The backs of the M1 and M3 iMac’s were very very saturated and bright. I’d subjectively call them fun. It’s the new M4 iMacs that toned down the saturation to a more muted color scheme.
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What to Expect From Apple's Rumored New MacBook With A18 Pro Chip
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I’ll be buying this. I love the MacBook 12”. It was the most compact best computer. I still use it 
I have no idea anymore how many iPads there are of the current year, and I'm shopping for an iPad Pro. That's a problem when even a savvy Apple user who frequents forums like these, now imagine a novice who might want to look at a product but doesn't know where to start.
In renaming their operating systems by year, perhaps Apple has gained awareness of the confusion in their product lineup. The next iPhone should drop the numbering system. There is no MacBookPro 7 or MacBookAir 5 or iPad Pro 4, it's just MacBookPro, MacBook Air and iPad Pro and the details of their year are in the About this Mac menu.
Perhaps I should've blamed Sculley. I was mixing up my post-Jobs-firing CEOs. I remember wanting to buy a Mac in the 90s but going through the catalogue (yes, it took an entire catalogue!) I couldn't figure out what to buy. The salesperson in the store pointed at three Windows PCs on a table and said: "good, better, best". I looked at my Dad and we went for "good". It took almost an entire decade after that for me to buy my first Mac, now in the Jobs era: I got a PowerBook 17". I can imagine a kid of the same age trying to figure out what to buy in a Tim Cook era Apple Store today.
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If the iPad Air and the keyboard had a total cost of $599 you would have a good argument.
If it’s 8Gb and $500 I’d be ok. If it’s 8Gb and $800 I’m going to lose my mind. Anywhere in between is various states of mental unrest. (Sarcastic tone) I think they could easily make it for $700 with 12 or 16gb of ram and still make bank because the SoC is *so* much cheaper. The display, battery, speakers, and enclosure will be cheaper, no TB controller. It makes sense to me for it to be $700 and 16gb.
Then again I thought the 16e was going to be $500 and have MagSafe so maybe I’m not thinking with enough cost cutting in mind.
Apple has moved away from the "i" prefix. It's _________
If Apple cleans up its product lineup with no-suffix as the entry point, Air as the middle of the road, and Pro or Ultra at the top (not either/or pick one!), then I think it'll be fine.
MacBook | MacBook Air | MacBookPro
iPhone | iPhone Air | iPhone Pro
iPad | iPad Air | iPad Pro
It gets complicated when they're on the Mac lineup
Mac mini | iMac | Mac Studio | Mac Pro - I know the order, but how could anybody intuitively tell? An iMac makes sense as the "air" but the iMac is such an established brand that I couldn't see them change.
Replace Mac mini | iMac | Mac Studio with:
Mac | Mac Air | Mac Pro
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Apple is about shareholder value. Vision and excellence are only important because they maintain or increase shareholder value. Don’t be starry-eyed and nostalgic about a corporation. The only reason Jobs was brought back in was to increase shareholder value, because shareholder value was tanking. He was brought back in by the bean-counters, and he put a bean counter in charge.
The iPad situation was getting confusing, but it’s a lot easier now. There’s the iPad, the iPad Air, and the iPad Pro. Good. Better. Best. The accessories are still confusing as each model has its own keyboard, but the Pencil is simpler than it was (Apple Pencil and Pencil Pro). iPad mini is a niche product.
Desktop Macs are mostly niche. Most Macs sold are notebooks.
Unless Apple did something really really funky with the memory controller, generally SoCs can support more or less ram than what is paired with them. If you exactly double the amount the membus stays as fully saturated as possible and you get best performance. Eg. 128 or 256 bit bus fits best with 8, 16, 32gb. 192 or 384 bit bus fits best with 6, 12, 24.
This is why you saw such weird scaling with the M3 pro Ram configs. The M3 Pro had a 3x64 (192) bit bus iirc and so needed a ram amount divisible by 3. The base amount was 3 pools of 6Gb ram each totaling 18Gb, technically an increase from the M2 pro’s 256bit 2x8Gb config.
That’s also why the membandwidth dropped with the M3 Pro, since each 64bit section added only 50Gb/s of bandwidth, the M2 Pro had 4x64bit and 200Gb/s and the M3 Pro had 3x64bit and 150Gb/s.
I don’t even know if I answered the question at this point and I probably got a number or two wrong but I think the general idea stands. Someone correct me if they see a mistake in my wording
no way theyre repurposing the MBA 2020 chassis. apple's made it clear everything is going to be boxy, look at the iphone SE -> "16E"
I hope they make this a skinny legend experience like the 12" macbook. the only thing im not optimistic about is why would they give a skinny legend experience for a cheaper price? they started the original 12" at 1299 despite being slow af.
if it's the same 13" mba chassis they can keep it. does it even make sense for them to without eating up 13" mba sales? like why would i get a 13" mba if i can get a cheaper, more colorful one? might as well opt for an older M2/M3 if i cared about more power
I hope they make this a skinny legend experience like the 12" macbook. the only thing im not optimistic about is why would they give a skinny legend experience for a cheaper price? they started the original 12" at 1299 despite being slow af.
if it's the same 13" mba chassis they can keep it. does it even make sense for them to without eating up 13" mba sales? like why would i get a 13" mba if i can get a cheaper, more colorful one? might as well opt for an older M2/M3 if i cared about more power
this would be really fun and interesting if this ran a variant of iPadOS and not macOS. macOS requires a larger footprint than iPadOS in terms of disk space and memory usage. I acknowledge taking a concrete step forward to deprecate macOS is a very big deal and can lead to customer confusion and I still think it would be really fun and interesting. “…and we call it iBook.”
I kind of agree with you. You can buy the base M4 MBA on sale for $849.....don't really see the point unless it is $250 less....especially with less RAM and without an M processor.
would be a fantastic first Mac for many people, especially students. The single-core performance is still going to be A-class, and that's really the main contributor to the 'feel' of speed on the device.
$749 + $200 for extra 8GB memory. At that point most people would simply get the M4 / M5 MacBook Air which is at $999?
Or will Apple bump the new MacBook Air to $1099?
Would be nice if they did A19 Pro instead with 12GB Memory. At $749 that would be a steal.
But it has everything to do with being a $4 trillion company in 2025 that is very very well financially funded. Apple today is very different from the financially strapped Apple of Steve Jobs. Things change as a corporation becomes very large and very successful, just like Ford no longer makes "any color as long as it is black" cars only like Henry Ford started with.
Of course they will raise the prices on the MBA if a cheaper MacBook comes out.
It's Apple we are talking about 💰😂
I realize that “i” is not in fashion right now, but it had a purpose in easily designating the entry level products. The “Air” branding was supposed to mean that it prioritizes being thinner/lighter.
We had an ultraportable just called “MacBook”, and then an entry-level tablet just called “iPad.” It’s just needlessly confusing.
I don’t care if they bring back the “i” or go a totally different route, but there absolutely should be a clear designation in each product line for the mainstream product. As the lineup sits now, the base phone is an “e,” the base Mac is a “mini,” the base tablet and watch have no designation, and the base Laptop is an “Air.” It’s needlessly confusing.
You're right - maybe the starting price will be closer to $699.
I don't predict the starting memory to be 16GB because it would be too close to cannibalizing $999 MacBook Air.
...and all software needs to be reviewed and installed from Apple's App Store.
Dystopian.