I never imagined that I would be writing two posts in a row about Apple’s mistakes.  I was planning on writing mainly about my own many mistakes. It also feels really strange to be calling out Apple just a week after they announced their best quarterly results in history. But – I just saw something that I wish was unbelievable. Unfortunately, it’s not.

Apple’s new big idea:  make the MacBook Air thinner by removing everything that matters.

Just after writing my post about Apple making the iPhone 6 so thin that there’s no room for a decent battery, I came across this story in 9to5Mac about the new “MacBook Stealth” that makes me believe that Apple is now going to squeeze the (battery) life out of the next MacBook Air. If this product-leak is accurate, Apple is eliminating over 30% of the thickness of this already vanishingly thin laptop.  I fear that, with this new ultra-thin MacBook Air design, Apple might get the battery life down to 2 or 3 hours.  They already made that mistake with the iPhone 6, making is so thin that there’s no room for an all-day.  It’s sad to see them making the same mistake again so quickly.  But this time, since we have an advance warning, maybe there’s time to fix this if MacBook Air fans apply some well-needed pressure on the company.

Here’s an artist’s rendition of the before and after:

I’m writing this post on my 2012, 11” MacBook Air, that I kinda liked (that is, until I upgraded the OS to Yosemite, which has been a total nightmare, but that’s another story).  It has lots of problems, but thickness isn’t one of them.  Here’s what I hate.  The battery lasts only 4-5 hours, often much less.  To try to get somewhere near Apple’s claimed 8-9 hours, I recently wasted $150 to replace the internal battery with a new Apple battery, but it didn’t help at all.  Next, I spent $225 on a ChargeTech two-pound external battery with an AC outlet, since I could not find a charger with a thunderbolt connector.  (Apple owns the rights to that connector spec, and they are apparently unwilling to license it to third parties.)

The second thing I hate is that I have to carry not only this heavy battery, but also a ziplock bag full of proprietary dongles so that I can indulge in such extravagances as connecting my MacBook to the wired internet, or to conference room monitors.  All-in, I spent over $500 on 3+ pounds of extra crap, just to get my $2,000 MacBook hardware on par with a $900 Windows laptop.  My MacBook Air now has a whopping effective weight of over 5 pounds.

The Stealth article also reports that Apple is taking away all of the standard connectors except the headset jack in this rabid pursuit of thinness. No standard USB ports, no Thunderbolt port, not even a power connector.  All of that is being replaced by a single “USB 3.0 Type C connector”.  So it looks like the MacBook Air 2015 will require road warriors like me to add a “USB 3.0 Type C hub” to their collection of “travel accessories.”  That is, if this crap-pack of goodies is available at any price. I have scoured Amazon.com and it looks like this hub has not yet been invented.  How to add a much-needed external battery to this anemic laptop may remain a mystery for some time.

Earth to Apple:

Really…? You’re better than this. You don’t need a Steve Jobs to be smarter than this. A $200 ChromeBook now comes standard with an all-day battery and USB ports to connect it to the real world. That’s $200 for the whole thing, not just the accoutrements that would-be MacBook Stealth buyers have to add to this stripped bare MacBook Air to try to make it useful.  A more appropriate code-name for this Mac might be the “MacBook RyanAir.”  (For those who don’t know, RyanAir is known for offering low air fares in Europe by charging separately for everything imaginable — a diet Coke, water, boarding pass printing, carry-on bags, window seats, aisle seats — pretty much everything costs extra.)  At least RyanAir offers value to the consumer in the form of a lower price, in exchange for yanking out every useful feature/service.  Apple gives us “thinness” instead of value.

A simple solution to Apple’s over-arching problem:  Beta testing instead of secrecy

When I started writing this blog series I promised that I wouldn’t complain about something without offering a solution to the problem. So here’s what I recommend to Apple:  start beta testing your products with real MacBook users, so that they can tell you when you’re veering off the rails.  Leak some of the specs on purpose, so that smart people can give you free feedback.

