Multiple models are fine, so long as you have clear signaling. As you point out, it's not terribly hard for the consumer to tell the difference between 13", 15"

Multiple models are fine, so long as you have clear signaling. As you point out, it's not terribly hard for the consumer to tell the difference between 13", 15", etc. Usually it's not that easy, and tech releases are shockingly hard to understand, and in my opinion most of the ambiguities are pure laziness. Since the topic at hand is Apple, let's pick out some examples from their small'ish product line: * There's no way to know, without doing extra research, that the iPhone 'S' suffix means "better." 'S' could easily mean "small." The 'C' suffix is even more ambiguous. * The iPhone SE is probably the most ambiguously named product they've released in years. Now it's even worse, because once you know that the SE stands for "Special Edition," releases like the iPhone 7 (RED) Special Edition make it even harder to understand where the SE fits in. * Apple still sells MacBook Airs, except they made the MacBook do what the Air used to do and they've all but discontinued Airs. * They're advertising the iPad 9.7", which is just the newest version of the iPad, except they already have an iPad Pro 9.7", so if you search for 9.7" on Google or look around Apple's store you mostly see mostly results for the Pro 9.7". In fact on the buy iPad 9.7" page doesn't even say 9.7" anywhere except when referencing the Pro. Of course Apple isn't the only tech company that does this; they just used to be one of the better ones, and now they're slowly giving up that advantage. The more technical a company thinks its userbase is, the lazier it gets with naming. Computer components, for example, have names that are so useless you basically have to infer their positioning by their MSRP. (Spec sheets are only marginally helpful; your only real option is to search for benchmarks.) This is not a good thing; everyone benefits from clearer naming conventions. Many companies just don't think it's important, for some reason.