As the Mac completes its transition to Apple’s custom chips, the company last week changed the description of the MacBook from “notebooks” to “laptops”. Although both words mean ‘laptop’, they have a slightly different focuses. The Cupertino tech giant currently has only two Intel Mac product lines on sale, a Mac mini mainframe and a Mac Pro workstation.
Even so, Apple hasn’t answered the question – how exactly does the company define a “computer”?
According to 9to5Mac, there seems to be a gradual shift towards the “laptop” nomenclature for all user-facing products.
Apple’s online shop product pages, articles in the support knowledge base, and even operating system updates have begun to reflect this ‘branding update’.
Also for macOS Ventura, which is still in beta, when you set up a new MacBook Air / MacBook Pro, it will also be called “so-and-so’s Laptop” by default, rather than “so-and-so’s MacBook”.
While this change won’t affect people buying a Mac, it’s interesting to see why the company waited until this moment to change its mind.
After all, a few years ago, Apple questioned “what’s a computer?” in its iPad Pro campaign. (what’s a computer?).
That’s why many serious users are wondering what the difference is between a “Mac notebook” and a “Mac laptop”.
9toMac adds: Many PC manufacturers call their laptops “notebooks”, while Apple wanted to differentiate its MacBooks by calling them “laptops”.
Looking at the Oxford Dictionary, we see that laptop and notebook [computer] are the same words – a small computer that works on batteries and is easy to carry around.
Finally, in the era of Apple Silicon’s own chips, Apple has given its MacBook line a more industrial design philosophy.
For the high-end MacBook Pro model, for example, the company introduced a mini-LED display panel and new ports.
And with the MacBook Air line, the company has finally brought back the MagSafe magnetic charging port and a significant improvement in battery life.
Embarrassingly, after Apple brought such a great update to the MacBook line, many customers began to ask, “What’s the point of the iPad?”
The main reason for this is that the high-end iPad Pro tablet is likely to be priced at the same price as a Mac laptop, if not more.
