A Mac is for life, not just for Christmas

Apple made a mistake in the launch of their 2022 laptop line-up earlier this year. For a company famous for their marketing nous, it's a surprising perhaps to see a critique of their approach to selling computers. Especially because as the world's most valuable company, they must surely be rather good at it. Not just selling computers, but making them also.

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However, while I think Apple have over the years gotten pretty close to making the perfect laptop, they don't seem to be getting any better at it. It's as if we've reached the point of 'peak' computer. And this matters, not just to customers of Apple who surely will be delighted to learn that they might have already bought their last Apple product - but also to investors in Apple, who need to understand that the business model of the world's most valuable technology company is at risk.

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In fact, I'm going to go further than this and argue that Apple have perfected the art of making computers and do they not want you to hear this secret: they deliberately hold themselves back in each new release from making the perfect machine.

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Why?

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Because if you know that Apple aren't going to get much better at making computers then you'll stop buying them. And so while Apple might have undersold their M2 MacBook Air in that if you’re unwrapping it today, it very well might be the last computer you'll ever need; but at the same time you can be sure that Apple will indeed be working their hardest to make it obsolete before you're finished with it.

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So this holiday season, I'd like to share with you a provocative thought. That your new Mac should be for life, and not just for Christmas, and over the next 12 days I'm going to be offering conclusive proof that Apple has indeed perfected the art of laptop making – and to do so, we'll need to step back nearly 35 years to review everything that has come before.

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