A MacBook 12 Retina that didn’t work out.
I bought a used MacBook 12 Retina in November 2022 because I’ve always wanted one. The screen had a problem. The keyboard was worn. The space bar needed a positive click. The screen went haywire. It was not going to last past the 90-day return window.
The MacBook 12 is a beautiful machine — smallest full-featured laptop Apple ever made, Retina display, fanless, extremely light. It’s also from 2015–2019 and the keyboards are known to be trouble. I knew this. I bought it anyway.
The thing about a journaling device is that it needs to vanish. You need to stop noticing that it’s there. The keyboard in your hands, the screen in front of you — they should become invisible, the way a good pen becomes invisible while you’re writing. The moment you’re thinking about the tool, you’ve stopped thinking about what you’re writing.
The MacBook 12, unfortunately, made itself very visible. The sticky space bar was always there. The screen issues were always there.
I prefer the iPad for journaling now. The keyboard is more reliable, smaller, lighter, faster in practical terms. It vanishes better.
I’ve been through a lot of journaling devices over the years: the Newton, the HP palmtops, various Powerbooks, the original iPhone. Each one was the thing until it wasn’t, and then I moved on.