Comment by npunt

It seems to me like a transition year. Apple occasionally has these where the lineup doesn't make sense until they phase out the old and bring in the new. iPads in 2016, iMacs in 2021, iPads in 2022, Macbooks in 2011, etc.

It's really hard to maintain a perfectly positioned product lineup while managing underlying shifts in technologies. It's usually the availability and price of new components that cause this, along with needing to iron out issues before bringing a technology fully mainstream. Here the touchscreen is new, the hinge is new, and the screen tech is new to the platform. You can't always just drop something that on the mass market.