Apple is so "consistent" the way to know which kind of an Air or Pro it is, is to find the tiny print on the bottom that's a jumble of letters like "MGNE3" and google it.

And depending on what you're trying to use it for, you need to map it to a string like "MacBookAir10,1" or "A2337" or "Macbook Air Late 2022".

Oh also the Macbook Air (2020) is a different processor architecture than Macbook Air (2020).

The canonical way if you need a version number is the "about this Mac" dialog (here it says Mac Studio 2022).

If you need to be technical, System Information says Mac13,1 and these identifiers have been extremely consistent for about 30 years.

Your product number encodes much more information than that, and about the only time when it is actually required is to see whether it is eligible for a recall.

> Oh also the Macbook Air (2020) is a different processor architecture than Macbook Air (2020).

Right, except that one is MacBook Air (retina, 2020), Macbookair9,1, and the other is MacBook Air (M1, 2020), MacBookAir10,1. It happens occasionally, but the fact that you had to go back 5 years to a period in which the lineup underwent a double transition speaks volume.

> What about the iBook? That wasn’t tidy. Ebooks or laptops?

Back then, there were iBooks (entry-level) and PowerBooks (professional, high performance and expensive). There had been PowerBooks since way back in 1991, well before any ebook reader. I am not sure what your gripe is.

> Or the iPhone 9? That didn’t exist.

There’s a hole in the series. In what way is it a problem, and how on earth is it similar to the situation described in the parent?

> Or MacOS? Versioning got a bit weird after 10.9, due the X thing.

It never got weird. After 10.9.5 came 10.10.0. Version numbers are not decimals.

Seriously, do you have a point apart from "Apple bad"?

You were saying that Apple is very consistent. I’m pointing out they aren’t particularly.

> It never got weird. After 10.9.5 came 10.10.0. Version numbers are not decimals.

They turned one of the numbers into a letter then started numbering again.

There was Mac OS 9, then Mac OS X. That got incremented up past 10.

You say they don’t mess around with model numbers. Yes they do, with software and hardware.

I like using them both.

> They turned one of the numbers into a letter then started numbering again.

They did not. It has been MacOS X 10.0 through macOS 10.15. In never was X.1 or anything like that.

Right. MacOS X was the marketing name. But it was pronounced 10, just a stylization with Roman numerals.

The version number the OS reported always said 10.whatever. Exactly as you said.

Yes, and you did sound silly when saying it out loud the official way (OS ten ten ten was a famous one, for Yosemite).

I stand corrected. I thought the X(10) was part of the version number, not a prefix that got added.

I’m not sure I hear people call MacOS X 10.10 “ten ten ten”. I think I remember them calling it “ten ten” verbally.

So you’d say “MacOS ten ten”.

At least that’s what I’m used to, it is entirely possible that’s what other people said and you would write it that way. No one wrote “MacOS X.10” or “MacOS X .10” but they would write “MacOS X 10.10”.

So yeah it’s all a bit of a mess. There’s a reason people often use the name of the release, like Snow Leopard or Tahoe, instead of the number numbers.

It was a response to you specifically calling out the book suffix.

And what was unclear iBook VS PowerBook?

The iBook store.

Sorry, I thought you were saying that they don’t use model numbers at all.

I think you were actually saying that they don’t just them for laptops.

"iBook" referred to a laptop from 1999 to 2006. "iBooks" referred to the eBook reader app and store from 2010 to 2019. I'll grant that there is some possibility for confusion, but only if the context of the conversation spans multiple decades but doesn't make it clear whether you're talking about hardware or software.

Back when there were MacBooks, it was MacBook (standard model), MacBook Air (lighter variant), and MacBook Pro (more expensive, high-performance variant). Sure, 3 is more complicated than 2, but come on.

If you really want to complain, you can go back to the first unibody MacBook, which did not fit that pattern, or the interim period when high-DPI displays were being rolled out progressively, but let’s be serious. The fact is that even at the worst of times their range could be described in 2 sentences. Now, try to do that for any other computer brand. To my knowledge, he only other with an understandable lineup was Microsoft, before they lost interest.

> The fact is that even at the worst of times their range could be described in 2 sentences.

It’s a good time to buy one. They are all good.

It would be interesting to know how many SKUs are hidden behind the simple purchase interface on their site. With the various storage and colour options, it must be over 30.

Loads, I assume. But those are things like "MacBook Pro M1 Max with a 1TB SSD and a matte screen coating" versus "MacBook Pro M1 with a 256GB SSD and a standard screen". The granularity of say Dell’s product numbers is not enough for that either, and you still need a long product number when searching their knowledge base.