Because that's how apple indicates the 'version' or 'revision' of the model, instead of just numbering they give the 'produced from' date. Kinda like car manufa

Because that's how apple indicates the 'version' or 'revision' of the model, instead of just numbering they give the 'produced from' date. Kinda like car manufacturers distinguish the different versions of a given model (i.e. the 2012 Tesla model S and 2016 Tesla model S). Also, since you can't tell from looking at the laptop (they are all identical since the first retina macbook from 2012), you must go to the 'about this mac' menu, which gives you the model name and revision date. In my case this is "Macbook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012)". When I used to build my own PC's, I could tell you the brand, model, revision etc of every component inside, but since just about every internal part of an Apple laptop (motherboard, SSD, memory etc) is custom fabricated, there is no point in trying to remember what's inside. I know my laptop has the 'second fastest' i7 I could choose from in that time, and the 16GB memory option, but don't ask me which specific i7 or which DDR type I have, I don't know and honestly I no longer care.