Apple did not have to engineer a completely new display for the iPhone XR, but they did it anyways and at a lower resolution than users expected, but they did. Why? Because they knew the investment would be worth the reward.
This new MacBook will come with a Retina Display, that I have no doubt. What I am saying is that at 14” a resolution of 2560x1600 would be the most likely and might be set to “Best for Display” of 1280x800@2x (true Retina), and not to a “scaled” resolution as the 12” MacBook and the MacBook Pros are now. A 14” display in a MacBook style tapered case would not be a major feat at all, its essentially a 14” MacBook or a 14” MacBook Air.
While I can get on board with Apple using the 13” MacBook Pro display, I do not see them using the nTB chassis not giving it more than two USB-C ports or a single TB3 port. I can also see it using the T1 chip to give users access to Touch ID.
Problem is, that's a lower density - if Apple change the density of a display they change it upwards (as with the Xs). They also change the size too more often than not.
When I was discussing the logic behind the Mac range going 12", 14", and 16" some years ago I would have then suggested relative analogue resolutions of 1280x800 (2560x1600), 1440x900 (2880x1800), and then 1920x1080 (3840x2160). This entailed the 14" and 16" machines going a bigger, heavier case for power, GPU, and battery life. Instead, of course, Apple went down the 'stealth fighter' line - ever thinner - plus the bizarre advent of the Touch Bar - and the introduction of the much maligned butterfly keyboard.
The current 13" nTB MBP challenges the MBA's title as the thinnest and lightest Mac laptop - they are virtually the same weight, and yet the nTB MBP is smaller in nearly every dimension.
Cost reducing the MBA replacement would surely knock out any prospect of a TouchID or T2 CPU, I've already suggested doing away with Thunderbolt and using a cheaper CPU - the i5-8265U would be capable of driving the retina display with Mojave's removal of font smoothing.
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Not really. Since 2012 any given iMac price tier has had a 16-month average/20-month median update interval. The 371 day average posted by MacRumors is just an illusion caused by the clock resetting whenever -any- iMac of any tier had an update or price cut. If Apple sticks with synchronized refreshes across all tiers as in 2015 and 2017 then a 2018 update would actually be early by Apple's recent trend. Combine that trend with the unusual lack of credible rumors (just 1?) and I wouldn't be surprised if this event is for the iPad/Air/Mini only.
I'm really hoping I'm wrong and we get a 2018 iMac update before I finish grad school and loose my educational discount, but I don't think we could call an iMac update 'Late' until the 2017s hit 20 months old in Feb 2019. Apple won't even set a record for lateness unless they pass 25 months in July 2019.
There's been a couple of examples of iMac delays, the most recent delay I put down to the lack of suitable Intel CPUs. Yes there have been times when the 21" got a refresh and the 27" didn't or vice versa. I'm not going to fully research that at the moment.
Famously the Broadwell CPUs were messed up by Intel and left Apple having to wait for Skylake. I've written about that elsewhere so I won't go on about it. There's basically no other reason for Apple not to adopt an annual October refresh for the iMac otherwise.
The 2017 super refresh was in part due to missing the October 2016 refresh in which only laptops were unveiled and we're over a year later with 6 core CPUs out. It's insane for Apple to miss out on 6-core machines and recent articles about demand dropping off may be a factor.
