Return of the MacBook

It has been nearly 10 years since Apple revolutionized portable Macs. Is it time for a comeback?

- WRITTEN BY CARRIE MARSHALL

BACK IN MARCH 2015, Apple made Mac history all over again. It launched the MacBook, the thinnest and lightest Mac that Apple had ever made. The new Retina display was thinner. The new keyboard was thinner. It was so incredibly thin that it made the MacBook Air look positively porky. There were no moving parts, no fans, and no vents. It was everything that made the iPhone amazing, but in notebook form.

According to Apple's Phil Schiller, Apple had “reinvented the notebook”. The 12-inch MacBook was just 13.1mm at its thickest point – 24% thinner than the 11-inch MacBook Air. It had a precision-milled unibody enclosure, a new Force Touch trackpad, and a brand new, ultra-thin keyboard, which was 34% thinner than other mobile Macs, with keys 40% thinner than traditional scissor keys. The new Retina display was just 0.88mm thin, making it the thinnest ever Mac display. Inside was Apple's smallest ever logic board, some 67% smaller than the one in the MacBook Air.

If the MacBook was still on sale today, it would be approaching its 10th birthday – and some pundits say that Apple is seriously thinking about bringing it back with today's even more impressive technology. We're taking a look at what made the MacBook so special, and where it might now fit among today's M2, M3, and M4 Macs.

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