Why the time has come to make a major change to the MacBook range | Digital Trends

There are too many MacBooks. With six options to compare, picking one from the lineup now requires in-depth knowledge of marketing and technical materials, the lack of which will lead someone to make the wrong choice.

I know what your thinking what could be wrong with more options? Of course, more choice is better for the customer, right? There is some validity to this belief, sure. But if Apple is to remain the In-N-Out of the tech world rather than McDonalds, Apple needs to scale down its MacBook lineup. And luckily, there’s an opportunity on its way that could be the perfect time for a jolt.

The problem with M2

Apple Silicon is still very young. It has been almost three years since it was born into the world, and only two generations have passed since its development. And as big a deal as the M1 was when it launched, showing the true potential of Apple Silicon compared to the rest of the industry. But the real test of its impact should be long-term.

The M2 was announced less than a year after the M1, arriving first on the MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro. And for the most part, it’s given very little reason to upgrade. The performance increase was modest, especially since the M2 is based on TSMC’s same 4nm process as the M1. The chips are pushed harder, of course, creating more heat and a little more performance, but it’s built on the same architecture.

According to rumors, this was not what the M2 was supposed to be, but production delays forced Apple’s hand. Whether or not this is true, the performance of the M2-based Macs was not significantly different.

That’s why Apple was smart to introduce a redesigned MacBook Air right now and even followed it up in 2023 with the 15-inch MacBook Air. These were modern MacBooks built around the extreme efficiency of Apple Silicon, most noticeably in how thin they are.

But Apple has chosen to do something curious with the launch of these MacBooks. Rather than immediately replacing the MacBook Air M2 with the MacBook Air M1, it added to the lineup, filling the gap between the Air and Pro. As we’ve observed many times, the MacBook Air M1 remained the go-to option. I found myself continuing to recommend it to people, long after the M2 MacBook Air launched.

There were many factors to Apple’s decision to keep it around, but it allowed a three-year-old laptop to sit comfortably in its lineup of available laptops. For the money, it really is That Well. And for now, there’s no reason Apple isn’t happy to sell these older laptops for $899 apiece.

But it’s not hard to see how the M1’s strength could become a problem for Apple in the long run.

What is the M3 to do

The M3 is said to be announced and launched in late 2023, most likely at a late fall media event. The company finished releasing M2 generation chips at WWDC, going all the way up to the M2 Ultra in the Mac Studio and Mac Pro. With that concluded, Apple is likely set to announce new chips in a few months, starting with the base M3 and probably in some entry-level Macs.

As mentioned above, the M3 is said to be switching to a new 3nm node from TSMC, which will provide a significant improvement in efficiency.

Regardless of how powerful these M3 chips are, Apple has the option of rearranging its lineup into something a little more consistent. There are three options I can foresee happening here. Or the MacBook Air M3 will directly replace the MacBook Air M2, coming in at that $1,099 price point, and keep the MacBook Air M1 around. It’s going to be a little awkward for the pricier 15-inch MacBook Air, but to me that seems to be the more likely scenario.

If the M3 is indeed a big step up, I might as well predict that Apple will push the M2 MacBook Air to the entry-level price of $999 and have the M3 MacBook Air in its place at $1,099.

The last option is for Apple to take the opportunity to launch the M3 to shake things up more significantly by having the M3 MacBook Air replace both the M2 and M1 versions. If Apple really wants to clean things up, it might as well pull the outdated 13-inch MacBook Pro from the lineup as well. What would remain is something closer to following Steve Jobs’ iconic four-dial matrix that got Apple to where it is today.

Here’s hoping Apple fights the urge to have so many MacBooks in its lineup and returns to a simpler scheme that gives shoppers a more meaningful choice to make.

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