Still waiting for apple to re-embrace the 11 or 12inch laptop market again. The 12in Macbook was so let down by its Intel SoC, it could really shine with what they have now. Personally I think they should just shove the A18 / A17 Pro into the smallest laptop possible. My iPad Mini (2024 A17pro) is so close to being a perfect little laptop if iPad OS wasn't so limited.
Shout out to the Powerbook 12 inch for convincing me we don't need to go bigger ever again.
It'll never come from Apple at this point, if you want an 11'' device they'll sell you an iPad. But I think we're both going to be sad about the state of iPadOS for a long time to come.
imo the perfect small laptop has to have full-size keys and thus be at least ~11x5".
That rules out all iPads below the 12.9" due to their tall aspect (even in landscape).
The 11" MBA was ~12x8" and so darn near the minimum you could make it. ~11x7" should be doable but 2" is a pretty small trackpad.
imo the latest MBAs are more or less perfect: a great tradeoff of overall size vs. trackpad size. Although I actually preferred the tapered design of the M1.
Shout out to the Powerbook 12 inch for convincing me we don't need to go bigger ever again.