Updated October 22nd: article originally posted October 21st.
2023 has not been a good year for the MacBook. Falling sales, delayed launches, and a lack of innovative features in the pipeline contributed to the macOS laptop’s lacklustre performance. What does Apple need to do to address these problems and find success over the next twelve months?
Update: Sunday October 22nd. We may see Apple’s next steps sooner than we think, with new Mac hardware being prepared for a surprise launch next week.
Writing for Bloomberg’s Power On newsletter, Mark Gurman addresses the curious on-again off-again relationship of Mac launches in October 2023. For much of the year a new MacBook Air was heavily hinted at and expected this month. These expectations have been dashed, but Apple looks set to offer something new in the Mac portfolio.
Gurman’s sources point to “a Mac-centered product launch around the end of this month” with updates to the iMac alongside the professional 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models. As well as this information, Gurman also notes that Apple’s traditionally robust just in time supply chain is now showing delays of several weeks on the current iMac and professionally focused MacBook Pros—drawing down older stock is a natural step when a product is about to be refreshed.
What’s not been confirmed is which Apple Silicon chipsets would feature in these models. The iMac’s release in 2021 means that only an M1 variant is available. Offering a new M2 version would be a noticeable step up in performance and potential on the desktop, and could allow Apple to cut the price of the M1 iMac to make it more attractive this holiday season.
As for the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro—assuming that Apple is not going to sneak out the M3 architecture—both are available with the M2 Pro and M2 Max chipsets. You could see a small upgrade in the specifications of these chips, perhaps with more CPU or GPU cores, but there is another tantalizing possibility. Last year’s Mac Studio is available with either the M2 Max or the very high-end M2 Ultra chipset.
If Apple wanted to offer a MacBook Pro with even more power and potential than the current models, then the M2 Ultra stands out as a relatively painless upgrade.
Gurman suggests that October 30th or 31st as the likely launch dates
Looking forward to the next twelve months, Apple needs to look at what it expected of the 15-inch MacBook Air. Launched at its Worldwide Developer Conference, it was the first consumer MacBook with a display over 13 inches. Much was expected; with the larger form factor, surely it would unlock a wave of sales from consumers waiting for fifteen inches?
While the first burst of sales looked promising after the rush of “Back To School” purchases, demand tailed off, and Apple cut the order book. Its predictions of how the market would react had fallen short.
Then you have the continued impact of the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting rise of the Work From Home movement. How people worked changed, and with it, the demand for more flexible technology. The resulting sales of consumer electronics across individuals and enterprise customers increased revenues and sales across the board. Naturally, Apple’s MacBook Air and MacBook Pro lines benefitted from this, and it’s worth remembering that Apple began the transition to ARM-based silicon during 2020 and into 2021, giving impetus to those looking to upgrade to consider the MacBook.
With the excess demand met, the MacBook community are now all carrying relatively new laptops and the usual rhythm to refresh equipment has been dampened. The PC market has seen a fall of thirty percent year-on-year during 2023, but Apple fell even further, with MacBook sales down by up to 45 percent.
Finally, you have the excitement, or in the case of the MacBook, the lack of excitement. Apple had spent years ensuring that the move from Intel-based hardware to ARM-based hardware went smoothly. That move allowed the Mac range to offer serious performance, battery life, and efficiency jumps. It was an attractive calling card. The MacBook Pro laptops offered a new design, larger screens with smaller bezels, the return of vital I/O and expansion ports, and the MacBook Air models followed that lead.
These were all changes that excited and energised Apple’s community.
A look at today’s PC laptop market shows innovation and exciting products across the board; you have displays that run up to 4K; touchscreens which integrate cleanly into the operating system; machines tailored for AAA gaming, artistic and creative work, robust enterprise devices, or highly mobile laptops and tablets. The PC laptop market is wide, expansive and offers many solutions for a wide range of consumers.
What can Apple offer to challenge this market? The MacBook Air and MacBook Pro laptops are ‘everything’ laptops, which must accommodate every possible use case at their price point. Now that the move to Apple Silicon has been completed, how can Apple make its laptops exciting and desirable?
Apple is set to update the MacBook family to the next generation of Apple Silicon, the M3 platform. This was expected to begin this month. Yet, for all the signs and indications throughout the year, the launch has been delayed into the middle of 2024. yet every manufacturer will offer a faster, more powerful, and more efficient chipset year on year.
For Apple to cut through with the MacBook, it needs to understand the market better, reverse the falling sales, and make the macOS laptops exciting again.
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