This makes somewhat sense, however if it is a M2 - as opposed to a M1x - then it fragments the current Pro laptop lineup.
As is, the 13" Pro and Air are very close to each other.
The line was already fragmented under Intel - since 2016 the entry level "13in MacBook Pro" with 2 TB3 ports has been an additional tier between the Air and the high-end "13in MacBook Pro" with 4 TB3 ports and a higher-power processor... and even before that, choosing between the Air and the low-end MBP was often a bit of a toss-up.
The replacements for the 16" MBP and the 5k iMac will need:
(a) More than two TB3/USB4 ports
(b) 10G Ethernet option
(c) 32GB+ RAM options and/or off-package expandable RAM
(d) A meatier GPU (the M1 blows Intel integrated graphics and cheaper mobile-class dGPUs out of the water, which was its job, but its not going to be such an impressive upgrade over the higher-end GPU options in the 16" MBP and 5k iMac.
(e) More high-performance cores vs. low-power cores (so maybe an 8+4 chip).
NB: (a) and (b) are likely fundamental restrictions of M1, or these features wouldn't have been dropped from the Mini - (c) may be limited by the size/price of single RAM chips that can be fitted into the M1 package.
...those probably aren't going to be met by any "M1X" chip (if you take that to mean a slightly souped-up M1 chip).
I'd speculate that Apple are going to need 3 "ranges" of M-series chips:
* entry-level: the M1 for the Air and low-end MBP.
* mid-range: for 16" MBP and mid-range 5k iMac (as above)
* high-end: Xeon-killers for the top-end 5k iMac/iMac Pro and Mac Pro (these will need insane PCIe bandwidth, huge core counts, ECC RAM and almost definitely off-package RAM for those who need 1TB+ of RAM)
...which actually gives them a much clearer product delineation that the current arbitrary "pro" tags. What these
don't necessarily need is faster individual CPU or GPU cores - just more of them.
Then you have the "odd ones out" - the high-end 13" (or future 14") MBP, the 21.5 (or future 24") iMac and the high-end Mini.
The 4 port 13" MBP might be redundant, given the extra power of the M1 13", and the M1 might also have enough grunt to support a 14" version
or the M2 might be cool enough to make a 14" version of the 16". Anybody's guess.
Likewise, a 21.5" or 24"
M1 iMac would be a capable little machine - with enough space for a honking great passive cooling system. I suspect that the only reason that the current 21.5" has a discrete GPU is the lack of a decent integrated option from Intel.
The high-end Mini might disappear if the rumoured half-size (and, we can naively hope, half-priced... yeah...) Mac Pro turns out to be real.
NB: I noticed that Apple are still talking about the transition taking "a couple of years" 5 months after they first used that phrase. So, the possibility that this will follow the pattern of the Intel transition - with the entire range available by the following August - may be fading.
