News - MacBook Air refresh rumoured to be slimmer fanless design

[HEXUS]

Also its touchpad will do away with any tactile button clicking.

Read more.

[mikerr]

Wonder how long before they release an ARM version...

[scaryjim]

On the new ultra-portable laptop clicking will be just tapping on the pad surface similar to how people interact with smartphones and tablets.

Or, indeed, how many laptop users have been interacting with their laptop touch pads for years now. With a multitouch, gesture-aware pad on my lower-end HP laptop, I can't remember the last time I used the physical buttons...

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Or, indeed, how many laptop users have been interacting with their laptop touch pads for years now. With a multitouch, gesture-aware pad on my lower-end HP laptop, I can't remember the last time I used the physical buttons...

Or just use an external mouse??

[sykobee]

Tap to click was fine, I actually dislike the "whole trackpad is a moving physical button" thing.

mikerr - Macs won't go ARM until after Apple has made it easy to generate ARM binaries for Mac applications, just like with the Intel transition. TBH I'm sure that they can do this in-house already, but the problem is the massive third-party software ecosystem that is currently targeting 64-bit x86.

[Michael H]

I think with the Air the question is when can a fast Atom processor match a slow Core iX.

As a device it's all about good enough performance with increased portability generation to generation.

[scaryjim]

Or just use an external mouse??

I have a wireless mouse, and the dongle is always plugged in to my laptop, but if I'm just firing it up to check emails quickly I often can't be bothered hunting for my mouse so just use the touchpad! Thnere's a lot to be said, particularly in devices targetting portability, for them to be as functional as possibe without any external peripherals.

But touting tap-to-click as some remarkable new feature is just plain wrong - it's been built in to many laptops for ten years or more.

[peterb]

But touting tap-to-click as some remarkable new feature is just plain wrong - it's been built in to many laptops for ten years or more.

But to be fair, this is only a rumour, it isn't confirmed, and Apple aren't actually touting anything!