MacBook Air Turns 15 Today: 'The World's Thinnest Notebook'

Today marks the 15th anniversary of Steve Jobs pulling the MacBook Air out of a manila envelope at the 2008 Macworld Expo in San Francisco. Apple advertised the MacBook Air as being "the world's thinnest notebook" at the time.

Steve Jobs Introducing MacBook Air 2
"We've built the world's thinnest notebook—without sacrificing a full-size keyboard or a full-size 13-inch display," said Jobs, in a January 2008 press release announcing the MacBook Air. "When you first see MacBook Air, it's hard to believe it's a high-performance notebook with a full-size keyboard and display. But it is."

The original 13-inch MacBook Air featured a flip-down tray on the right side of the machine that provided access to a single USB port, a headphone jack, and a Micro-DVI port for connecting an external display. It was Apple's first notebook with a multi-touch trackpad, no CD/DVD drive, and an SSD upgrade option. Pricing started at $1,799 in the U.S. with a 1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of RAM, and an 80GB hard drive.

Apple released a completely redesigned MacBook Air with the M2 chip last July and continues to sell an older version with the M1 chip. Given the power efficiency of Apple silicon chips, the MacBook Air is no longer equipped with a fan. While the original MacBook Air measured 0.16-inches at its thinnest point and 0.76-inches at its thickest, the latest MacBook Air has a flatter design with a uniform thickness of 0.44 inches.

Rumors suggest a larger 15-inch MacBook Air will launch this year, and the notebook is expected to be updated with an OLED display next year.

Related Roundup: MacBook Air
Related Forum: MacBook Air

Popular Stories

apple intelligence black

Report: Apple's AI Strategy Could Finally Pay Off in 2026

Tuesday December 30, 2025 9:01 am PST by
Apple's restrained artificial intelligence strategy may pay off in 2026 amid the arrival of a revamped Siri and concerns around the AI market "bubble" bursting, The Information argues. The speculative report notes that Apple has taken a restrained approach with AI innovations compared with peers such as OpenAI, Google, and Meta, which are investing hundreds of billions of dollars in data...
apple fitness 2026 1

Apple Teases 'Something Big' Coming Soon to Apple Fitness+

Tuesday December 30, 2025 2:11 pm PST by
The Apple Fitness+ Instagram account today teased that the service has "big plans" for 2026. In a video, several Apple Fitness+ trainers are shown holding up newspapers with headlines related to Apple Fitness+. What's Apple Fitness+ Planning for the New Year? Something Big is Coming to Apple Fitness+ The Countdown Begins. Apple Fitness+ 2026 is Almost Here 2026 Plans Still Under ...
maxresdefault

Hands-On With a Rough iPhone Fold Mockup

Monday December 29, 2025 10:55 am PST by
Apple is rumored to be introducing a foldable iPhone in September 2026, and since it will bring the biggest form factor change since the iPhone was introduced in 2007, curiosity about the design is high. A 3D designer created an iPhone Fold design based on rumors, and we printed it out to see how it compares to Apple's current iPhones. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more ...
maxresdefault

Where's the New Apple TV?

Monday December 22, 2025 11:30 am PST by
Apple hasn't updated the Apple TV 4K since 2022, and 2025 was supposed to be the year that we got a refresh. There were rumors suggesting Apple would release the new Apple TV before the end of 2025, but it looks like that's not going to happen now. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said several times across 2024 and 2025 that Apple would...
iphone 17 pro dark blue 1

iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max Users Report Static Speaker Noise While Charging

