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The iMac hasn't come in "bright and fun" colors since 2001 😂
But if you're looking for washed-out pastels, they've got you covered!
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.
 
The main reason Steve Jobs did that was that Apple was running out of money and they needed to cut costs. Culling the product line did that and had the added effect of simplifying Apple's marketing strategy.

Today Apple can afford to address different segments of the market. While their product line has been confusing at times, they seem to be settling on a "Good/Better/Best" strategy (a classic product approach). We see that with the iPhone 16e/16/16 Pro and the iPad/iPad Air/iPad Pro. MacBook/MacBook Air/MacBook Pro would follow the same pattern, which was NOT the case in 2015 when the 12" MacBook was priced at a premium to the Air.

If cost is the primary driver, it's likely Apple would use either the existing MacBook Air casing or the M1 "wedge," likely with a straight 13" display (no "notch" to extend to 13.6"). Since the A18 Pro does not draw as much power as the M4, Apple could make the battery smaller to make it lighter.

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.
 
Except we’re not near the level of confusion the old Mac lineup in the early to mid 1990s created.

Gil Amelio was only CEO of Apple for 500 days, he inherited that mess from the tag team of John Sculley and Michael Spindler who wreaked havoc on the Apple product line from 1990-1996. Those two created all those different product lines: just look at the Performa versus a PowerMac, not much difference there right? Just branding.

Amelio pushed for the NeXT acquisition, bringing Steve Jobs back and hiring Fred Anderson as CFO. Funny enough, Jobs gets a lot of credit for quite a few initiatives that Amelio started, which included simplifying the product line and hoarding cash.

One could say, if we didn’t have Gil Amelio cleaning up the trash in Apple in those 500 days, things would be very different. He was key to bringing Jobs back to the company, no one else wanted him or NeXT. Amelio pulled off a giant financing deal with Goldman Sachs that put $661 million into Apple coffers at a time when they had less than three months to stay open; even Jobs said it was masterful and he could not have done it.

Amelio really set a sturdier stage for Jobs than what he was given. Without Amelio, there’d be no Apple.

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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I stated earlier in this thread I'd expect 8 and 16GB configs.

Worst case scenario is 8GB with swap. That's what we have today with M1/8/256.

MacBook Air may come with 16GB, but that doesn't mean MacBook will. This is similar to the expectation that A16 iPad would come with 8GB just because iPad Air did.
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.
 
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This would be the perfect time to revive the iBook — I can’t believe it hasn’t been mentioned by name yet in the comments. The old iBook actually made almost the same compromises as what’s being discussed here — it lacked FireWire and had a slower CPU compared to the PowerBooks of the time.

A $599 iBook that prioritized durability and fun colors/style would absolutely slay in the current market. Only a very small portion of Mac users utilize Thunderbolt or Multiple displays, and M1-level computing power is clearly enough for Consumer computing.

Once a new ultraportable is ready, you call that the new MacBook Air, and the naming conventions would actually make sense again. Air/Max and i/Pro are both pretty easy to understand, if Apple would just stick to using them as they were intended.

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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This has nothing about needing to be saved. Steve understood the importance of an easily distinct product line. Gil Amelio and John Sculley thought like stockholders. More SKUs more revenue. In practice in the short term that may be true, but then you become IBM or Gateway or DELL.
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.
 
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.
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.
 
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

Desktop Macs are mostly niche. Most Macs sold are notebooks.
 
With an assumed 8GB, I guess it’ll be like the base iPad and not support apple intelligence…

Something which earlier this year would’ve made everybody mad. Now no one cares.

However:

Does anyone know if the a18 pro can support more than 8GB of ram?
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
 
Careful Apple, your opening opening the door for jailbreakers to install macOS on iOS devices. :p 📱
 
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.”
 
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No reason to buy this if its anything above 599, in the price ladder a18 pro to m4 would be the most cost effective upgrade, especially if Apple releases this w 8gb ram for 699 and its only 150-200 dollars extra to get M4 and double the RAM.
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.
 
In terms of price, I'd expect $749 with edu at $679. This would be consistent with MacBook Air 13/15-inch stack pricing.

I'd expect 8GB and 16GB memory options, just because it helps Apple so much in terms of margins.

Using the 2018-2020 MBA chassis will save in dev costs. Apple saves money compared to M1 because they need a smaller heatsink, fewer voltage regulators, and smaller battery.

Honestly, I suspect a large portion of MacBook Air customers could switch to this low-cost MacBook without even noticing any difference.

$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.
 
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This has nothing about needing to be saved. Steve understood the importance of an easily distinct product line. Gil Amelio and John Sculley thought like stockholders. More SKUs more revenue. In practice in the short term that may be true, but then you become IBM or Gateway or DELL.
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.
 
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$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.
Of course they will raise the prices on the MBA if a cheaper MacBook comes out.
It's Apple we are talking about 💰😂
 
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

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.
 
$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.

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.
 
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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.”
...and all software needs to be reviewed and installed from Apple's App Store.

Dystopian.
 
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