ls the power of Apple silicon holding back the Mac?

Apple’s processors may be getting in the way of the innovation the Mac needs.

- DAN MOREN

Bear with me: This is, on the face of it, a weird idea. But is it possible Apple is making its Macs too powerful? OK, OK, I know: How could having a computer that's too powerful be a bad thing? But after this week's announcement of the new MacBook Pro (fave.co/ 3DDarDw) and Mac mini (fave.co/3jwRj31), I found myself wondering whether the company has painted itself into a corner, vis-à-vis its impressive hardware.

It is, admittedly, a strange state of affairs when you find yourself wondering if Apple has maybe gotten too good at making computers that are so powerful they are overkill for the purposes of most tasks, but you don't have to look too far to see another example of this same phenomenon.

This is a struggle that Apple's long contended with on the c. Ask any user pushing the envelope of an iPad. Pro and the consensus will likely be that the hardware is awesome and incredibly powerful-if only the software could keep up.

To be fair, the problem with the iPad is more about what's available on the platform. Yes, you can have all the power of an M2 processor, but how do you really put it to use? Most iPad users aren't doing high-level video editing, coding, or working with giant Photoshop images. (That said, Apple's advertising would like to remind us that any of us could be doing all those things...if only we'd buy an iPad Pro.)