MacRumors forum member Brett33 bought an "as is" MacBook Air on eBay for a selling price of $730. As it turns out, it appears the machine is actually a prototype model of Apple's MacBook Air.
After receiving the unit, Brett33 noticed that the bottom of the laptop was made of black aluminum and that the screen bezel did not have "MacBook Air" written on it. The laptop runs an interim build of Mac OS X 10.5 (8R4016).
No "MacBook Air" wording on Bezel
Black bottom (removed)
The serial number on the machine indicates that it was built in May 2007, over six months before the MacBook Air was introduced. Another poster was able to specify that this model represented "M82 PROTO2 ENC 4", based on the serial number.
Though rare, prototype Apple machines have been known to circulate.
Wednesday March 11, 2026 7:05 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Starting today, the seven new Apple products that were announced last week are available at Apple Stores and beginning to arrive to customers.
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Apple is continuing to test the iOS 26.4 beta, and the latest update is now available for developers and public beta testers. As testing goes on, there are fewer new features in each beta, but today’s release adds new emoji characters and a few other changes.
New Emoji
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Apple is planning to launch an all-new "MacBook Ultra" model this year, featuring an OLED display, touchscreen, and a higher price point, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports.
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