Apple Executives Discuss MacBook Air Redesign and Reflect on 12-Inch MacBook

Apple's industrial design chief Evans Hankey and VP of hardware engineering Kate Bergeron recently spoke about the redesigned MacBook Air, the former 12-inch MacBook, and more in an interview with British GQ, spotted by 9to5Mac.

Hankey has fully led Apple's hardware design since Apple's former design chief Jony Ive departed the company in 2019. Ive remained a consultant to Apple through his independent design firm LoveFrom, but on Tuesday it was reported that Apple and Ive mutually agreed not to renew their contract, marking the end of a 30-year partnership.

The new MacBook Air does away with the notebook's iconic wedge-shaped design in favor of a flatter design, which Hankey described as "quite honest and simple."

"We don't really have to play any kind of games with shape or form to make it look thin," said Hankey, regarding the new design. "And I think that's one of the most lovely and remarkable things: it's quite honest and simple."

Hankey said the new MacBook Air was designed alongside the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models that launched last year. "It was the first time we ever set out to do a family of products together," she remarked.

Hankey also revealed that the MacBook Air's new Midnight finish "came from the volcanic rock Basalt," adding that her dad was a geologist.

As for the 12-inch MacBook, which Apple discontinued in 2019, Bergeron admitted that the notebook had a "polarizing" design for some people.

"It was ahead of its time, on the cutting edge of the USB-C transition and it didn't have MagSafe," said Bergeron. "There were definitely some things that we weren't able to fit into the product, because of its size."

Introduced in March 2015, the 12-inch MacBook featured a thin and light design that weighed just two pounds, and it was also Apple's first notebook with a fanless design and a USB-C port. The original model was powered by Intel's underwhelming Core M processor and introduced Apple's issue-prone butterfly keyboard design.

The new MacBook Air has some similarities with the 12-inch MacBook, including a fanless design, but the MacBook Air is still larger and heavier.

The new MacBook Air launches this Friday, with embargoed reviews of the notebook expected to be published tomorrow. In the United States, pricing starts at $1,199 for a configuration with the M2 chip, 8GB of unified memory, and a 256GB SSD.