Unlike the rest of the technology world, you have eschewed beta testing in favor of pre-launch secrecy for a very long time.  With Steve leading the charge, you could get away with this.  Steve didn’t really need outside input to deliver amazing new products.  His intuition wasn’t perfect (antenna-gate, the maps fiasco, screen size myopia …), but he very often got it right.  More importantly, Steve could prevent you from shipping crappy products — by berating the would-be perpetrators and/or using his omnipotent veto power.  Sadly, Steve is gone now and it’s clear that you don’t have anyone with the right combination of product savvy, common sense, clout, and balls to play this part of his role, the part that he played so well.

Sadly, Steve is gone now, but so is the need for secrecy, at least for your current product lines (Mac, iPhone, TV, Watch).  You may still want to keep a brand new product under wraps (such as a Sonos-like product or an Amazon Echo competitor or an Apple car).  But, for the rest of your products, all you need is hardware parity with the Windows guys, since your software is so much better than theirs.  Any value that your getting for maintaining secrecy on your mainstream product lines is vastly dwarfed by the harm that your inbred product teams is causing to your customers.

PLEASE — let some of the more skeptical/vocal among the Apple faithful review and test each new product before deciding to build it.  Swear us to secrecy if you must, but do let us help you.  We can and will tell you about the product foibles and pain points that turn up during daily use of products that don’t deserve to bear the Apple brand.  The only people upon whom you can rely upon do this well are smart people who happen to use your products for many hours each day, or at least as long as your battery life permits.

Here’s what would you would likely hear from beta testers about your new MacBook.

• First, and happily, you’ll hear that we LOVE the idea of getting a 12” screen in the same form factor as the current 11” MacBook Air. That would be awesome!  Some of us frequently travel by air, and the 11″ MacBook Air is the only MacBook that can be used in coach with a decent viewing angle and  reduced fear that the person in front of you will suddenly fling his seat back and crack your screen.
• We will tell you that the current MacBook Air is not too thick. Really – it’s just fine the way it is.
• You’ll hear that we will hate it if you steal all of our USB ports.  We need those ports to connect/recharge our other portable devices, to connect to the wired internet, to connect to external projectors and monitors, and for other purposes that we don’t think are frivolous.
• You’ll hear that we would kiss you on the lips if you gave us a 10-hour battery in the MacBook Air!  If you’re able to free up room by miniaturizing the internals using your magic, please use that room to add a bigger battery!  We bought this thing because we wanted portability, meaning that we’re using it in places where we can’t easily plug it in.  We want to use it all day!  That’s a good thing, not a bad thing, for Apple.  We want to more of our day using your products, and we don’t understand why you seem so committed to prohibiting this.

Oh…one more thing.

You’ll also hear that would be insanely great if you enable real users test the next MacOS version by upgrading MacOS on their “legacy hardware” before you ship it.  This way you won’t take us through another painful exercise like the Yosemite debacle (that is still on-going as of this writing in February, 2015).  As you know, there is little near-term risk of losing your loyal MacBook Air users to the Microsoft Surface because it runs Windows, which is still worse than Yosemite, though not by much at this point. But you do run the risk of us moving to the ChromeBook if you keep ignoring our needs.  Most people don’t yet know that the ChromeBook is a better fit than a Mac for a majority of laptop users because of the price point and the simplicity.  It just works.  I don’t think you should count on that staying a secret much longer.

Apple is still the pride of the American high-tech industry.  Let’s keep it that way!

Team Apple:  You simply must find a way to stop shipping crappy products with foolish specs that don’t meet your customers’ needs.  Steve’s legacy, your own legacies, and your continued success depend upon this.  Imagine what’s going to happen when all of those new iPhone customers you recently added find out that the “6” in iPhone 6 refers to the 6-hour battery life.  It’s not going to be pretty.  So, please stop resting on Steve’s laurels and get back to shipping insanely great products rather than products that are more insane than great.  We still very much want you to continue to win.  Do you part by enlisting our help, and will try hard to prevent the kind of screw-ups that you’ve recently been making at such an alarming rate of speed!  Seriously, call me and I’ll drive down there to help.  No charge.  In the meantime, I’ll be using my new Chromebook when I travel.

‘Nuff said.  It’s almost lunchtime, and my MacBook Air just told me that it’s done for the day: