[psmith2.0]

Just saw this at MacRumors (first time I've visited the site in about 3-4 days, so I'm seeing all kinds of stuff this morning).

Apple to Unveil 13-inch M2 MacBook Pro With Unchanged Design Next Month, Claims Original MacBook Pro 'Notch' Leaker

Looks like they're going to keep that 13" mid-range model around, at least for a while longer. No word on if they're going to tweak the name/positioning, but they really should. It's a "MacBook" at this point, so maybe, hopefully, they'll start to call it such.

I just know I'd hate to work at an Apple store or third-party reseller, trying to explain the whole 13" vs. 14", $800-gap "well this is a MacBook Pro, but so is that...it's $800 extra and slightly more bigger, so it's $800 worth of more Pro-ness!" thing to a customer, as they stare at me in total confusion/disbelief.

It's just easier to go "...and for $1,299, we have the new MacBook. This is basically the default, mid-range Apple notebook...as you can see, it's not as light and thin as the MacBook Air we just looked at, but it offers a bit more battery life, a slightly brighter display, better speakers/mic specs, a TouchBar and new, next-generation M2 processor. And, unlike the Air, it has a fan so you should be able to lean into it a bit more, doing some heavier lifting for longer periods. It sits nicely between the Air and the Pro models, and is a solid choice for all but the most demanding professionals who truly need all the power they can get. And if that's you, then let me show you the MacBook Pro models, which start at $1,999...".

It all makes a little more sense, three distinct tiers/naming (if they're going to continue offering three distinct models).

[chucker]

"So, these are the M1 Macs with the M1 Max…"

[kscherer]

Even with the M2, I still cannot find a reason for this computer to exist.

[psmith2.0]

Originally Posted by chucker "So, these are the M1 Macs with the M1 Max…"

I can't help how they name shit. Maybe Apple should hang posters/graphics in their stores that break this stuff down a little better. Because I halfway follow this stuff and even I need to sometimes stop and go "okay, what a minute...". I can't imagine what a regular person who doesn't hang out at sites like this must be thinking.

At some point, going to Apple.com to order a new Mac will be the confusing, needlessly cluttered/complex and flaming pain-in-the-ass it is to do so at Dell.com.

Originally Posted by kscherer Even with the M2, I still cannot find a reason for this computer to exist.

And they may not, once this rumored redesigned M2-based Air (or whatever it's called) debuts?

But maybe they should've been putting all their effort into releasing that next month, alongside the iPhone SE and new iPad Air, instead of a model nobody here can fully figure out or justify at this point.

I don't know why they do the stuff they do.

A redesigned Air (or whatever) but with a fan could absolutely fill that $999-1,599 space just fine. No need whatsoever for that $1,299 13" MacBook "Pro" if/when that ever comes to be. I do think that Air, being fanless, makes for a larger gulf between it and the $1,999+ MacBook Pro, and maybe, for now, they want something a bit more capable in that $1,299-1,499 range that can stand a bit of extra workload that a fanless Air might struggle with? All they have to do is put a fan back in that entry-level model. IMO, "fanless" isn't a bragging point if, at some point while just doing your normal work, things have to throttle back or you face any sort of negative/compromise as a result. I think people would rather have a notebook that is all it can be, with no "yeah, but if you push it too hard..." catches/caveats. I'll take a whisper of fan "noise" over worrying about cooking my laptop (or experiencing dialed-back performance). That's one of those "nobody asked for this" things, IMO. I don't recall any widespread squawking about the fan noise of the pre-M1 MacBook Air. It's more like Apple did it as a design/engineering parlor trick/spec sheet bragging vs. real-world use.

That 13" Pro, even if it gets renamed, may be on its final legs and, for now, it's easy enough to drop an M2 in the existing design/chassis for another 6-9 months until the redesigned Air (non-Pro) model is released? At which point, maybe this weirdo 13" "Pro" finally goes bye-bye?

