware configurations, Apple will still have an advantage that
many are willing to pay a premium for.

~~~
noir_lord
I have a T470P (the i7-7700HQ with 2560x1440@14" came in about half of a
Macbook Pro in my country), I've genuinely had to do nothing to make Fedora 26
(then 27) work on it perfectly since I got it.

It of course came with Windows 10 and that's the rub, it's a crap shoot since
I knew I'd be able to get Linux to work fine I just didn't know how much work
(if any) would be required.

I was pleasantly surprised.

------
illwrks
...and here I am with my 2010 13' core2duo. 16gigs of ram, an SSD a variety of
ports and flying along nicely. Still on the original battery and getting about
5-6 hours on a full charge.

~~~
dijit
Surely that speaks to the build quality of the devices?

~~~
illwrks
Yes, but also the upgradability!

If I was stuck with the original 120gb HDD and the stock 4gb of RAM it would
be in no way 'usable' as it is now.

------
syntaxing
Macbook aside, I always wondered how many laptops it takes IFIXIT to determine
how to take the laptop apart. Is there always a sacrifice laptop where they
dissemble regardless of breaking stuff? Then they take what they learned on
the "real" laptop?

~~~
fermienrico
Exactly none. I think you’re overestimating the difficulty of taking things
apart.

------
yakshaving_jgt
Welp. There goes the last laptop Apple makes without a garbage keyboard.

~~~
vlozko
I actually like the new keyboard... :( My fingers feel a lot less fatigued
over time vs using a traditional mechanical keyboard. And even compared to the
2015 MBP, the newer keyboards feel more comfortable to relax my fingers on.
While I never bothered doing a speed comparison between the two, I feel like I
type slightly faster, albeit with slightly more mistakes. For example,
reaching for the y key will occasionally cause my pinky to accidentally press
the semi-colon key.

~~~
Wowfunhappy
The keyboards seem to be very divisive. I know a lot of people who like them
or don't mind them. I flat out cannot use them, and not for lack of trying.

~~~
spronkey
I like the clickiness, and initial feel is very positive, but after a few
minutes I find it really frustrating to type on them.

------
thecatspaw
thats a 3/10? That seems like a low score given the rest of the article

~~~
sudhirj
Think a 10/10 would be a computer with every part (including RAM, SSD, CPU)
user-replaceable with no specialized equipment.

~~~
esmi
No need to guess.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hg97ovaD-b4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hg97ovaD-b4)
What Does it Take to get a 10 out of 10 iFixit Repairability Score?

They've even issued a few. This one is for a phone.
[https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/11/ifixit-gives-
modular...](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/11/ifixit-gives-modular-
fairphone-2-a-rare-10-out-of-10-for-repairability/)

------
TazeTSchnitzel
Easily repairable Thunderbolt ports is great news. My 2013 MacBook Air's is
busted now and that means no external display output, and a knock to resale
value or hope of donating this machine to a friend when done with it (I
wouldn't want to give them a computer broken in this way).

------
knolan
I recently had to swap out the screen in my mother’s much abused 2015 12”
MacBook. That machine was a nightmare to work on with many components attached
to the bottom cover and flimsy ribbons connecting top to bottom making basic
access challenging.

It’s nice to see this machine have a more sane design.

------
kiddico
It's good to see that the battery isn't glued to the top case. I'm not sure if
the airs have ever had it glued, but the pros sure did.

It was always a bummer to tell people that a bad battery meant replacing the
entire upper case.

~~~
jandrese
They used epoxy?

Usually when companies glue parts together inside electronics they use rubber
cement, which can usually be peeled off without damaging the component or the
housing. It's an inconvenience, not a roadblock to repair.

~~~
dnhz
When my retina-display macbook pro battery swelled, they replaced the entire
top case. It appears to be policy that the top case and battery are one piece.

~~~
jandrese
Probably the difference between having Apple replace it and doing it yourself
with a $20 battery you bought off of the Internet. Well, that and a few
hundred bucks.

I can see why they wouldn't want the techs doing that in the store, one of the
failure modes if you screw it up is a lithium fire. Also, if the battery had
started to swell up it may have bent the case. Apple doesn't leave much room
for expansion with their batteries anymore.

~~~
hectormalot
I think it’s the default policy. My rMBP from 2012 started to have battery
issues and I got a $300 quote for replacement that included a new top car.

Got the $80 battery from ifixit and replaced the battery relatively easily. It
did have me pour generous amounts for aceton (nail polish remover) into my
MacBook to unglue the battery though, was happy that everything still worked
after.

------
wild_preference
Interesting that the keys now have a little skirt to apparently stop
particles.

Though I had to use my 2013 Air recently while my 2017 MBP was in the shop
(keyboard aka whole front panel + battery replacement) and wished they'd just
kept the high-action keyboard that could weather the grime between cleanings.

~~~
ksec
This has been the case with all the new 2018 MacBook Pro. Its called 3rd
Generation Butterfly Keyboard.

It is new so we are still waiting to see if there are reports of Key
malfunctioning after some longer period of use.

------
gcbw2
So the air have tons of ports, function keys, escape key, touch ID, a fan not
connected to anything thermal! and is heavier.

while the "PRO" macbook have a single usbC on 12", no fans, no f-keys, no
escape key.

Apple is now a true Mainstream Consumer PC manufacturer! The models means
nothing! Now you have to dive in model numbers and specific production runs to
get what you want, just like buying Asus et al.

~~~
ricardobeat
You’re mixing up the “MacBook” with the MBP. Pro is 13”, has four USB-C ports
and fan cooling. Function keys optional on the (quite crappy) base models.

~~~
nil_pointer
The 13" MBP has two USB-C's, not four. The 15" has four.

~~~
wodenokoto
You and parent are mixing up the 2 lines of 13" MBP.

Non-touch bar has two ports. Touch bar has four.

[https://support.apple.com/kb/SP775?locale=en_US](https://support.apple.com/kb/SP775?locale=en_US)

