This story is part of WWDC 2022, CNET’s complete coverage from and about Apple’s annual developers conference.
Apple’s new M2-powered MacBook Air adds a lot of new features, but it also brings back my least favorite: The laptop’s starting price is over $999.
For much of its life, the MacBook Air sat at a comfortable $999, but in 2018 a redesign bumped up the price by $200. By 2020, the starting price was back to $999, and I felt that things were as they should be.
Guess what? It’s now 2022, and with another redesign, the MacBook Air starts at $1,199… again.
I harp on this just because that significant jump for a very mainstream laptop will put it out of reach for many of the students and artists who could get the most out of it. Other than that, I do like just about everything else about the new version. It’s also worth noting the late-2020 M1 MacBook Air remains available, for now, at $999.
Watch this:
Hands-On With Apple’s New M2 MacBook Air
5:57
After Monday’s WWDC 2022 keynote, I had a chance to get some limited hands-on time with the new MacBook Air. It wasn’t a lot of time, so I focused mostly on the new physical design and how the system looked and felt.
The M1 MacBook Air, one of the first sets of Macs to move from Intel to Apple Silicon, is not a bad-looking machine, but it’s based on a design that launched in 2018, which is approximately forever ago in computer terms. The new version moves from the traditional soft, tapered design to the boxier, blockier look of the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro laptops from late 2021. It’s a more modern, more constructivist design (in that it largely rejects decorative stylization).
But the new MacBook Air goes beyond the Pro models it copies in one important respect: It adds a new color to the usual gray and silver (and the M1 Air’s gold) — a new Midnight color, which appears as a matte-black finish. It’s hands-down the most striking new MacBook look in a long time, and reminds me of the old matte-black polycarbonate MacBooks of the mid-2000s.
Its footprint is a hair smaller than before, as is the weight, at 2.7 pounds versus 2.8 pounds for the M1 MacBook Air. But the new model felt even smaller and more portable than that when I picked it up — largely because it’s thinner, at 11.3mm. The M1 version tapers down, but it measures 16mm at the rear hinge.
The new M2 MacBook Air isn’t going on sale until July, so it may be some time before I’m able to give it a more in-depth, hands-on testing. I’m especially eager to see how its 1080p-resolution webcam works, which is probably the single most important upgrade for a lot of people who’ve tired of the never-great 720p webcam in previous MacBook Air laptops, up to and including the M1 version.
I’m also very interested in spending more time with the new, slightly larger 13.6-inch screen (versus 13.3-inch), which Apple says is 25% brighter, at 500 nits. It also adds MagSafe, which returned in last year’s new MacBook Pro systems, and its touchpad is, according to Apple, slightly larger, but it wouldn’t put a number or percentage on it.
Interestingly, almost none of these improvements are available in the new 13-inch MacBook Pro, also announced at WWDC 2022. It lacks the larger screen, better camera, MagSafe connection and new colors. It’s, on paper at least, the exact same as the late-2020 13-inch MacBook Pro, just with the new M2 chip replacing the M1. It does, however, remain the only way to get your hands (or fingers) on the nearly extinct Touch Bar.
Well, that was quick. On May 18, a respected industry insider predicted a new display technology for the iPad Air that’s expected in the coming days—Apple just announced its latest special event.
The new 12.9-inch iPad Air, the report claimed, would have the same miniLED backlighting currently found on the larger iPad Pro, using the leftover inventory from the current Pro as that model switches to OLED. That was exciting news.
But now, Ross Young, the analyst who made the claim, has changed his mind. The new prediction, shared with paid subscribers only, is that the miniLED technology won’t be coming to the iPad Air, in either size.
While it made sense that the inventory could be maximized in this way, it now “makes sense” that it won’t.
Young says that while he’d heard from supply chain sources that it would, he’d now had contact from “even more supply chain sources” that it won’t.
And the reason this change of heart now makes sense is that this miniLED technology is expensive, so it would be surprising if it made it to the iPad Air, which is more affordable than the Pro.
That’s not quite all the analyst shared. He also said that there are now reports of a new iPad coming later in the year. This is a 12.9-inch iPad, with miniLED backlighting and it could arrive between October and December this year.
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This is intriguing. What could it be? Assuming that the iPad Pro and iPad Air are released in May, it’s extremely unlikely either will be updated later in the year. And if the iPad Air isn’t pricey enough for miniLED to be included, what tablet could Apple be introducing that is the same size as the bigger Pro, with a pricey screen tech, which would sit between the Air and the Pro, it seems?
