So What Happens to the MacBook Air Now?

Yesterday, Apple introduced a laptop that looks suspiciously like an evolved MacBook Air. It’s thinner, it’s lighter, it has the Retina display that the Air (somehow) still lacks. For now, at least, the MacBook is a product line unto itself. But it’s easy enough to envision a near-future where Apple’s new one-port wonder doesn’t just complement the MacBook Air; it replaces it altogether.

For now, there are plenty of reasons to keep the MacBook and the MacBook Air separate. Apple’s new offering might have a brilliant display, but its Core M processor makes it relatively underpowered next to the rest of Apple’s laptop lineup. It’s also, frankly, a little weird. Its keyboard’s new “butterfly” mechanism takes getting used to, and its lack of ports, aside from a single USB-C that handles both charging and data transfer, will confound those accustomed to the standard I/O buffet.

But when you look at the ways in which the MacBook Air and MacBook overlap, it’s easy to imagine a future in which that Venn diagram becomes a circle. Think about their trajectories over the next few years. The MacBook Air gets thinner; the MacBook gets more powerful. The Air gets a Retina display; the MacBook clears new battery life milestones. Both become cheaper. Wireless solutions like Handoff, AirDrop, and iCloud all become reliable enough that that we gladly relinquish our space-hogging ports.

Apple doesn’t need two ultraportable laptops that can handle most people’s computing needs most of the time. It doesn’t need consternated Apple Store clerks outlining the fine distinctions between Core i3 and Core M. It doesn’t need consumer confusion, which is what two largely overlapping products sows. The easiest way to fix that? Pare those two products down to one. Ditch the MacBook Air.

Pro or No

The complications around trying to sell three laptops—two of them destined for increasing overlap—become especially apparent when you consider the alternative. Do you need a MacBook for work? You’re a Pro. For home? You’re not. An Air, in that context, sounds like a laptop for people who dunk well.

Apple

You can see how this sort of simplified, binary line-up could play out across all of Apple’s product categories. Are you iMac or Mac Pro? Are you iPhone or iPhone Plus? You’re either an iPad mini or Air for now. But consider that Apple hasn’t substantially updated its tiny tablet in a year and a half, and that a rumored larger iPad may be on the horizon. It’s a stretch, but you can imagine a scenario in which the mini gives way entirely to the larger iPhone, and you’re either iPad or an iPad Pro.

Pruning the decision tree makes life easier for customers, sure. It’s also a potential boon to Apple, which can push the enterprise market—or people who just want to hook up a couple of monitors—towards the costlier MacBook Pro with Retina line. The lightest of which, for what it’s worth, today weighs just a small amount more than the original MacBook Air did.

The Cost of Business

There are plenty of limiting factors that could keep the MacBook Air around for a while. The Core M inside works fine, but it’s not ready to carry a full load. People might be (understandably) slow to embrace USB-C as their one true port. The biggest hiccup of all, though, might be price.

You can purchase a MacBook Air today for $899, a remarkable price point even though the device you get for it won’t win any drag races and has piggy-bank-level storage. The MacBook, meanwhile, starts at $1,299. That’s a lot more money, especially for a processor that’s even pokier than the cheapest Air’s.

Apple

With the MacBook’s price, though, Apple has built in a number of hedges against the future. That Retina display—remember, the MacBook Air is still painfully low-resolution next to its peers—is just a start. The base model of the MacBook comes with 8GB of RAM, twice what you’ll find in the entry-level Air. Its storage is similarly doubled up, with a 256GB SSD versus 128GB in the Air. In fact, the 12-inch MacBook costs the same as a similarly equipped, 13-inch MacBook Air. You’re just trading a lesser processor for a much better display. And you’ll own a device that can still keep up with the needs of OS X and the internet at large four years from now. The same probably can’t be said of any $899 Apple device.

For now, losing the MacBook Air would leave a gaping hole in Apple’s low-end lineup. But as storage and memory prices drop—and as Apple sells its customers on the value in a computer that’s not just cheap, but future-proof—it seems like yet another hold-up that could be easily resolved in a few years’ time.

A Unified Vision

Today, the MacBook Air and MacBook offer enough substantive differences that it makes perfect sense that they’ll live in harmony on Apple Store shelves. Price, performance, looks all vary; there’s a decently defined audience for both.

At some point, though, assuming Apple continues to evolve both products on their current trajectories, that will no longer be true. When that happens, whether it’s two, three, or five years from now? The MacBook becomes true to its name, and the Air becomes just that.