danwells
At first, I thought "this makes no sense" - two high end laptops that almost end up in the mobile workstation market and a consumer desktop that sells a fraction of what the consumer laptops do. The iMac is the next machine up for an update, but it pretty much shares its innards with the 13" MBP or the Mini (ignoring the M2 Pro Mini) - it just didn't get those innards updated the last time around (why?).
Then I realized that it makes sense in one specific situation... What if all three chips are ready, but supply is constrained by yield? The pro laptops have very, very high profit per machine (their percentage margin is typical of an Apple product, or even slightly low - but their high selling prices mean a lot of dollars per machine). Building an M3 Max and sticking it in a $3000-$6000 workstation is a lot more profit per chip than selling a base M3 in an iPad or a MacBook Air. The M3 Max is also larger, and I don't know how profit per wafer compares...
The iMac is old, and it has been attracting attention in the Mac press for how old it is, so it's a good machine to update just for the PR. Why not update its innards-mates with it? If there are supply constraints, it shares its innards with the most popular Macs of them all...
If Apple updated the Airs, it's possible that the limited chip supply would simply shoot availability dates into March right away. Update the slower-selling iMac and people might actually get one in a reasonable time frame. Update the 14" and 16" Pro and you've made some very visible creative users happy, and sold a bunch of high profit machines