Their timing/priorities just seem weird sometimes because I believe I would've prioritized the design/manufacturing of a next-gen, M2-based Air replacement instead (called MacBook and covering that same price/performance range the current Air and 13" MacBook Pro cover), and putting that out into the world at this upcoming March event.

"Do you want a $999-1,799 (depending on BTO/upgrades) M2-based MacBook, perfect for damn-near everyone, or do you need a $1,999+ MacBook Pro in one of two sizes and with generous processor/graphics/RAM/storage options? Pick one, we got you covered...and neither are named stupidly or in a needlessly-confusing way. You're welcome."

If you're going to have three models (as I lay out in my previous post upthread), then name/position them differently enough so there's no weird overlap/confusion. If you're going to have two models, as above, then do that. That little 13" still being called "Pro" is the problem here, and at the root of any pricing/marketing concerns. Address that - rename or outright replace - and things get a lot simpler and make a bit more sense.

They may be doing both in 2022…rename in March, replace this autumn? For whatever reason(s) the redesigned Air is taking longer than they planned and this is their mid-range stopgap in the meantime until a redesigned non-Pro notebook properly covers that space?

I think the two outstanding issues muddying up the non-Pro notebook situation is:

1) 13” model named wrong
2) Current M1 Air being fanless

So change #1 until a redesigned #2 makes its debut.

But, again, they don't check with me on this stuff.

[kieran]

I have the 13" MBP with TouchBar. It's such a solid machine, but it is in a weird spot. I got it because I like the shape of the MBP better than the MBA and the battery life was slightly better.

That being said, I'm definitely very interested in whatever the new MBA or MBA replacement is. I've read rumors of a redesigned shape and possibly colors to match the iMac, so that would be great.

I only ever do email, spreadsheets, web browsing, etc... on my laptop, so the Air would be perfect in terms of performance.

[psmith2.0]

I think it will be a strong seller. If they plan to carry over the 24” iMac styling - off white, colors, etc. - then that’s a neat return to ~20 years ago where the jellybean iMacs and toilet seat iBooks sat nicely beside each other, all fun and lickable (not my description), and screamed “for the rest of us”, while the silver/grey/graphite stuff sent a separate, different message.

Got no problem with that at all, a return to that sort of thing. Even if I didn’t go for a color, I think it nicely organizes/separates things and would be a nice change after 15+ years of (mostly) silver aluminum and Space Grey on everything.

Would I own a little off-white/orange notebook? Maybe. I’d have to see it first, but that’s true with anything I buy that costs more than $25-30.

But I also think that silver iMac looks sharp, and a notebook version of that would look nice too.

I still think they missed it by not adopting Space Grey-only as their pro color on any Mac with that word in its name. Leave silver, white and/or colors for the rest, but every pro Mac comes only in Space Grey. I think that would’ve been a great way to visually set the lines apart. No pro Mac gets colors, no consumer Mac gets Space Grey. Deal with it. Oh well.

[kscherer]

Originally Posted by psmith2.0 I think it will be a strong seller. If they plan to carry over the 24” iMac styling - off white, colors, etc. - then that’s a neat return to ~20 years ago where the jellybean iMacs and toilet seat iBooks sat nicely beside each other, all fun and lickable (not my description), and screamed “for the rest of us”, while the silver/grey/graphite stuff sent a separate, different message. Got no problem with that at all, a return to that sort of thing. Even if I didn’t go for a color, I think it nicely organizes/separates things and would be a nice change after 15+ years of (mostly) silver aluminum and Space Grey on everything. Would I own a little off-white/orange notebook? Maybe. I’d have to see it first, but that’s true with anything I buy that costs more than $25-30. But I also think that silver iMac looks sharp, and a notebook version of that would look nice too. I still think they missed it by not adopting Space Grey-only as their pro color on any Mac with that word in its name. Leave silver, white and/or colors for the rest, but every pro Mac comes only in Space Grey. I think that would’ve been a great way to visually set the lines apart. No pro Mac gets colors, no consumer Mac gets Space Grey. Deal with it. Oh well.

This. All of it.

A new Air with candy-colors and a squared design will sell like bonkers. The new Pro's are selling like bonkers — so much so that most of them are April-ish at this point.

That 13" middle thingy is dumb, and won't be any less dumb with a processor bump. Middle-of-the-road products just don't have much of a home. Honestly, I think the only place those things sell is at Apple stores and Best Buy where un-knowledgeable sales people are trained to sell people "up" where there is little to no "up". Folks like Kieran aside, there's no reason I would ever recommend the dumb things. Slightly better battery? Yep. Worth $300? The Touch Bar is dead, and pushing it is foolish at this point. Slightly brighter screen? There aren't $300 worth of things to justify the existence, IMHO. Adding the M2 will at least make it faster, but … if you actually need the performance, it still won't be the answer.

We will carry the new thing for a few months because, hey, It's New™! And people will buy it for that reason alone. Then, once the new Air is revealed, we'll intentionally sell out of the 13" Pro and not stock it any longer, because the new Air will be better, and It's New™, too.

[psmith2.0]

Well that's what I'm saying. I fully agree on the 13" MacBook "Pro". But, until something new (M2 redesigned Air, hopefully with a fan) comes along, that's their stopgap. I don't know what the holdup is on the redesigned Air (last summer all the rumors were pointing to a release in the first part of 2022, and that suddenly went away and got pushed back to "autumn" one day a few months ago.

As I've said above, I think this 13" needs to stick around as long as the fanless M1 Air is still that entry-level, non-pro model. It's confusing and clutters things, but, as I've suggested 27 million times, all Apple has to do is yank a three-letter word from its name and things sit nicely for the next 6-9 months.

I think the upcoming Air (or whatever it gets called) gets redesigned to be more like the new MacBook Pros (no, not in performance/muscle, but in "no stupid compromises related to slimness/weight", and, IMO, one of those compromises is buying something without a fan. I think that was a "because we can" thing on their part, but I'm betting this new one has one.

And, when it does, that 13" model, whatever it's called after March, absolutely has no reason to exist.

I don't think it would exist right now had Apple left a fan in the M1 Air.

I think the Air, despite loving everything else about it, is a less-than Mac because it's not going to perform as consistently, at full clip, as the $1,299 fan-equipped Pro. No, most people don't know/realize this. But I do. I would never put myself in that pickle. And there's no way I'm alone on that.

[drewprops]

There are so many details to transitioning computers, especially after a major OS bump.

A few days ago I realized that iTunes had not ported properly so I fixed that.

Last night I downloaded Lightroom (Classic) in preparation for transferring my photo library from Aperture.

Tonight I realized that all of my old-fashioned rectangular port thumb drives won't plug into the rounded USB C ports. In the short term I'm looking at a dongle or a multi-port hub. In the long term I will have to move over to USB C jump drives.

I hope that I am closing in on understanding how to use Nova as a replacement for Coda - or else Atom, using the plugins and hoping that they are safe. Extensible is fun, but scary too.



...

[psmith2.0]

I saw a SanDisk thumb drive at Office Depot that had both connectors on each end.

Am I seeing this right?

[psmith2.0]

On actual hard drives (the ports) or on little USB thumb drives? I saw them recently, but not years ago. But I rarely look at/for such thing either. I didn't know, until recently, they were a thing.

But, yeah...going forward on any new Mac, I'll just buy the kind with the new connector I guess.

[709]

Originally Posted by psmith2.0 I saw a SanDisk thumb drive at Office Depot that had both connectors on each end. Am I seeing this right?

I have a couple of these. They're a great, quick go-to between machines.

[psmith2.0]

That's what I was thinking, during this transition era when many people may have an older Mac with the rectangular port, alongside newer ones with USB C. Nice 2-in-1 device for the time being until everyone has switched over fully to C in a few more years.

[PB PM]

Originally Posted by psmith2.0 On actual hard drives (the ports) or on little USB thumb drives? I saw them recently, but not years ago. But I rarely look at/for such thing either. I didn't know, until recently, they were a thing. But, yeah...going forward on any new Mac, I'll just buy the kind with the new connector I guess.

Yes, there have been thumb drives like that for almost as long as C has been around. I wouldn’t buy any non-C devices now, A might be around now, but in 5 years, not likely. It’s a wonder it’s held on this long, given Apples history. I buy cheap $5 adapters, unless you need thunderbolt connection they work just as well as Apples solution and are smaller.

[chucker]

Originally Posted by PB PM A might be around now, but in 5 years, not likely.

Well, cars, airplanes, hotels, etc. will have it for like another decade or two.

[psmith2.0]

Yeah, I wasn't even thinking about that! All that stuff isn't going to change soon.

[kscherer]

The non-Apple industry will hang onto legacy tech as long as possible. Decades, if need be. Anything new costs money through new equipment, R&D, and learning new skills. People are naturally resistant to all of these things. Thus, the old USB-A standard has hung on for 25+ years. VGA still pops up as the cheap-ass default on cheap-ass displays. HDMI still shows up on pretty much everything because vastly superior tech is more expensive, especially to price-conscious consumers with tons of legacy dust-collection devices loitering amongst the shelves.

The vast majority of modern consumer electronics devices are handicapped by old connection standards, and I give Apple credit for trying (fruitlessly, in many cases) to usher in better connection standards as quickly as possible. Still, consumer desire to hang onto old tech is plainly evident, as the marching-backwards ports on the new MacBook Pro's indicate. We would rather hog-tie a state-of-the-art computer than invest $30 in a new cable.

Whether it be ADB, Firewire, Thunderbolt, or a host of others, any attempt to upend the legacy connection standards adopted by a fickle and cheap industry are going to remain with us until the Thunderbolt 3/USB-C standard (or an equivalent) is adopted across the board, replacing the myriad other connectors (many of them proprietary) that currently splatter themselves across every PC, every TV, every monitor, every auto, every stereo, and every other electronic thing in existence. We know with certainty that, when Apple's hand is forced backwards, the entrenched standards are going to win out, especially when leader-of-the-pack tech nerds demand 50-year-old headphone connectors on modern phones.

If the entire industry could get itself settled onto one connector for everything, the tech world would improve overnight. In fact, I now look forward to apple ditching the Lightning connector in favor of USB-C. It appears they're going that way, and I've already prepared myself for the immense whine-fest that will come with it.

[psmith2.0]

All the "standards" really aren't, are they?

About the time everyone agreed on some mythical unicorn connector, someone would come out with something better, faster, etc.

Hey, I'm just glad SCSI is nowhere in the mix (or my future). Holy smokes, that was a slog, back in the day. Those stupid little numbers, you had to connect everything just right, wasn't hot-pluggable (or un-pluggable) and you could always count on some weird gremlin or pain-in-the-butt part of the chain to act up when you needed it the least. I used to take magazine files (QuarkXPress(!) documents and all the accompanying bundled art files) to the FedEx terminal of John Wayne Airport in Orange County back in the 90's so they could be at the East Coast printer the next day. Putting all that stuff onto SCSI-based Syquest drives would take up a sizable chunk of deadline afternoon, just putzing around with everything and hoping there wasn't some copy error/glitch/corruption. I hated that part of the month...I knew to take lunch early that day and to just allow for some mid-afternoon tail-chasing... and then driving down the 405 (in SoCal evening rush hour traffic...6-8 lanes of either 5mph or 88mph, one of the two ) so I could get the package dropped off in time. Now I just email/upload everything. The mid-90's were brutal for this kind of stuff! I can't believe the amount of hassle and horseshit we used to put up with on the daily, pre-OS X/iEra/USB (oh, and Internet). But it was all we knew, so everyone was miserable together but didn't even really know it because the other stuff was still 3-5 years away. That's just how it was.

