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Apple Apparently Cancels Plans for Two New MacBooks

boswald said:
I want to see an OLED panel in person before I make up my mind, but if they're anything like I've been hearing about then I'm prepared to be blown out of my socks. At the very least I wish my M5 Air had 120hz. 🙁
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I tend to watch a lot of video on my MBA and I'd so love an OLED panel option.

I totally realize not all prefer it, and thus I wish they'd allow BTO screen options.
 
I am just getting increasingly frustrated that screen tech that was, essentially, already standard on the PS Vita in 2011, for absolutely obtainable money, fifteen years later still seems to require several scientific break-throughs on the part of Apple to include even on their most high-end laptops. Perfected, bla bla bla - plenty of others are doing it since ages, Apple had more a DECADE to get it done, and has it on their iPad Pro line since the M4. BOM matters nothing anyway if they could just offer it as a selectable option for extra money like they do with the nano-texture option. "Nano-texture Tandem OLED", selectable option for $300 more, done. Nope, the Chief Customer Frustration Manager sends their regards.
 
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Daniel Alvarez Arribas said:
I am just getting increasingly frustrated that screen tech that was, essentially, already standard on the PS Vita in 2011, for absolutely obtainable money, fifteen years later still seems to require several scientific break-throughs on the part of Apple to include even on their most high-end laptops. Perfected, bla bla bla - plenty of others are doing it since ages, Apple had more a DECADE to get it done, and has it on their iPad Pro line since the M4. BOM matters nothing anyway if they could just offer it as a selectable option for extra money like they do with the Nanotech option. "Nanotech Tandem OLED", selectable option for $300 more, done. Nope, the Chief Customer Frustration Manager sends their regards.
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Thank you! YES! ☝️

Just offer BTO screen options please.

This is absurd to be coming up on 2027 and still have no OLED Macs.
 
deconstruct60 said:
Ternus was in part behind the TouchBar and the butterfly keyboard . Adverse to gimmicks is a huge stretch.
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and he started out in VR.....
Who knows whats going on in Apple [Gurman only knows what they want him to know], but I would assume they are not disbanding work on AR glasses [which will use VisionOS and the VP tech].
 
Daniel Alvarez Arribas said:
I am just getting increasingly frustrated that screen tech that was, essentially, already standard on the PS Vita in 2011, for absolutely obtainable money, fifteen years later still seems to require several scientific break-throughs on the part of Apple to include even on their most high-end laptops. Perfected, bla bla bla - plenty of others are doing it since ages, Apple had more a DECADE to get it done, and has it on their iPad Pro line since the M4. BOM matters nothing anyway if they could just offer it as a selectable option for extra money like they do with the nano-texture option. "Nano-texture Tandem OLED", selectable option for $300 more, done. Nope, the Chief Customer Frustration Manager sends their regards.
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its called - How to make more money. Create a desirable product and restrict options to the higher cost model.
 
visualseed said:
And less than two years later, Jobs introduced the G4 Cube, which effectively marked the end of this strategy.
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Importantly, it was Gil Amelio who thought of the original image too. Jobs just executed the strategy that was in play after Amelio was shown the door.
 
On top, restricting the MacBook Air – which easily runs into the $2K range – to 60 Hz in 2026, is just an extra middle finger to everyone. Including 120 Hz as standard would be a very minor position on the BOM, if at all. Large desktop panels for less than $100 include it, and that is total price. And even if they do not make it standard, they could do a "120 Hz screen" (non-OLED) selectable option, charge $200 more, done. Apple themselves have it standard on the base iPhone now. Which even has OLED. If they are unhappy about differentiation, move the Pros up to 240 Hz or higher – easily doable with existing tech, and long overdue anyway. But no, 120 Hz have to stay premium, screw everyone else.

The likely reason why Apple is not offering these kinds of selectable options is that it would prompt you into thinking about the device in terms of its individual features, thereby making it more comparable and less iconic. Apple's marketing has taken the practice of restricting variants to an absolute art, down to the color palette. It's like having to buy a car model in one of three colors that the manufacturer selects for you every year, and they do it ruthlessly.

Plus, in the purchase funnel, the mere existence of such option would be an undesired reminder to everyone, of how absolutely outdated and artificially held back the baseline configuration is. Nano-texture being a tolerated exception, because they found a way to reword "matte" to sound special and non-essential to those not in the know, and upsell Pro users twice by coercing them to select the highest-end configuration first.

Give little, charge more, shrinkflate and ******tify. Consistency avoids it catching the eye too much.
 
