New Apple Leak Reveals The MacBook Pro You Must Avoid

Forbes Innovation Consumer Tech New Apple Leak Reveals The MacBook Pro You Must Avoid Ewan Spence Senior Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. Storyteller exploring digital worlds, mobile, music and podcasting Following Mar 11, 2023, 05:34pm EST | Press play to listen to this article! Got it! Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin As this year’s Worldwide Developer Conference approaches, Apple is expected to reveal not just the next-generation Apple Silicon in the M3 family but new hardware to show off the latest chipset. This is likely to be the MacBook Air , in the traditional 13-inch size but also perhaps a 15-inch model as well .

The former will be welcomed by many and the latter has been an unreachable desire for many years. But leaks this week suggest that Apple has another laptop for the M3 silicon launch … a MacBook model that has proven to be awkward, out of place, and redundant since it arrived in 2020. Why is Apple continuing with the 13-inch MacBook Pro? Detail of an Apple MacBook Pro 13-inch 2GHz laptop computer, taken on November 10, 2016.

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[+] Joby Sessions/MacLife Magazine/Future via Getty Images) Future via Getty Images It’s worth looking back at the history of this 13-inch MacBook Pro. When Tim Cook and his team debuted Apple Silicon, it presented the chipset in three new consumer-focused machines; the MacBook Air, the Mac Mini, and the MacBook Pro. Beyond the change in architecture – something those with deep knowledge would recognize as big ‘a pretty big thing’ – there were no real changes in the look and feel, the design, or the pricing of each machine in the portfolio.

Essentially Apple went out of its way to show that nothing would change for users. The MacMini became a great choice for a desktop machine. The MacBook Air saw a massive change in battery life and performance, as did the MacBook Pro.

The lifting of the Air from the mobile-focused Intel chips to Apple Silicon supercharged the Air up to and past the Intel-based MacBook Pros launched the previous years. The MacBook Pro also picked up the performance jump… but the increase of the MacBook Air meant that for the vast majority of users, the Air offered more power and performance than they would ever need. As a PR tool, the MacBook Pro M1 was useful.

As a viable laptop, it was already being eclipsed by the MacBook Air’s utility at a lower price. Then the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro laptops came along. The M1 Pro and M1 Max chipsets were built on the M1 and offered even more power and performance.

You also had the first changes to the design of the MacBook in many years, with larger screens, a more angular design, longer battery life, and improved thermal controls. if you were looking for a MacBook which has an excess of power and is geared toward developers and heavy-duty creatives, this is what you are looking for. MORE FOR YOU The ‘Backsies’ Billionaire: Texan Builds Second Fortune From Wreckage Of Real Estate Empire He’d Sold AAC Commissioner Is Right-It’s Time To Drop The “Power 5” Label Will AI Take Over The World? A MacBook for consumers, with enough power to create media and lightweight development? That’s the MacBook Air.

As for the 13-inch MacBook Pro, it’s more expensive than the MacBook Air, with only a small performance gain and not enough ‘performance per dollar’ that would sway anyone away from the larger MacBook Pro laptops. Apple managed to create its best consumer laptop and its best professional, almost workstation-level laptop. Trapped between them? The MacBook Pro 13-inch.

Last year saw Apple unveil the M2 chipset at WWDC 2022. This offered, broadly speaking, a twenty percent uplift in performance. Alongside the launch of the MacBook Air M2 was the 13-inch MacBook Pro, looking even more out of place because of the MacBook Air M2’s performance and the continued dominance of the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro.

The latter were updated in January this year, creating an even larger gulf between the consumer and professional laptops. And now the latest leaks suggest that , alongside the reveal of the M3 Apple Silicon platform, Apple will continue to push the smaller and increasingly marginalized MacBook Pro alongside the all-conquering ubiquitous MacBook Air. Why? It does allow Apple to present a different MacBook at every step of the pricing portfolio, although this is much more a factor in perception rather than practicality.

Perhaps Apple wants to launch an Air and a Pro together without the Pro’s performance being too far ahead of the MacBook Air? Again it’s about presentation. On the part of the buyer, perhaps they want the allure of a “Pro” laptop without spending the money required for a fully functional MacBook Pro. The 13-inch MacBook Pro is a vanity laptop.

There’ ‘s no doubting it can do the job, but there are far better options in Apple’s portfolio. Now read the latest Mac, iPhone, and Apple Watch headlines in Forbes weekly news digest, Apple Loop. .

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