[kscherer]

Just imagine how great it would be if All the Things™ had one, fast, common connector!

I'm so glad for Bluetooth. Otherwise, all the car manufacturers would muck everything up with their host of proprietary connection things.

Oh, wait.

[Dr. Bobsky]

Originally Posted by 709 I have a couple of these. They're a great, quick go-to between machines.

Indeed, especially when PC builds generally only have one USB C port...

[PB PM]

Originally Posted by chucker Well, cars, airplanes, hotels, etc. will have it for like another decade or two.

Many 2021-2022 units are shipping with both, it won’t be long in vehicles either.

[chucker]

Originally Posted by psmith2.0 All the "standards" really aren't, are they?

Everything's a tradeoff, right?

Like, USB is — as it says on the tin — quite universal, especially in its new C form. It can do so many things. Which is also a bit of a curse, since not all cables do all things and not all ports do all things. Is this port Thunderbolt? OK, is this cable Thunderbolt, too?

Standardization can also slow innovation.

[drewprops]

First of all, should this be pruned into a new topic?

Second, I am pouncing on the auto angle.

USB C ports are a perfect example of how I fear the lifetime of cars are becoming reduced by computer integration.

My 2003 Honda Accord had an option for a $2000 navigation system that used DVDs to feed the system. I didn't spring for that because it seemed a stupid waste of money. I wonder what year Honda stopped supporting those systems?

Cut to now, where new cars are probably being shipped with legacy USB A ports. How will those fare in 8 years?

Will automakers offer to swap them out for you? Could these systems be made modular, so you could update systems to suit your needs? Could they turn their vehicles into rack systems, fomenting a vibrant aftermarket of car computers?

Questions. I haz many.


...

[PB PM]

As for the ports in the car thing, vehicles are built to last for the terms of a lease now, after that, auto makers don’t care what happens. Tech in cars ages quickly now, that’s the trouble with making something based completely on trends, people change vehicles as often as they buy new fashion. The chip shortages are really killing the flipper types.

With the MBP, they aren’t that different, Apple makes them to last 5-6 years. Thus the normal software support cycle. The computer is thankfully a little less trendy, the basic designs haven’t changed as much, for the better IMO.

[turtle]

It is really true. My 2016 MBP is still my daily driver and it is finally starting to feel long in the tooth. I hear the fans on it constantly now where it was easily able to handle what I threw at it when I first got it. Not so now. Software is more requirements and the system struggles just a little bit more.

I'm looking forward to upgrading, just not sure I'm ready to make the just to AS from Intel yet given my primary use cases.

[psmith2.0]

Been thinking about all this a bit, and I've come to believe a few things these past 3-5 days:

1) There's no way in hell Apple is going to update the 13" MacBook Pro with an M2, leaving all else (the naming, the Touch Bar, etc.) intact/as-is. They're just not that blockheaded, despite a few instances of evidence to the contrary over the years.

2) I believe the rumors are mixing up a few things, assuming a bit and just not making good sense.

3) I believe the M2 notebook released in the March event will indeed be a 13" model, in the form of a new MacBook, matching the styling of the 24" iMac. It may be called MacBook and start around $1,099, or even $1,199 (Apple will use the newness and M2 to justify a $100-200 bump over the current $999 Air...more on that below) or so. Something like that is far more worthy of an event appearance (along with a new iPhone, iPad, AirPods(?), etc.). Such pricing would be reasonable to expect, if it has a fan and is expected to be more capable than the Air.

