It’s an thrilling time to be an Apple person. What was anticipated to be a spring occasion has become a string of bulletins unfold out over 5 days in February and March bringing a slew of latest merchandise: A brand new app! A brand new iPhone! Two new iPads! A brand new chip! Two new Macs!
However apart from the strangeness of the launches, Apple additionally made a number of selections which have us scratching our heads. Whereas there may be positively a bunch of nice stuff–the MacBook Air value minimize, the iPhone 16e’s processor, the Mac Studio’s RAM restrict–the bulletins are plagued by some actually unusual selections that depart the lineup in a bizarre place for the following 12-15 months. Listed below are 5 strikes which have us questioning what Apple is considering.
iPhone 16e: No MagSafe
When Apple launched the iPhone 16e, it cleared up a ton of questions inside the iPhone lineup. The SE and its very outdated design are gone, all fashions now have USB-C, and there’s a brand new lower-end mannequin with a transparent improve path. However whereas we anticipated a good quantity of sacrifices to get to the cheaper price, we didn’t count on Apple to depart off its proprietary MagSafe charging tech. MagSafe is one among Apple’s greatest iPhone options and it’s even made its manner over to AirPods circumstances and Android telephones by way of the Qi2 commonplace. So for Apple to skip it on the latest iPhone 16e—even a funds mannequin—could be very odd.
You may get a MagSafe puck to stay to the iPhone 16e when you attempt, however make no mistake—it’s not MagSafe.
David Worth / Foundry
iPad Air: Simply an M3
When Apple up to date the iPad Air in 2024 after greater than two years, it was considerably well worth the wait. There was a brand new 13-inch mannequin, a sooner M2 chip, a panorama entrance digital camera, sooner Wi-Fi, and help for the Apple Pencil Professional. However this time round, not a lot. Apple’s newest iPad Air replace arrives lower than a 12 months after the final one and brings the one factor nobody wants, a barely sooner M3 chip. And that’s it. No OLED display screen, no new colours, no C1 modem, nothing.
iPad: No Apple Intelligence
If the iPad Air was an pointless replace, the Eleventh-gen iPad is even unecessarier. We weren’t anticipating a lot, however Apple couldn’t even clear that bar. As a substitute of an A17 Professional chip or A18 chip to convey Apple Intelligence help, we bought an A16 chip that’s solely marginally sooner than the A14 within the earlier mannequin and doesn’t help Apple Intelligence. It’s nonetheless an ideal deal at $349—particularly with double the storage— however why would Apple launch a tool in 2025 that doesn’t help its marquee function?
Each new machine in Apple’s iPad, iPhone, and Mac lineup is constructed for Apple Intelligence—besides the A16 iPad.
Apple
Mac Studio: M3 Extremely
The new Mac Studio is a ridiculously highly effective machine for its measurement. (Or any measurement for that matter.) The high-end chip configuration has a 32-core CPU with 24 efficiency cores and eight effectivity cores, 80 graphics cores, and help for as much as 512GB of RAM. The one unusual factor is that the chip is a part of the M3 household, not the M4. Experiences say the reason being that the M4 chip doesn’t have the UltraFusion packaging structure wanted to fuse two M4 Max into one Extremely, but when that’s true, then we ask: Why didn’t the Mac Studio arrive final 12 months with an M3 Max and M3 Extremely?
iPad: Apple Pencil
Oh Apple Pencil, we’ll by no means perceive you. Even with a brand new iPad lineup, Apple nonetheless sells 4 Apple Pencils, two of that are nonetheless listed as appropriate with the brand new iPad: the USB-C Apple Pencil and the 1st-gen Apple Pencil, which was launched almost a decade in the past. It has not one of the newer options within the USB-C mannequin, together with magnetic charging, wi-fi pairing, or Apple Pencil hover. But it prices $20 extra.