Is Apple’s new “Pro = Beefy” design language a mistake?

[jabbr]

here's the more space option (looks like 1800x1169) on the 14"

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note that macrumors is compressing and scaling down the screen capture.

I rarely scale up from the default 2X (1512 x 982), but it can definitely come in handy.

 

[turbineseaplane]

It actually makes it *easier* to use a smaller display because of the detail.

This is subjective and one persons experience does not equal everyone else's

I've used a 14" plenty (sister has one) -- I prefer my 2015 15"

 

[Beau10]

This is subjective and one persons experience does not equal everyone else's

I've used a 14" plenty (sister has one) -- I prefer my 2015 15"

You're misinterpreting what I said. All I'm saying is the extra detail makes using a smaller display easier at higher resolutions - ie. because of the higher DPI the 14" produces less eye strain than it would if it had the same DPI as the 15", everything else equal.

To expand that outward a bit, back in the day native 15" 1920x1200 screens were hard on the eyes for most. But a retina variant works better at that size and apparent resolution because there is 4x the detail.

That you find the 15" better for you is the objects are larger at the apparent resolution you choose to use. Sure... but that's muddying the waters of what's being conveyed.

 

[heretiq]

@heretiq Good observation

The 15"+ class size of Mac laptops have always been the inflection point into "can do things side by side" territory for me as well.

Anything below that screen size tends to be better off with "one thing going on at a time" (for me and my eyes anyhow)

Ditto @turbineseaplane ! I was focused on the side-by-side comparison between the two devices at the Apple Store and found a qualitative difference between the 14 and 16 inch. The ability to do things side-by-side is a productivity lever for me as well.

 

[klasma]

The “Pro” does make sense for the MacBook and to a lesser extent for the iPad, but for the iPhone it is just ridiculous.

 

[heretiq]

Understood, but you're not comparing apples and oranges with the defaults. If you were, you'd be comparing 1440 x 900 for the 15" vs. 1512 x 982 for the 14". Those are the native pixel doubled resolutions. Which is a smaller desktop on the 15". As you stated "I use my devices at native scaling" - no, you didn't, not with the 15" if that is where you were coming from.

As the article I linked to above stated, Apple moved beyond the pixel doubled resolution into interpolated at a later point in the lifecycle for the 15" display due to complaints about the size of the desktop. Doing similar w/ the 14" again yields more on the desktop, because again, the actual resolution of the 14" is higher (regardless of its actual size, it holds more pixels)

If you do go to max interpolated the 15" will yield more desktop space, but it will do so at lower detail. The only advantage of the 15" panel is it's slightly larger which of course is a benefit for eyesight issues, but the 14" still holds more detail (PPI) which would ameliorate that to some degree.

@Beau10, I agree with all of your points above. If I had taken the time to dig further into the 14” I might have discovered that I could indeed replicate the side-by-side experience I was accustomed to with my 15“ retina MBPro with the 14” M1 MBPro -- a comparably-powerful, but lighter device than the 16”. I tested the 14“ and 16” devices at the Apple Store by simply opening multiple windows and comparing the experience of working with them on the two devices. At the time, the 16“ just felt more like the experience I had with my 15” (and it is quite possible that I had bumped the 15” to a higher, non-native setting but I honestly don’t remember) so I chose the 16”.

 

[laszlo182]

In regards to their laptops, absolutely not. Thankfully, there's great consumer choice right now with the performant Air line and the absolute beasts that are the Pro models. The raving reviews for Apple's current MacBook Pros seem to indicate their course correction was what the target market wanted.

A case could be made for the weight of the iPads and iPhones, though. But we don't get to have it both ways: we can slim 'er down but we'll lose the two day battery life (iPhone) that we appreciate. As for the size, well, I think the perfect size is the iPhone mini or iPhone SE. I'd love to see a Pro model in that form factor. Actually, for that matter, I'd like to see an iPhone mini, period (RIP).

two day battery life on an iphone? for me it’s opposite. while being an average user i get two charges a day battery life on 14 Pro

 

[v0lume4]

two day battery life on an iphone? for me it’s opposite. while being an average user i get two charges a day battery life on 14 Pro

😬 Yikes. I’ve heard bad reports about the 14 Pro battery life, but yours has to be among the worst. I’m sorry.

 

[heretiq]

here's the more space option (looks like 1800x1169) on the 14"
View attachment 2160858

​

note that macrumors is compressing and scaling down the screen capture.

I rarely scale up from the default 2X (1512 x 982), but it can definitely come in handy.

Thanks for sharing this view @jabbr. This is very helpful to see what is possible on the 14“ screen. I think it provides a viable alternative to the 16” for my use case as @Beau10 suggested.

 

[jabbr]

You may prefer a 15" display due to the slightly bigger elements that can be a bit quicker and easier to work with, that's easy to understand!