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Daniel Alvarez Arribas said:
I am just getting increasingly frustrated that screen tech that was, essentially, already standard on the PS Vita in 2011, for absolutely obtainable money, fifteen years later still seems to require several scientific break-throughs on the part of Apple to include even on their most high-end laptops. Perfected, bla bla bla - plenty of others are doing it since ages, Apple had more a DECADE to get it done, and has it on their iPad Pro line since the M4. BOM matters nothing anyway if they could just offer it as a selectable option for extra money like they do with the nano-texture option. "Nano-texture Tandem OLED", selectable option for $300 more, done. Nope, the Chief Customer Frustration Manager sends their regards.
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So they should have switched to OLED (or even worse, provide it as a paid option) when that was (until recently) an inferior choice compared to the current mini-LED of the MBP? At least, for the main use cases of the MBP.
 
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zarmanto said:
That has never been the way that Apple operates. It's a standard economics trade-off: you can choose to sell more of a product at lower margins, as you're suggesting, or you can choose to sell fewer of that product at higher margins. All other factors being equal, Apple often chooses the latter -- and it appears that their bean counters (and shareholders) are happy with the results.
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So the shift revenue towards services model is dead? Selling services needs a large userbase, a large userbase needs affordable lineup.
 
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AlexESP said:
So they should have switched to OLED (or even worse, provide it as a paid option) when that was (until recently) an inferior choice compared to the current mini-LED of the MBP? At least, for the main use cases of the MBP.
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Almost 🙂 My comment was specifically about offering it as a selectable option. So customers can select what they consider better, and pay extra money if they chose so (to sidestep the whole debates of "universally better" or "cost-effective across use cases").

Still, this is concerning tech that Apple themselves more than two years ago upgraded on the iPad Pro while touting it as better, and reviewers responded with accolades pretty much across the board. So going along that logic, I am tempted to believe that there is something to it, at least for a large category of people.
 
I don't know if anyone else has mentioned it, but this change sounds like a change executed by the new CEO. Like, one of his first moves as CEO: Cancel a giant touchscreen foldable MacBook Pro (an expensive a very niche device), and instead, keep the MBA lineup as is (the assembly chain has already been paid off and is working well), and add another prosumer tier like we read in the previous leak, sort of a slightly bigger, OLED MacBook Air?
 
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dannyyankou said:
I wonder if John was the one who made this decision. He doesn’t seem to like gimmicky things, like Vision Pro.
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" Reporting suggests that a larger, roughly 18- or 20-inch foldable iPad/Mac hybrid device has been in the works for years. At one point it was believed to be coming as early as 2026 before later being pushed to ..." 2028.https://9to5mac.com/2026/09/03/apple-has-reportedly-canceled-innovative-product-that-was-ternus-priority/

The foldable iPhone is on track to being an extremely expensive phone. An even larger foldable screen would just be all the more more expensive for an iPad or even a "macbook". With non-screen materials costs going up then Ternus have killed it. However, since he was pushing the idea up hill for years it wasn't because he didn't like it. Just not practical. ( and if it tanks and kills the stock that is lots more of his potential income that will disappear now. )
 
Cervisia said:
So the shift revenue towards services model is dead? Selling services needs a large userbase, a large userbase needs affordable lineup.
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I never said anything of the kind. The large userbase you're looking for is already in place -- and (sadly) that has practically nothing to do with the Mac.

MacRumors said:
aapl-1q26-pie-chart.jpg

Article Link: Apple Reports Record-Setting 1Q 2026 Results: $42.1B Profit on $143.8B Revenue
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Those iPhone sales are the userbase. Even at that -- Apple's mind boggling iPhone revenue figures still did not come at the expense of their preferred sales methodology; the margins on iPhones range from 30% to 50%, depending upon the model. Contrast that with the Android market, where while high-end models can match Apple's margins, low-end handsets sometimes sell for as low as zero percent net margins. As we all know, Apple doesn't even make a passing attempt to "compete" with low-end Androids; and arguably, even when they sell last year's model at a discount, (ignoring the fact that those are still "high-end" compared to cheap Androids) the margins on those sales actually go up.
 
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In better pre-RAMageddon times, this folding MacBook/iPad thing would have been a nice experiment. Remember 10-15 years ago how lots of PC manufacturers made "executive notebook" models? This fits in with that notion before the RAM shortage started to make product diversity more untenable. So this goes on the shelf for now. I would not be surprised if Ternus wants to have bunch of these to suss out which becomes the new Air/Pro/Neo/etc. Not that long ago Jobs sacrificed the iPod mini to make way for the iPod nano. Now's not the right time. The current MacBook Air is already in its 4th revision. It's probably mid-cycle at this point.
 
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