Tuesday December 30, 2025 10:39 am PST by
iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max owners are having trouble with the speakers of their devices, and have complained about a static or hissing noise that occurs when the iPhone is charging. There are multiple discussions about the issue on Reddit, the MacRumors forums, and Apple's Support Community, where affected users say there is a noticeable static noise "like an old radio." Some people report...
iPhone Top Left Hole Punch Face ID Feature Purple

iPhone 18 Pro Launching Next Year With These 12 New Features

Tuesday December 23, 2025 8:36 am PST by
While the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are not expected to launch for another nine months, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices. Below, we have recapped 12 features rumored for the iPhone 18 Pro models. The same overall design is expected, with 6.3-inch and 6.9-inch display sizes, and a "plateau" housing three rear cameras Under-screen Face ID Front camera in...
iOS 26

iOS 26.2 Adds These 8 New Features to Your iPhone

Monday December 22, 2025 8:47 am PST by
Earlier this month, Apple released iOS 26.2, following more than a month of beta testing. It is a big update, with many new features and changes for iPhones. iOS 26.2 adds a Liquid Glass slider for the Lock Screen's clock, offline lyrics in Apple Music, and more. Below, we have highlighted a total of eight new features. Liquid Glass Slider on Lock Screen A new slider in the Lock...
macbook air march 2020

Apple Says Final Intel MacBook Air and Apple Watch Series 5 Now 'Vintage'

Wednesday December 31, 2025 8:39 am PST by
Apple today added the final 13-inch MacBook Air powered by Intel processors, the Apple Watch Series 5, and additional products to its vintage products list. The iPhone 11 Pro was also added to the list after the iPhone 11 Pro Max was added back in September. The full list of products added to Apple's vintage and obsolete list today: MacBook Air (Retina, 13-inch, 2020) iPhone 8 Plus 128GB ...

Top Rated Comments

jdoyle Avatar
39 months ago
Maccbook Air was Classic Jobs. Incredible piece of engineering and design. 15 years later they still use the same wedge design in the M1 Chip Air.
Score: 41 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Abazigal Avatar
39 months ago

Demanding your engineers come up with an impossible solution (a powerful laptop in a package as thin as an envelope), can lead them to actually figure that that it was not so impossible after all.
The MBA concept wasn't technically impossible. It simply required tradeoffs that one normally wouldn't consider in a laptop (could you imagine a laptop without a cd-drive or ports back then?). And therein lay the irony. Nobody in their right mind would ever make those sacrifices for fear of alienating customers (try explaining to users why your product cost twice as much while lacking a lot of functionality).

Apple's strength was in their ability to tell users "We believe this one feature is worth more than every other drawback combined", and they often turned out to be more right than wrong, and people were willing to buy in to their vision. Many people preferred a thinner and lighter computer, and were perfectly willing to give up features once thought indispensable.

And the rest as we know it is history.
Score: 30 Votes (Like | Disagree)
muasachi Avatar
39 months ago
It was a truly love at first sight!
My 15 years old first-gen Macbook Air built-to-order with SSD is still working fine with Snow Leopard.
Can’t believe I spent so much back in the day.
Score: 29 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Mr Fusion Avatar
39 months ago
I owned a 2011 13” MBA. For a decade, this product line suffered from severely under-powered integrated Intel GPUs (watch an HD YouTube video and after a few minutes, the fans’ll be loud enough to drown out max volume. ?) I swore off iGPUs after that experience.

In 2022 I returned to the M2 MBA and couldn’t be happier! I’m glad Apple stuck with this design concept through the years and its paid off with creating the best laptop I’ve ever owned. ??☺️
Score: 25 Votes (Like | Disagree)
EgbertAttrick Avatar
39 months ago

I think Bill Burr's description of Steve Jobs is pretty accurate, as someone who just yells 'I want my phone, my iPod, my agenda, in THAT. Now GET ON IT!", while taking credit for all the actual hard work the engineers do.

But somehow that's still essential in breaking through boundaries. Jobs may have had unrealistic visions, and lived in a 'reality distortion field', but sometimes it turns out that those visions are not so unrealistic.

Demanding your engineers come up with an impossible solution (a powerful laptop in a package as thin as an envelope), can lead them to actually figure that that it was not so impossible after all.

Sometimes I feel this 'unrealistic' vision of Jobs is what's missing from Apple these days. Boundary breaking innovation, rather than spec bumps and improvements that almost everyone could see were possible.
He didn’t live in a reality distortion field; he created it.
Score: 22 Votes (Like | Disagree)
tranceking26 Avatar
39 months ago
I love my M1 Air.

Can only imagine how cool it must have been to see him do that in person.
Score: 21 Votes (Like | Disagree)