Assuming the 13" M2 Air display, the upcoming 15" will use non-integer scaling be default. Most people probably won't care about the tradeoff in sharpness for screen space though.

It sounds like your work involves a decent amount of sustained workloads. So even if the 15" air gets an M2 Pro option it's not going to keep up with the MBPs after throttling kicks in... unless they manage to sneak in some little fan.

 

[bunce66]

In reality, the new MBP is only about 1mm thicker than the previous generation. I personally like the new design a lot more and I think that under Jonathan Ive, Apple just became too obsessed with making everything as thin as possible and removed useful features and put in tiny batteries just to shave off half a millimeter. The more substantive feel of the MBP and iPhones post-Ive is a huge step in the right direction. If you want thin, get the Air.

 

[maxoakland]

People were complaining that the previous MacBooks put slimness over function

Maybe you are the kind of user a MacBook Air was created for. Just because it doesn’t have Pro in the name doesn’t mean it’s inferior — as long as it has the features you need

Yes, your diagnosis is spot on: I need Max CPU/GPU performance for engineering analytics and visualization but not for graphics design. So the Air display tech and port complement is adequate, however the current 13.6 inch display size is too small.

I think your use case is too niche and extremely specific to warrant a completely new machine tailored to it

We all have to make some compromises

 

[ric22]

I own an M1 Air for personal use and have recently switched to an 16inch Pro for work. When I return to my Air I do miss the screen size and how the blacks are illuminated at night, I miss the speakers, I miss having a webcam that isn't total junk, I hate the limited ports (it really annoys me only being able to charge the device on one side, and with no MagSafe either!), I miss the Pro's increased RAM, and lastly I miss having reasonable graphic capability, though it's not a patch on my Windows desktop (or my wifey's gaming laptop) either way.

On the flip side, I prefer looking at the M1 Air screen over all during the day time. Something about the Pro screen tires my eyes, and I dislike the edge shadow. The M1 Air's wedge shape is also much much nicer when used on the lap, or in bed, and personally I prefer it on a desk too. The weight difference in my backpack doesn't bother me unless I'm walking for over an hour with it, but I'm a big guy, so I see why that experience is different for most.

Edit: While the M1/M2 would be enough for my workflow with more RAM, the fact Apple limit them to supporting one external monitor means for work purposes I have little choice but to go with a Pro machine. I'm tempted to try gaming on the Pro just because it's a possibility I haven't had on a Mac before 😅

 

[Ethosik]

I was pretty much done with Apple after my 2010 Mac Pro and 2013 MacBook Pro. I obviously do not upgrade every year so by the time I did upgrade it was those horrible trash can Mac Pro and crappy 2016-2021 laptops. I cannot stand all in ones so my choices pretty much ended there.

I think the new design is needed. While I do wish they did not bring back HDMI and left the 4th thunderbolt port there, I can work with it. This has been the best laptop I have used from Apple since 2013. Also the Mac Studio releasing was amazing for me.

So no, I wish Apple to keep the "bulky" design they have. The obsession of thin and light needed to stop and I am glad it did.

 

[mjs916]

/end-therapy-session/

First of all, I appreciate the layout of your post. I tend to ignore the formatting options available but this made it a bit easier to read than just a wall of boring text so I may start using those options.

Second, that’s awesome they reached out with a survey! I guess they really are looking at what customers want and not just entirely telling us what we get.

Lastly, while I agree that compactness usually came at a premium, it’s somewhat necessary for these current pro devices to have the footprint and profiles they do to account for additional tech, connectivity and cooling, right?

 

[Yebubbleman]

I think there's a different problem. Apple, starting with the first 13-inch MacBook Pro in 2009, cultivated the idea that "Pro" means "the goldilocks model".

You have people buying their first Apple Silicon Macs and assuming that they NEED AT LEAST an M1 Pro or M2 Pro because the subconscious implication is that the base M1 or M2 makes too many compromises (when the reality is that a standard M1 or M2 with enough RAM and storage REALLY WILL kick enough ass at the vast majority of workflows). With the laptop models themselves, in 2011 all the way until November 9th 2020, you were (potentially) compromising by getting a MacBook Air, where you weren't with a 13-inch MacBook Pro (and mind you, I'm solely talking about the average non-intensive-use-case user here).

Now, with the iPhones, you have people buying Pro when they don't need the cameras because that's treated as the minimum bar of entry to a current iPhone (as though the non-Pro iPhones are subpar as smartphones).

Similarly, unless your needs unarguably point you toward a 12.9-inch iPad Pro, you have very limited reasons to need an 11-inch iPad Pro over an iPad Air and I'm sure the former still has people buying it because "Pro" means not compromising and "Air" means compromising, despite the facts that it hasn't functionally been that way in years. (Disclaimer: I'm not saying that every 11-inch iPad Pro customer is like this; I'm merely saying that I'm sure that there are many that buy the 11-inch iPad Pro over the Air due to Apple's longstanding use of "Pro" in marketing to get people to need.)

