they should use the same words for all their devices. they need to decide between Mini and Air or make one of those the "regular."
Macbook, iPad, and iPhone: Mini, Air, Plus? Air, nothing, Pro? Why is it a Macbook Pro and an iPhone Plus and then a Max? They need one word and one world only for big and powerful, not 3.
Apple's naming of things is just getting worse and worse. What does "Air" mean? Lighter? Sometimes...? Cheaper? Sometimes...? Standard (Mac) or special (iPad)?
"Max" and "Ultra", so max isn't the max? I think the serious people at Apple have given up on naming, and whatever happens at normal corporations is happening. Part of it in genuine confusion in the product lines though. They need another Jobsian reset.
Well it is very clear now Apple wants the Air brand name to be Mid Range. So Pro > Air > Original ( MacBook / iPad ).
MacBook Pro > MacBook Air > Macbook
iPad Pro > iPad Air > iPad ( The Mini actually fits into the Mid Range )
It is similar on iPhone, where I expect Apple to drop the number from naming scheme and just go with
iPhone S > iPhone R > iPhone
Basically Apple is transition all of their product line into three different segment, each with different display size and prices. And I guess these transition will make a lot more sense once the 2019 and 2020 product are out.
To be honest I think it’s clear that something called ultra is better than something called max. If it were called super-max or turbo-max or something I’d see your point.
> The current MacBook Air is thicker than an older MacBook
I feel like you’re just looking for things to be mad about here; it’s thinner than _current_ MacBooks.
> I’m not even sure what a “pro” phone is, but okay
Okay this is just ridiculous. It seems you would be unhappy with any naming convention other than “iPhone Good”, “iPhone Better”, and “iPhone Best”.
the naming may a bit confusing across products (xl vs pro vs +), but I think 4 is probably the sweet spot. The first three being cheap, light, fast. And the fourth being more of a sister miniature product. the "regular" needs a consistent name across products, and it should probably become the cheap line with previous gen parts. the ipad and the iphone s could become the iPad Core and the iPhone Core, that give you the Core experience of an Apple product without the frills of a Pro line, or the weight shaving and high end chipset of an Air.
Side question with the product and processor names; any one else finding Apple's product naming getting ... complicated? Can't we just have the product names based on size, and a moniker dictate its features + processor?
Maybe something like;
- Mac, MacBook, iPhone, iPad, Watch
And you can get them in:
- Mini, Max or just "normal size"
With your choice of:
- M?, M? Pro, M? Ultra
Running
- MacOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS
We've already got a "mini" iPhone (SE), MacBook (Air), Mac. Plus the normal sized ones; 14" for the laptops and studio for the Mac, and then max being 16" laptops, or a tower mac, and the 12.9" tablet etc. Same for the watch too, and the iMac has played around the 21/24/27 sizes already.
Perhaps I just don't understand the product differential requirements from branding / marketing perspectives.
ive given apple credit for the new iphone naming scheme, but the iphone x, xs, xr, x max, xs max naming conventions absolutely appear designed to confuse. i dont think air, nothing, pro are all that great either, with no suffix being the standard lowest end of the three. +, pro, max, etc all get used interchangeablyish. sometimes its Apple, sometimes its i (legal probably drove this dichotomy.)
The naming on iPhones and Macbooks is terrible, and confusing now that the M3 Pro offers quite different CPU and bandwidth limits compared to M2 Pro...
But then they would have to either extend that to all Macbook Pros, iPad Pros and iPhone 11 Pros for consistency, or admit that these devices only got the "Pro" slapped to the name for marketing.
Apple has done this since Steve Jobs returned to apple the late 90's, they cut down all of the unnecessary models and products lines that were causing this kind of confusion.
They've kinda gone that way again with sticking the "Pro" and "Max" terms onto everything, especially the iPhone models.
Yes, I'll admit I didn't use Apple laptop naming as an example because I simply can't remember how it works.
Related, I have two old Mac Minis here and I can't tell which one is the several years newer one without finding a tiny model number printed on the bottom of both, looking them up, and comparing the specs.
I for one have no idea what ipads are better than what other ipads. Is Air better or worse than regular? How does that relate to Mini, in Apple laptops Air was the smaller laptops, but now there's also Mini?
At least companies leaning heavily into number-based schemes tend to make models with larger numbers the fancier more expensive ones. Acme Frobnicator 6400 is generally a lot better than Acme Frobnicator 3000.
Not trying to argue that the naming scheme is great, but I think they are trying to align it across multiple product lines, in which case it sorta makes sense.