Young is highly reliable, but this seems slightly preposterous to me. The only other iPad in the range due a refresh is the regular iPad (at 12.9-inches, the iPad mini is clearly out of the picture) and that doesn’t seem likely either.
It seems to me that any regular iPad will almost certainly have the same screen size as now, 10.9 inches. The regular iPad only grew to this size screen in the current generation, and Apple almost never changes designs after one iteration.
Perhaps things will become clearer as the year goes on.
A Calgary woman who abused her sick, 77-year-old father was “overwhelmed” at the task of caring for him, a judge heard Wednesday at a sentencing hearing.
In January, Tara Picard, 52, pleaded guilty to charges of assault and failing to provide the necessaries of life after her father (whom CBC News is not naming) was found injured on a basement floor, where he’d been lying for two days.
On Wednesday, prosecutor Donna Spaner and defence lawyer Shaun Leochko asked the judge to allow Picard to serve her sentence in the community under conditions as part of a conditional sentence order.
Justice Indra Maharaj agreed to a two-year conditional sentence for Picard followed by a year of probation.
“There is no doubt she became overwhelmed,” said Spaner in her submissions. “There is no question Ms. Picard has remorse.”
Leochko told the judge that caring for her father “was really more than [Picard] could handle.”
Maharaj heard that Picard is Indigenous and was the victim of abuse growing up. She lives in a sober dorm-style facility and is working with a mental health and addictions navigator, according to Leochko.
As part of the sentence, Picard must complete 300 hours of community service.
Justice Maharaj commended Picard for “taking that on.”
“That shows me Ms. Picard sincerely does recognize what has happened here,” said the judge.
“What I interpret from that is Ms. Picard’s willingness to give back to her community.”
During Picard’s plea, court heard that in November 2021, Picard and her father fought over his drinking.
The victim suffers from a number of medical issues, including diabetes, heart disease, dementia and alcoholism.
At the time, home-care registered nurses were assigned to help provide supplementary care.
Nurses found the victim wearing a soiled adult diaper and suffering from two black eyes with blood on his head.
He told the nurses who discovered him that he’d been there for two days.
Picard admitted she knew her father had fallen and she had “administered a number of physical blows.”
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Leaving her elderly father on a basement floor for two days in a soiled adult diaper won’t mean jail for a Calgary woman.
Justice Indra Maharaj accepted a joint Crown and defence submission on Wednesday for a two-year-less-a-day conditional sentence order for Tara Picard to be followed by 12 months of probation.
Prosecutor Donna Spaner and defence counsel Shaun Leochko proposed a community-based term which will include eight months of 24-hour house arrest followed by a nightly curfew for the second eight months.
Maharaj also agreed with the lawyers to order Picard to commit 300 hours of community service over the length of the three-year sentence.
The Calgary Court of Justice noted that amount of community-service hours was “a lot” to commit to.
But Maharaj said it showed Picard, 52, was truly remorseful for her conduct towards her father, whom Postmedia is not identifying because of the embarrassing nature of the facts of the case.
“What that shows me is Ms. Picard does sincerely recognize what has happened here,” the judge said of her willingness to complete community service.
“What I interpret from that is Ms. Picard’s willingness to give back to the community.”
Picard pleaded guilty in January to charges of assault and failing to provide the necessaries of life to her 77-year-old father.
Court heard caregivers found the elderly Calgary man on the basement floor of his daughter’s southeast home wearing a soiled adult diaper.
At the time, Picard was responsible for her father’s day-to-day care after he was moved to her residence, Spaner, reading from a statement of agreed facts, told court at the time.
“He had a number of medical ailments, including non-insulin dependent diabetes, coronary artery disease, some early onset dementia-like symptoms and chronic alcoholism,” Spaner said.
“(He) had been living independently in a Calgary apartment building. Family members became concerned that he was not caring for himself safely.”
With the help of Alberta Health Services he was moved to a home where Picard resided.
A registered nurse assigned to his care attended the 38 Street S.E. home on Nov. 15, 2021, to drop off food bank supplies for him and was told he was sleeping downstairs.
When the nurse called about an hour and a half later and spoke to the man on the phone he said he was lying on the floor, had fallen and was unable to get up.
When she returned to the home with a co-worker she found the victim lying on his back on the floor.
“(He) said that he had been lying on the floor for two days,” Spaner said.
Leochko said Picard was overwhelmed by the situation she was thrust into.
“It really was more than she could handle,” he said.
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