Apple to disrupt notebook space with radically redesigned MacBook Pros
While most of its rivals are struggling to match innovations Apple pioneered with its first MacBook Airs over three years ago, the Mac maker this year is hoping to further distance itself from the competition with a pair …
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple's notebook strategy has been building toward this since it unveiled an all-new MacBook line in late 2009 and then let the MacBook Air define the thin-and-light category — a lead the company says rivals are still failing to match more than three years later. The rumored pair of radically redesigned MacBook Pros would extend that Air-derived design language into Apple's performance tier.
The timing matters because Apple is simultaneously pruning its entry level: the white plastic MacBook has been discontinued as a consumer product, remaining education-only until supplies run out, while new five-pack and mobile lab programs push the Air into schools. A redesigned Pro line completes a lineup where every tier carries the same industrial-design bet.
First-order effects
- Windows notebook makers, already acknowledged as struggling to match the Air's innovations, would face a widened design gap at the high end of the market just as Apple exits the low-cost plastic MacBook business.
- Buyers in early 2012 get a clearer, more expensive Apple lineup: consumer laptops collapse into the Air and Pro tiers, with institutions the only remaining outlet for the legacy plastic model.
Second-order effects
- Rivals' response options narrow to copying the thin-and-light template faster or ceding the premium price band, where Apple's design lead currently lets it command margins competitors cannot match.
- Component suppliers and assemblers tied to conventional thick notebook chassis see demand shift toward the slimmer, denser designs Apple's refresh would normalize across its Pro line.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the notebook market stratifies into Apple-defined premium hardware and a commoditized Windows volume segment, with Apple's redesign cadence functioning as the industry's de facto design clock.
- Education becoming an explicit Air channel via bulk programs signals that Apple sees institutional fleets, not just consumers, as a market it can win on design rather than price.
The trend: Notebook design is consolidating around the thin-and-light template Apple set with the MacBook Air, with each Pro-generation refresh widening the gap Windows makers must close.