They already have airpods use the same naming scheme, with the basic ones just being Airpods (without any suffix), then the next better option is Airpods Pro (the in-ear ones with active NC), and then their most expensive premium option is Airpods Max (large over the ear headphones with active NC, dial, and ability to still use them in wired mode with standard 3.5mm aux). The hierarchy is the same as with M-chips, with the most basic to the most premium being (no-suffix)=>Pro=>Max.
As a sidenote, I partially blame whoever wrote the article title for the confusion in this thread. They used proper name for M2 Macbook Air, but didn't use M2 Macbook Pro for the MBP. Dropping the "Macbook" part served exactly no purpose but to (most likely unintentionally) confuse the reader.
Yes but precisely, people are never going to mention their exact laptop name because brands like Dell choose to produce 20 variations of each laptop they create, each one harder to remember than the precedent. Apple has such a little number of portable macs (two actually: air and pro) that everyone remembers it. And they also chose a simple way to tell the difference between each iteration: the production year, as well as the screen size, which are two criterias very understandable to everyone.
It's not about what people choose to say, it's about Apple's clever naming conventions.
Pro is consistent with other product lines that Apple produces. IPhone Pro, MacBook Pro, etc.
They could change the convention, but weren’t y’all just complaining about how naming conventions for things like Windows, Intel, Nvidia, etc are not consistent?
Why do they necessarily have to "sufficiently distinguish between the regular and the Pro"? Why not just drop the Pro and Air labels and unify into one line?
Easier to market, cheaper to stock and support. More streamlined. Doesn't that seem more like Apple?
When Apple first started using the "Air" term for products, it meant thin and light. The new iPad Air is not the thinnest Apple tablet and it's only the lightest by 5 grams (hardly noticeable).
It seems like it's taken on the new meaning of "Pro Lite".
Well, there aren't that many things specific to them unless you're talking hardware specs. They're all part of the MacBook family, so it's valid to call them that.
I'd blame Apple who decided not to name the 12" and left it only with its family name. Sure, that's how it used to be, but post 2000s that's just not a model name anymore on its own, anymore than iPhone or iPad is.
Think "12 inch MacBook" probably would find the most hits, though. Probably even better than the "MacBook -pro -air" thing I suspect you were doing, since those two get mentioned in the same articles a lot.
At least they've mostly backed off the "The New <old name>" type crap they were doing with iPad 3, etc. You want to talk hard to search for...
You could argue the same point regarding Apple's naming of their Macbook line prior to the discontinuing of the original Macbook moniker. Even now, the difference between the standard and the advanced Macbook line (purely on naming) are the words "Air" and "Pro".
The naming of products has gotten really silly and useless, and I put this blame on Intel and Apple. Apple started down the path of Pro, Pro Max, Ultra, Max, and Plus. Remember the iPhone XS? Idiotic naming there. Intel, otoh, just started doing crazy numeric strings with a random character added to the end. And this was after bad naming schemes like "Core 2 Quad". Part of the issue with GPUs and CPUs is the need to do binning to make IC manufacturing commercially viable so companies end up with a ton of SKUs, but the other part is just bad marketing.
I know that advertising, marketing, and such generally have a bad reputation, but good branding, marketing, and advertising is essential to inform consumers about what they are buying (and thereby ensuring satisfied customers in the end), to differentiate products in the market, and to maintain a high quality brand image.
Honestly, at this point, it would be better for Apple to just say: we have iPhone, bigger iPhone, more powerful iPhone, and both bigger and more powerful iPhone. On the CPU/GPU front, they should just list the core count and the iteration number. For Intel and AMD, the better route would be listing the specifications and creating a short hand for these specifications for those who are well versed in their product offerings, but then re-introducing things like "Pentium" or "Athlon" for the highest volume SKUs that people are most likely to buy.
As regards the original article. Everyone already mentioned the TDP issue with the comparison between AMD and Apple, but Apple is also going to be introducing the M3. The rumor mill has it that the M3 will be a far more powerful product than M1 and M2, but this remains to be seen.
Really? You complain about the name†? Are you serious? How petty is that?!
Apple rarely does radically new devices. That happens maybe once every three years or so. They also support older devices for a relatively long time when it comes to mobile devices (and for a relatively short time – but still not really short, but short compared to Microsoft – when it comes to PCs).
Look at what they do, don’t try to read something into their product names.
Macbook, iPad, and iPhone: Mini, Air, Plus? Air, nothing, Pro? Why is it a Macbook Pro and an iPhone Plus and then a Max? They need one word and one world only for big and powerful, not 3.
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