All this to say that, even in the Apple Silicon era, there's a correlation in computers (whether Mac or PC) about size and thermal headroom to relative performance. And thankfully, in the Apple Silicon era, those that need the thin and light computer have the MacBook Air and those that care more about performance have performance prioritized over thin and light in the MacBook Pro. It was nonsense that (at least prior to any kind of 16-inch MacBook Pro), for a notebook catered to people editing full length features on the go, thin and light was more of a priority than performance.

 

[Anaxarxes]

We're talking about less than 1lb difference between a 14" MBP with M2 max and a 13" MBA M2.

Jesus Christ....

 

[boss.king]

It's not "Pro = Beefy", it's Pro = capable, and capable often requires a bit more beefiness to pack in adequate cooling, battery capacity, etc. The designs are good, and they're not actually even that much bigger or heavier, they're just not tapered at the edges.

 

[Kingcoherent]

We're talking about less than 1lb difference between a 14" MBP with M2 max and a 13" MBA M2.

Jesus Christ....

For me it made a difference. I can go three nights with nothing more than a Bellingham Hadley Pro bag - small enough to fit under the seat in front in a plane, never mind an overhead. The Air, bare minimum change of clothes. It's amazing. Even the stingiest of local airlines can't complain (I'm not even looking at you RyanAir, short haul in east Africa can have even tighter carry-on restrictions). But I'm probably an outlier and there's no way I'd consider 360g significant (although it is slightly more fillet steak than I would normally order - does that make it beefy?!)

The 16 is more or less the same mass as my old MBP15. It is heavy if you travel a lot. If you're a pro user who needs to be mobile (i.e. a video editor or a photographer), get the 14. And most people who would benefit from that power [that I know] have done this (i.e. video editors and photographers).

I would wager if you really need ultra lightweight for your job, then the Air is powerful enough for your needs. If what you really need is a powerful portable computer, then the MBP is far lighter than you would need (compare it with the super powerful x86 laptops).

 

[turbineseaplane]

We're talking about less than 1lb difference between a 14" MBP with M2 max and a 13" MBA M2.

Jesus Christ....

It's nearly a 25% weight difference

In context, it's meaningful

 

[Anaxarxes]

It's nearly a 25% weight difference

In context, it's meaningful

Nope - we're taking about 350 grams here - literally less than the weight of one bottle of water.

This cannot be a topic of importance where there is ample choice of how to get tasks done. Yes, everyone has a fractional differentiation in preference on the most perfect tool for the job you do.

Look. Here is something that fulfils the 99.99% needs for your job. Take it and move on.

 

[ThunderSkunk]

After exclusively purchasing MacBook Pros, my next Mac is likely to be

I was just thinking along these lines but now think I'm going to go headless. When the m3 comes out, I'll try a Mini, so I can plug a Wacom 27" Touch/Pen display into it, throw it in my bag and take it to the office to connect to the LG Ultrawide, & connect it to the projector to watch movies in the evening. In every use case, I have no need for the rest of the laptop, esp bc for actual design work i need the i9 MBP going back & forth between windows & OSX anyway. In fact if iPad OS was more than an oversised phone and actually capable of doing any real work, I'd just go with that so it'd be less bulky in my bag & not need a wireless keyboard.

 

[heretiq]

First of all, I appreciate the layout of your post. I tend to ignore the formatting options available but this made it a bit easier to read than just a wall of boring text so I may start using those options.

Second, that’s awesome they reached out with a survey! I guess they really are looking at what customers want and not just entirely telling us what we get.

Lastly, while I agree that compactness usually came at a premium, it’s somewhat necessary for these current pro devices to have the footprint and profiles they do to account for additional tech, connectivity and cooling, right?

Thanks for appreciating the attempt to structure the post @mjs916. The structure was entirely out of respect for the MR community as I really appreciate how we can generally discuss complex and sometimes strongly held views and maintain civility — and knew this topic could be polarizing so the least I could do was to organize the points as best as I could.

Yes, I was surprised? Impressed and appreciative of Apple’s attention to user sentiments and clear desire to listen. It reinforced my faith in Apple to act in accordance with their professed respect for the Apple community.

It also gives me hope that we might see an effort to leverage AS to reinvigorate the premium (non-workstation product as defined by @leman) with more performant SOC options for those who prefer compactness and performance. Keep hope alive! 😂

 

[jchurchill]

to eliminate 2 pounds and nearly 1/4 (.22) inch height on my daily driver

WTF are you talking about? Macbook air is only .3 lbs lighter than the pro.
From Macworld:
M2 MacBook Air: 2.7 pounds (1.24kg)
M2 MacBook Pro: 3 pounds (1.4kg)

 

[redheeler]

Yeah that’s not a new design language, the Pro is/was thicker and heavier but more powerful than the Air, always.