Say goodbye to the original 12-inch MacBook. Ride on home now, you beautiful yet flawed darling. According to an internal memo seen by MacRumors, which regularly reports on Apple products becoming obsolete, the 12-inch MacBook will be put to rest after a storied near-eight year career on June 30.
The 12-inch retina screen MacBook debuted in early 2015, but that laptop was quickly replaced the following year by the second-gen model. Both those devices currently sit on the company’s list of vintage products alongside the likes of the 2015 and 2016 MacBook Pro models and the 2015 MacBook Air. Being on the vintage list means users can still receive some parts and repairs from Apple itself, including specific battery-only repairs depending on availability. When the laptop moves to the obsolete list, as the rumours hint, this will no longer be possible.
Apple has recently sent other original devices to the proverbial Elysian fields, including the original iPad Air that was released all the way back in 2013. When a device is made obsolete, Apple is basically saying users won’t be able to receive any official repairs or fixes from any geniuses at any Apple store. Apple products are usually made obsolete once the company stops selling or distributing them for at least seven years, though the company has let some products linger on the Vintage List for longer than that, likely due to their initial popularity.
The super-skinny MacBook design was a way for Apple to reinvent its laptop line, and that thin silhouette has kept consistent all the way until now, with the latest MacBook Pros and MacBook Airs. Its 2015 model also introduced us to the single USB-C port paradigm and the Force Touch trackpad.
Though Apple was keen to delve into this era of thin laptops one sticking point for its laptops would be its horrible, awful, no good butterfly keyboards. The keys were squishy, and any spec of wayward dirt could cause a key to no longer function. The Cupertino, California company abandoned that design in 2020 with the introduction of the Magic Keyboard, and it recently settled a $US50 million class action lawsuit regarding its faulty keys.
MacBooks have seen some sales slowdowns as of late, but the company could be trying to re-energize its laptop line at the coming WWDC later this month. There are rumours that a 12-inch MacBook is on Apple’s docket, though it would be interesting to see Apple come out with a laptop that’s more skinny than a 12.9-inch iPad Pro.