Apple’s shock decision on the MacBook Pro

On the one hand, Tim Cook has the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro, on the other the iPad and the iPad Pro, and the two will never meet.

But what if Apple decided to blur the lines between iPad and MacBook? What if Apple had decided to dilute consumer opinion on what it means to be an Apple laptop or an Apple tablet? And what does this strategy mean for the next MacBook Pro?

The decision would free the business laptop from consumer expectations; this would allow Apple to pour a shocking amount of power and flexibility into the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro laptops without compromising anything to meet consumer expectations.

When we talk about the power available in Apple’s laptops, we have to recognize that the shift to ARM-based computing and the resulting Apple Silicon chipsets has been a game-changer for Apple and how it might launch the Mac computer. The MacBook Air was at the forefront of this revolution; No longer dependent on Intel’s take on portable chips, the M1 catapulted the benchmark and performance numbers of the MacBook Air against equivalent Intel machines overnight. The MacBook Air M2 laptops, launched earlier this year, offered twenty percent more power than the already impressive M1.

For the average consumer, Apple’s M1 chipset provides more than enough capability for everyday work. There’s certainly enough to edit photos, work on audio, create videos, run complex and powerful applications, and offer solid hardware for developers.

The MacBook Air has raised the Mac’s baseline, and that lineup now covers a much larger portion of the user base and arguably the vast majority of the consumer-focused user base.

The Mac isn’t the only place you’ll find the Apple Silicon M1 and M2. Apple has equipped various iPad Pro models with the advanced chipset. Given Apple’s continued push for consumers to view the iPad as a computer just as much as a MacBook Air, offering the same power on tap bolsters that argument.

With Apple bringing the visual language of macOS and iPadOS closer together, bringing the ability to run apps on either platform, the blurring of lines in Apple’s marketing, and physical size and weight relatively similar, and you could be forgiven that Apple is looking to merge the low-end of the laptop market and the high-end of the tablet market.

Regardless of the technical details enjoyed by the community, Apple’s stated and presumed long-term goal is to offer consumers the choice of a tablet that does “Apple things” or a laptop that does ” Apple things”. The dominant elements here are the form factor and extensive choices like “keyboard or stylus”… not in the operating system.

Apple’s decision to decouple the MacBook Pro from the Air/iPad combo is key.

By deciding to work on common synergies at the lower end of the Mac portfolio, Apple is allowing the most capable machines – such as the business-oriented MacBook Pro models – to be decoupled and off to do their own thing. . This, in turn, offers much more power and flexibility to a smaller but more demanding group of individual creators and production companies.

As the MacBook Air and iPad Pro come closer, I expect the real MacBook Pro models to increase that performance gap and create a real pro laptop for the few, thanks to the Air and the iPad to satisfy the masses.

Now read the latest Mac, iPad and iPhone headlines in Forbes’ weekly Apple Loop news digest…