Personally I think it will get discontinued too, reason being is the Touch Bar.
Apple have always pushed the Touch Bar as a PRO feature, never available on the Air, it’s just going to be extremely strange to have the lower end Pro with the Touch Bar and the higher end models not having it.
I suspect that when the two high end pros release we will see one of three things happen:
1. Either the current 13” gets the same redesign as the higher end models but still maintains its display size and looses the Touch Bar but continues with the M1, this makes sense as it will technically have the same shell as the higher end 14” model so no additional R&D for apple, possibly getting a small price bump to $1399.
2. They will continue to offer the lower end model in its current form at its current price, in which case seems a bit pointless with how close the air is to it at the moment, plus it will require three outer shells to be produced for the Pro line instead of just two, and will be very strange that the lower end Pro having the Touch Bar with the higher end models loosing it.
3. The 13” will just get discontinued and replaced with the 14” and 16” higher end models, if this happens I wouldn’t be shocked if the higher end PRO’s got a price drop… maybe $1499/$1999 respectively, this makes sense due to the cost saving of Apple using their own silicon and the lower production costs of removing the Touch Bar, this will not only be a huge selling point of Apple using their own silicon BUT it also adds to the rumours of Apple giving consumers what they have been asking for with this refresh (MagSafe, More Older Ports, Removal Of Touch Bar).
Also in previous iterations of the Air vs Pro debate the Air really hasn’t been enough for a lot of users, whereas now M1 is here, the Air will suit over 90% of the user base, so for the PRO’s to do well they need to have a more reasonable entry level price than $1799, that’s a staggering $800 on top of the Air’s entry price IMO.
