A MacBook wishlist, ranked.

Because if I don’t put the wishes out into the world, how will they ever come true?

Apropos of this…

Mac With Apple-Designed Arm Processor Coming in First Half of 2021

Apple’s first Mac with a processor designed in house is set to be released during the first half of 2021, Apple analyst Ming Chi Kuo said in a note to investors this morning that was obtained by MacRumors.

…here’s a prioritized wishlist of things I would love out of my next MacBook.

1. The keyboard that’s in the MacBook Pro 16". I’ve tried it at the store, it’s much better than the one I’ve had to replace multiple times across multiple different machines. Scissors > butterflies. (Likelihood: 100%)
2. 12" form factor. The smaller MacBook was the perfect size for me. Small and light enough to take everywhere, use all the time. If only its keyboard had been usable… (Likelihood: 0%)
3. Thunderbolt 3 support, and ability to drive a 4K display without a hitch. The whole USB-C debacle is a…debacle, but I finally bought one of those nice LG 4K monitors for home, and only plugging in one cord is pretty great. (Likelihood: 99%. Almost 100% but who the hell knows what Apple will do here.)
4. Fast. Fast enough to never experience input delay while doing normal things in a browser like sending email or writing docs or making slides or brainstorming in Miro or making wireframes in Figma. I do not have sophisticated needs. But it’s 2020 and the day to day experience of using my laptop hasn’t appreciably improved in the last 5–10years. (Likelihood: 1%. It’s a non-zero chance, but there’s just so much in between the keyboard and what you see on the screen that it may as well be 0%.)
5. At least 7 hours of battery life while using Chrome (while being LTE connected, see below). Yeah, yeah, Safari, Firefox, etc. But Chrome is a better browser for me on a day to day basis. (Likelihood: 0% this year, 50% next year?)
6. Internal LTE or 5G modem. Yes, pairing with my phone is fine, but baked in connectivity is next level convenient. For some reason I trust AT&T or Verizon over sketchy airport / coffee shop wifi. (Likelihood: 1% this year, 50% next year?)

And here are things I don’t care about at all:

• Ports. I really don’t care. I don’t plug in microphones or random USB things, I don’t use a camera other than my iPhone anymore, our printer is on the wifi. Two USB-C ports would be fantastic; I’d gladly trade a port for a 12" size.
• What chip it uses. I’m sure an ARM chip could make 4, 5 and 6 possible, but I honestly don’t care what chip is inside as long as the thing is fast, gets solid battery life and has an internal LTE modem. If it makes 4, 5 and 6 more likely? Then bring on the ARMs.