Upcoming Apple Hardware

Marco Arment wrote Predicting MacBooks with the Ivy Bridge schedule and if you are interested in a look at when Apple could possibly be launching new hardware just read that.

I’m still torn on if there is a 15″ MacBook Air-ish device coming out this year and overall what the lineup is going to look like if one is released.

Basically, everyone things the 13″ MacBook Pro is dead, and while that might be the case, I see two ways the lines could go:

FIrst, a Maximum Possible Choice (MPC) lineup:

• 11″ MacBook Air
• 13″ MacBook Air
• 15″ MacBook Air
• 13″ MacBook Pro
• 15″ MacBook Pro
• 17″ MacBook Pro

A lot of overlap, a lot of models, a lot of chassis and possibly a lot of confusion. However, is satiates the needs of many of the prosumers because I firmly believe that any 15″ MacBook Air is going to be more Air than Pro in the end … so no discrete graphics, no extra ports, etc.

Here is the Least Possible Choice (LPC) lineup:

• 11″ MacBook Air
• 13″ MacBook Air
• 15″ MacBook Air
• 17″ MacBook Pro

At that point, you’ve really narrowed down the choices … down to even fewer than Apple has available today. You’ll alienate some prosumers maybe into getting a heavier 17″ MacBook Pro or looking elsewhere, but you eliminate many components that won’t sell that many.

In this scenario I also could see them dropping the “Air” moniker and going even simpler:

• 11″ MacBook
• 13″ MacBook
• 15″ MacBook
• 17″ MacBook Pro

Now you have setup the 17″ MacBook Pro as, essentially, the Mac Pro of portables. In this case, I’d also like to see the iMac name changed to just Mac, but now I’m sounding more crazy than normal.

There are tons of middle roads there as well, but it will be interesting to see how the Apple portable lineup changes in the coming year.