The Apple March event is right around the corner and we have every expectation that it will be the biggest launch event Apple has held in years with a mix of mobile and computing products; but honestly, there's only one product I want to see, and that is a purple MacBook, and I don't even care what kind.
Apple's redesign for the iMac (2021) was a huge hit and finally broke Apple out of the stale neutral gray and silver of the Pro models, with the only personality that we've seen in years being a Rose Gold MacBook Air.
There's nothing wrong with Rose Gold, truly. I will never understand why Apple left so much money on the table by not making Rose Gold an option for their most recent MacBook Pro devices.
And now Apple has been teasing its event with a prismatic logo with the same color palette it used for the iMac and the different colored Apple logos even look like clamshells with different colored lids? How can you not see 1999's colorful iBook laptops? It's. Right. There.
If we're just getting a refreshed 13-inch MacBook Pro with an M2 chip and no redesign as has been rumored, and the iPhone SE 3 5G is announced with a bunch of color options, I'll have to step into Times Square and scream for a bit (don't worry, that's normal here).
- Follow along live: Apple March Event live blog
Come on, Apple. It's way past time to give some personality to your MacBook lineup
MacBooks are some of the best laptops ever made, and year after year (with rare exception) Apple puts out some of the highest-quality products we see, but we consistently have to stare at the same dull chassis.
It doesn't have to be this way, and it really shouldn't. Apple's iMac redesign is hugely popular, and customers can even pick from their favorite color to add their own personal touch to their device.
If there's one thing that MacBooks have become in the past few years, it's nigh-on invisible. Everyone has copied Apple's design, which used to be fresh, and now just about every laptop that's not a gaming laptop looks the exact same.
Apple recognized that it needed to give customers more choice and differentiate its latest iMac from a sea of silver-looking AIO PCs that hew close enough to Apple's design that I'm sure some patents have actually been infringed.
Apple broke itself out from the monotony with a burst of color, just as it did back in 1998 and 1999 with the iMac and the iBook. It's time to liberate Apple's long-languishing MacBook lineup.
Visual aesthetics is a perfectly valid consideration
If I wanted the most powerful laptop on the market, I'd stick with a high-end gaming laptop that looks like it could be a Puzzle Box full of Cenobites. The fact is I don't need that kind of performance for 98% of the work I do on my personal computer.
I'd be perfectly willing to sacrifice the ability to play Elden Ring on my personal laptop if it meant that I could leave a MacBook Air out on my coffee table and have it brighten up my living room.
Some people will say that's a fairly shallow concern in the grand scheme of things, and they're probably right. That said, it's still something that the people obviously want, and if we're plopping down the money, why shouldn't we get what we want?
And why purple? It's simple: it's a beautiful color that catches the eye without being so bright it looks like it was made by Fisher-Price, and it would be a beautiful color for a MacBook just as it's a beautiful color on the 24-inch iMac.
Why shouldn't I go for a beautiful laptop that does exactly what I need it to do when it's obviously possible for such a laptop to exist?
A purple MacBook could finally win me over to Apple's side
I've been a devoted Windows PC and laptop user for nearly my entire life, but that has started to change in the past few years.
Apple's macOS takes some adjustment, and I don't know that I'll ever fully purge the CTRL+C/CTRL+V muscle memory I've trained up since high school, and so it's easy to just stick with what I'm used to.
I'm a professional tech journalist, I know how powerful Apple's new silicon is. I can gawk at its stunning retina display, I may even get used to deleting everything with just a backspace for the sake of the nearly perfect keyboard.
But I can't feel any of that stuff, not in that lizard part of the brain that gets dazzled by a favorite color whenever you see it. For better or worse, we're not much better than bees in that regard, and that's okay.
So, Apple, want me to make the jump to Macs with both feet? Take a cue from Mother Nature and make the MacBook beautiful again – preferably with purple.
- Check out the best MacBooks and Macs, only one of which comes in purple (for now)
