Earlier quoted context omitted.
The only one that really sticks out as odd there is the 10th gen. Basic, Air, Pro is also their laptop lineup, right—it has been for quite a while, and nobody has complained. Mini seems like a reasonable and easy to interpret addition give tablet use-cases. I’m guessing the 10th gen is the one with the super long support lifetime or something like that? That’s a slightly weird iPad-ism.
> Basic, Air, Pro is also their laptop lineup In the most recent iteration of this lineup, the 12-inch MacBook was comically underpowered, especially for its price, there was no good reason to purchase that instead of an Air or a Pro. This was also quite short-lived, with an official discontinuation after four years.
It always made sense to me, at least: “pro” is premium in a power direction, “air” is premium in a lightness direction, and the base model is just the base model.
But I guess it is unsurprising that Apple doesn’t want to do a base model, haha.
Another way of looking at it, I guess, is just that it is an evolutionary process, and every MacBook is a descendent of the Air now.