Uhg, same ol’ traditional display and a rapidly becoming yesterdays news M2 chip……….move along folks, nothing to see here, just an ‘interim‘ device until the actual upgraded models become available.
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New MacBook Air Expected at WWDC Next Week With These Features
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So you buy a M2 this year and you buy a M3 in a couple years. You buy two times the same notebook in two years.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
This crowd practically melts down at the idea that there could be ANY M3 in a Mac before every other Mac has M2 in it.
I'm of the mind that if M3 is ready, launch it... and M4 as soon as it is ready too. However, there seems to be a great wall of people here who are extraordinarily hung up on what numbers are painted on top of chips they will likely never see.
I'll hope for M3 with anyone who dares to share such a hope. But other rumors imply that there may not be enough M3 yields yet for the most popular Mac to launch with it.
I doubt Apple cares about unsold chips that much, since they've already been paid for. The incremental cost of an M1 probably isn't that high. There's a cost to producing them, but it's not like having a bunch of x86 chips sitting around that you paid hard dollars for.
Apple's marketing department historically has been pretty good at feature/price differentiation. Here's the current lineup. These are base prices and specs:
MBA M1 13.3" -> $999
MBA M2 13.6" -> $1199
MBP M2 13.3" -> $1299
MBP M2 Pro 14" -> $1999
MBP M2 Pro 16" -> $2499
There's an obvious slot at $1599. This implies that the MBA 15 will have an M2. At any configuration the 15" MBA obviates the the 13.3" MBP, so unless the MBP 13 gets some kind of bump like an XDR display it's gone. Even now the MBP 13 doesn't make any sense, since you're paying $100 for 2 hours of battery life and a smaller screen relative to the MBA M2.
Apple's marketing department historically has been pretty good at feature/price differentiation. Here's the current lineup. These are base prices and specs:
MBA M1 13.3" -> $999
MBA M2 13.6" -> $1199
MBP M2 13.3" -> $1299
MBP M2 Pro 14" -> $1999
MBP M2 Pro 16" -> $2499
There's an obvious slot at $1599. This implies that the MBA 15 will have an M2. At any configuration the 15" MBA obviates the the 13.3" MBP, so unless the MBP 13 gets some kind of bump like an XDR display it's gone. Even now the MBP 13 doesn't make any sense, since you're paying $100 for 2 hours of battery life and a smaller screen relative to the MBA M2.
Wifi 6 @80mhz was a disgrace for both the MacBook pros M1 pro , and the MacBook air M2
That+ single nand is truly shameful of them
Especially since the ipads got 6e too
Oh and 6E being exclusive to iphone 15 pro is such a dirty upsell too
That+ single nand is truly shameful of them
Especially since the ipads got 6e too
Oh and 6E being exclusive to iphone 15 pro is such a dirty upsell too
Every week since a few months now, there is more or less the same article about this mew MacBook Air 15. Again nothing new. It’s getting a bit boring.
DisplayLink docks work. I'm sure there's some tradeoffs, but it's better than one monitor.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
In a couple of days, we will likely have the real thing with all rumors converted to facts to discuss.
Same with Goggles and maybe... maybe Mac Pro too.
This is really ridiculous. Such a hype for so long for a bit larger display in already boring notebook.
Classic Tim Cook Apple - trim the marks. Everyone can see the M3 version coming 6-9 months down, but there will be enough people who end up buying both to make this worthwhile for Apple (plus they get to use up the surplus of M2 chips)
You forgot the 13" MBP. The range should simply be two sizes of MBA and two sizes of MBP.
I'm calling $1399 or $1499. That way, speccing up to 16/512 brings you to within $100 of the 14" Pro which is the classic Tim pricing ladder.
the MacBook Air 15 is the best up-selling product we have ever created!!
Then again, sales have been rough, so they might want to deplete remaining supplies of M2 chips that are sitting on shelves.
I think this will be a top seller.
Big screens shouldn't be reserved for Pro hardware only.
And it will surely help Apple to sell all those base M2 chips that are just sitting and waiting in their warehouses.
Big screens shouldn't be reserved for Pro hardware only.
And it will surely help Apple to sell all those base M2 chips that are just sitting and waiting in their warehouses.
They have yet to update the iMac to the M2 chip.
I think they will do exactly just that at WWDC, considering they have a hard time selling those base M2 chips.
I don't see them working on another base M2 variant, when this team should be working on M3, M4 and M5 at this point.
I have a 14" MBP, which I love. BUT the base M2 Air that I have as a secondary non-work laptop, has exceeded every expectation. I could literally use it for all of my work needs but for the fact that it only allows one external display. Apple silicon power really makes light of everything that I need a computer for and the base M2 chews up my office productivity, short video editing projects, Logic Pro as easily as the M1Pro. It is remarkable.
My only thing is that I need lots of screen real estate for my world of large spreadsheets, Word documents, PDFs, email and browser tabs, but I don't need MxPro/Max CPU performance.
Insightful, as always, @Mr. Dee.
Still - I think they're missing an alternative upselling trick here. There's a niche of folks who might want a bigger screen (i.e. 15") and also external displays in a thin and light form factor. The executive Apple ultrabook if you will. They could price it accordingly i.e. as a luxury laptop for those who want the slim design, but don't need the power of the big boy CPUs. I would pay for it.
I've always been wary of this because of the performance hit and/or possible glitches.
I think the lack of dual monitor support is what is going to push me to the MBP. I don’t anticipate using those dual monitors too often, but I definitely want the option if I ever use the laptop in place of my desktop machine.
This is typical of apple though. They did the same with Apple silicon in the M1. They released the M1 in old products before redesigning products.
They want to milk as much as they can from customers...and use up existing inventory/components.
Just release this now please! We do not need to wait for this to be announced at WWDC next week.
You know, the more you wish it, doesn't make it more likely to happen.
Do you mean better PPI or resolution? Surely as the screen is larger than the 13", the resolution will be increased to keep the PPI that is needed for "Retina" quality. But it will probably be on-par, quality-wise, with the 13".
Factor in pricing that is available (given some products are older and discounted more and some aren't), any of those models you listed can be within $100 of each other, especially when you factor in the ridiculous upgrade prices from anemic base specs. Example -- MBA 15" with 16GB/512GB may very well be more expensive than a sale price on a 14" M1 Pro (or even 16" M1 Pro if that $1500 deal comes back around).
For a very long time, Apple has offered two screen sizes for each laptop line they sell.
Do you recall that it wasn't too many years ago that the MBA came in 11" and 13" screen sizes?
There was no 12” MacBook Pro. This will just confuse users. 15” MacBook Air or 14” MacBook Pro. But the air has bigger screen! It will confuse users. There were a lot of choices before Steve Jobs cleaned up the products. Doesn’t mean it’s a good thing.
I’m just massively frustrated with Apple right now with their treatment of pro users. I don’t want to hear about Airs that my parents or grandparents use. I need more pro focused items. Is it really going to be M3 before the higher end desktop systems even iMac get updated?
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I'd only be consider DisplayLink if it's as reliable as a standard display. I've wasted too much time working with cranky software. Geez, even my Anker a8384 usb-c hub flakes out so that my displays don't work until I kill power on it.
Two external monitors is a hard requirement for me.