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Apple is set to launch five new Mac machines in 2022, including a new MacBook. In a world of critically acclaimed Pro laptops and commercially successful Airs, who needs this new laptop that is stranded in the middle of Apple’s powerful pair.
Mark Gurman points out (in Bloomerg's latest edition of Power On), that as part of Apple’s slate of Mac launches in 2022, there will be a new “entry level MacBook Pro”. Assuming Taniyama-Shimura, this looks to be a replacement for the first MacBook Pro with Apple Silicon, the 2022 M1 MacBook Pro.
Apple Phil Schiller speaks about the new MacBook Pro at the Apple Developers Conference in San ... [+]
Just who is this MacBook Pro for? The new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro laptops take care of the “Pro”, while the success of the MacBook Air takes care of the consumer laptop. This feels more like Apple ticking a box in the price range, rather than delivering a genuinely useful customer experience.
With the older Intel-based MacBooks and the wide variation in performance, there was a need for a mid-range MacBook that sat between the MacBook Air and the high-end MacBook Pro. Apple has, through the power of its own silicon, managed to negate that argument.
The M1-powered MacBook Air released in 2020 offers a significant step up in processing power and potential that pretty much negated the argument for an M1-powered MacBook Pro. That an M1 MacBook Pro was released alongside it feels more like a “look nothing has changed” option to reassure the market that the MacBook Pro line-up was not being ignored.
Now we have a genuine ‘Pro’ MacBook Pro with the M1 Pro and M1 Max, you have your classic Apple triplet of good, better, best in the M1 MacBook Air, M1 Pro MacBook Pro, and M1 MacBook Pro. There’s no space in the progression of a MacBook Pro with similar power and specs to a MacBook Air.
Or is this MacBook Pro going to try and sell itself as a better machine than the MacBook Air on the strength of an SD Card reader and a MagSafe charging port?
Now read the latest iPhone, iPad, and Mac headlines in Forbes’ Apple Loop column...