4) I do think the 13" MacBook "Pro" goes away (finally), but I also think they might keep around the as-is M1 Air and possibly even knock it down to $899 for an absolute, barebones (M1/8GB RAM/256GB SSD) entry into the portable Mac realm (as the $699 Mac mini does for the desktop segment). Mac mini and MacBook Air both having names that evoke "smaller, lighter" (less than, but not in a negative...just something below the $1,000-2,000 offerings).

There's just no reason to "update" that 13" MacBook Pro and continue to confuse/annoy people with the senseless naming and Touch Bar. I trust that they've seen the light and what's been called the "Air redesign" is more of an outright replacement/addition to that $1,000-2,000 range, especially if, taking cues from the recent 14" and 16" MacBook Pro releases, it's not as sleek and chamfered as before, so calling it "Air" just seems silly. And, as I've said here before, everything in Apple's lineup is "sleek, thin and light", so "Air" doesn't mean what it did 10-12 years ago.

(but leaving the current MacBook Air, with its tapered, light design, called "Air" does make a bit of sense; and that may be their entry-level offering for a while).

But I think we're about to see a proper portable counterpart to the 24" iMac, simply called "MacBook".

I just cannot buy these rumors of the old-style 13" Pro getting any sort of under-the-hood update when the real project should be replacing it altogether. And I think that's what they've been doing.

I just think the rumors have all gotten jumbled and the talk of a "redesigned, updated Air" and an "update to the 13" MacBook Pro" are actually talking about the same thing without knowing it. I believe that $1,000+ notebook space is about to be served by something (correctly) not named "Air" or "Pro".

Just my gut hunch, this Monday morning...I think we're going to see an all-new notebook in a few weeks. We know the M2 is coming...they'll want to showcase it in something new, IMO. That whole late 2000 M1 rollout was dropping the new AS into familiar machines. But we're past that now, so I think, going forward, we're going to see (as we have with the 24" iMac and the 14"/16" MacBook Pros) new Macs redesigned from the ground up around AS, and all the older, existing designs eventually phasing out throughout the year. There's just zero impact/"wow!" of rolling out next-generation M2 stuck inside a machine nobody can figure out/understand/justify at this point. It just makes far more sense to have it be the basis of a spiffy new redesigned notebook sitting nicely in that $1,100-1,700 (with BTO/upgrades) tier, for those of us occupying that space between student/mommy blogger and high-end, demanding professional).

New processor + new design = true, maximum buzz (and $$$).




We'll soon see just how much I've botched all this...

[PB PM]

To me that would be a logical approach, in terms of the lineup. Leave the M1 as entry level for a few years, like the do with older iPhone chips in phones. That said, Apple seems to be moving away from that approach, likely because it limits use of new features that are chip dependent on new devices.

[psmith2.0]

I think the wedged M1 Air will stick around for at least another full year or so, throughout all of 2022. I doubt anything new and M2-based is going to start at $999 (would be nice), so they may want a notebook in that $899-999 space. The M1 is still perfectly usable and there's a market for a capable sub-$1,000 Mac notebook, for sure (students, writers, etc.).

A year or so from now - spring/summer 2023 - things may look a bit different, but I think they can add a new $1,100+ MacBook and hang onto the $999 (or lower) Air a tad longer. The Air is what I'd recommend to everyone I know. Even if this M2 mid-range model existed, nobody in my family or immediate circle of non-graphics software-using friends needs such a thing for surfing, Facebook, etc.

In fact, everyone I know should have their butts on a (non-Pro) iPad of some sort, IMO. But that's a whole other discussion...

[drewprops]

I honestly don't know what to expect now.

I know you're ready to see this happen.

...

[psmith2.0]

They just need to straighten/clean-up some stuff, reconsider the naming/positioning/purpose of a couple of things, etc. And approaching event would be a perfect opportunity to do so.

I have no idea what they're going to do. I think my idea/suggestions make as much sense as anything (and are better than the current scenario). We'll see. The rumors sites all say March 8...that's just two weeks from tomorrow.

No matter what, I get a new iPhone out of it.