Looking back, why did Apple spend the time redesigning the 2019 Macbook Pro 16”?

[xxray]

It doesn’t seem very Apple-like that they released the 2019 MacBook Pro 16 was a new chassis, new cooling system, larger screen size, and new speaker system only for that chassis to only be used for that model for two years, and then another new everything in 2021.

Why do you think Apple spent the time doing this rather than just sticking with the 15” size and chassis until the 2021 Apple Silicon models? Maybe Intel’s chips ran so hot that they had no choice but to have a larger chassis and cooling system?

 

[JahBoolean]

To upsell people two years in a row

 

[theluggage]

Why do you think Apple spent the time doing this rather than just sticking with the 15” size and chassis until the 2021 Apple Silicon models?

Because the 2016 15" MacBook Pro proved to be a complete lemon and had to be replaced urgently?
It had overheating problems, battery life problems and butterfly keyboard problems (possibly exacerbated by overheating problems) that were getting very bad press. Also, "Announcing the new Macbook Pro with new, bigger display!" is better than "Announcing the new non-overheating MacBook Pro with new non-sucky keyboard!".

It was also too expensive - and although the 16" didn't drop the price it gave you a bigger screen (and, ISTR, better GPU) for the price.

Actually, the mystery is why they didn't immediately follow through with a 14" MacBook Pro (there were plenty of rumours and speculation at the time) to replace the 13". They did replace the keyboard - but maybe there were design details that meant they could do that in the 13" without re-designing the case, and (since it was using lower-powered processors) it didn't have such bad heating problems.

 

[Sterkenburg]

There has been a 2-year gap between the Intel 16" and the M1 Pro/Max 16". The reputation of their flagship laptop had been taking hits for the previous 3 years due to the issues plaguing the 2016 redesign, Apple Silicon hadn't been announced yet and in hindsight they probably knew it would take a while to get the chips for the Pro line ready. They needed a stopgap urgently.

 

[Diablo360]

Mostly for the keyboard I would guess. The previous butterfly keyboard was a disaster for them