Apple’s Mac is back — for now

“It should be a time for Mac lovers to rejoice,” Will Oremus writes for Slate. “After three years, Apple finally released an all-new MacBook Air. After four years, a souped-up Mac Mini.”
“The Mac, it’s now clear, is not dead yet,” Oremus writes. “And yet it was equally clear from Apple’s hardware event that the company doesn’t view the Mac as a big part of its long-term future. The devices are conservative in a way that the company’s leading mobile products never are. And on Tuesday, they were the opening acts; the headliner was the iPad Pro.”
“For the Macs, it feels less like a golden age than the golden years,” Oremus writes. “Eventually, if Apple has its way, we’ll all accept a flat tablet as a substitute for a laptop with a real keyboard. Thankfully, we aren’t there yet.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote half a decade ago:
iPad Pro can replace the vast majority of people’s MacBooks because people never had an alternative to a MacBook to accomplish what they use a personal computer for: Web browsing, email, light word processing, music-video-photo storage and playback, and maybe some messaging (but they do most or all of that on their iPhones or iPhone wannabes).
Note: Obviously, we are not talking about our readership which skews heavily toward techies who use their Macs for far more than the vast majority of current personal computer users.
For the vast majority of people even a crappy low-end Windows laptop is vast overkill for what they do. Therefore, the headroom for iPad remains virtually limitless, especially as Apple’s A-Series chips, iOS and iPad apps become ever more powerful. — November 11, 2015
We still contend that Apple is missing the boat here, though, in terms of a transitional device who sales would be off the charts:
Here’s an idea: Apple could sell iPad Pros as they do now, and for those wanting a “Mac,” Apple could sell them the macOS-powered display-less keyboard/trackpad/cpu/RAM/SSD/battery base unit. Attach your iPad for the display and off you go, you Mac-headed truck driver! Plus, you get to use the iPad’s battery, too, extending battery life to provide a truly all-day battery for portable Mac users. Detach the display and you get your iOS-powered iPad back, same as always.
Too outside the box? We’d love to be able to take our 12.9-inch iPad Pro, mate it with this theoretical Mac base unit, and turn it into a portable Mac. Right now, we carry 12.9-inch iPad Pros and MacBooks in our backpacks. Guess what’s redundant? Right, the displays. We don’t need to carry two screens on the road. The iPad Pro’s screen would do just fine, thanks.
Buy the Mac base on its own (for those who already have 12.9-inch iPad Pros) or buy it as part of a package (get a new 12.9-inch iPad Pro at a nice discount when you buy it with the Mac base). Imagine if Apple had unveiled this headless MacBook that you use with your iPad at their iPad event… How many more 12-inch iPad Pro sales would such a product have generated? Enough to return iPad to unit sales growth, we bet. And, how many more Macs would have been sold, too? — MacDailyNews, January 7, 2017
SEE ALSO:
Apple debuts all-new iPad Pro with Liquid Retina display, powerful A12X Bionic chip, TrueDepth camera system, and more – October 30, 2018
Apple reveals all-new MacBook Air with a gorgeous 13-inch Retina display – October 30, 2018
Apple unveils all-new Mac mini with a massive increase in performance – October 30, 2018