The Definitive 2022 Apple Tier List
It’s like a year in review, but with opinions
I’m all out of blog post ideas for the end of the year (well, not really, but I’m saving my energy for the big CES announcements in January), so what better way to milk everyone’s favorite fruit company even more than by doing a tier list that I’m sure everyone will have strong opinions about. 2022 was a bit of a mixed year for Apple, like most of the tech industry at-large. We got good products like the Mac Studio and M2 MacBook Air, as well as meh products like the iPhone SE and Studio Display — so here’s every single product Apple launched during the year of our lord, 2022, ranked:
As Drake said at some point in time, let’s start at the bottom and go upwards. (Was it Drake that said that? Or was it Nazi man? Some rapper most likely.)
E Tier houses the M2 MacBook Pro and iPhone SE. These 2 products were really the bottom of the barrel for me — what’s the point of them other than to let Apple make more money from recycled materials from 5 years ago? The iPhone SE retained the same dated form factor, but gained 5G… big whoop! Who actually cares? If you want a good deal on a phone, just get a refurbished iPhone 11, or heck, even a refurbished iPhone SE 2nd generation which can now be found on clearance by the thousands. This phone has absolutely no place in the market — and to make matters worse, they increased the price by $30 to fit 5G in! It’s a bad product with a bad price tag that should have never been made or conceived ever — and the same goes for the M2 MacBook Pro. It now has the worst speakers and camera of any modern Apple laptop (not counting the M1 MacBook Air which unfortunately for us, still retails at its original starting price which is extremely stupid), which is just appalling for a device that costs $1,200 and bears the “Pro” moniker (which I realize doesn’t mean anything anymore but it still exists and that’s wrong). It’s the M2 MacBook Air with a worse set of features that costs more, weighs more, is thicker, has a bad Touch Bar, worse screen, and looks straight out of 2016 — all while keeping its market position of “2nd best-selling Mac.” You know why it’s the best-selling Mac? Because Apple maliciously gives it a name it’s not deserving of just to push more units. It’s a bad product that absolutely nobody should buy, and should be replaced by a 15” MacBook Air with a fan ASAP. Heck, even call that thing a Pro if you want to, Apple! Both of these products are hilarious, should be bought by no one, and are the result of pure laziness and corporate greed.
D Tier houses some other disappointing products that while aren’t actively bad purchases, are bad products in the long run or were just flat-out unnecessary. First, the green iPhone 13 — there’s not much to say about this, and that’s the reason it’s here. It’s just an iPhone 13 in a new green — a green that’s not even that good — that’s all I have to say about it. What’s more controversial is the placement of the Studio Display; I’ve vocalized my pure hatred for this product since its release back in March — and I’m not pulling any punches. This product, first, is a lazy attempt by Apple to take the panel of the LG UltraFine 5K and charge $800 more for it. That’s right, $800 more, (secondly) because they didn’t even care enough to include a height-adjustable stand for $1,600 — forcing their customers stupid enough to buy this display to go in for spinal surgery as soon as they turn 55. This is a terribly priced product for anyone who cares about getting the best product for their money. Many have argued that they would gladly pay $400 more for “the Apple experience” and to them I say — first, it’s not $400 more, it’s $800, second, the Apple experience isn’t even that good, and third, $400 is $400. This display has been plagued to the brim with problems — first, the stupid webcam situation which I’m absolutely convinced prompted the “Continuity Camera” feature. Are you kidding, a $1,600 display with a camera that’s worse than the $400 iPad that shares the same logic board as the aforementioned display? That’s preposterous. Webcams are important — especially during a pandemic like the one the Studio Display (terrible name, by the way) was released in. And there’s more insult to injury — the display has to update itself like every 2 months because there’s always some issue with it that needs fixing — flickering, display panel unevenness, brightness issues, speaker problems, etc. And when it needs to update, it requires a whole Mac shutdown, which makes absolutely no sense! Oh, and to add insult to injury again, you can’t even unplug the display from the wall without getting on all fours and unplugging it from behind your desk on the floor like a caveman. I’m sorry, but this display is terribly priced, is designed poorly, has a bad feature set, and is not worth it — it deserves its D Tier spot. Enough Studio Display — let’s talk about the Apple TV. This was one of the smaller announcements of the year — and I don’t blame the news cycle. This product makes no sense! Here’s why in 3 sentences — first, the product doesn’t offer any new features worth spending real money on. It adds HDR 10+, which is basically Samsung’s proprietary not-even-good Dolby Vision ripoff, and the new Apple Music Sing feature — which in-and-of-itself isn’t a bad feature, but the locking-behind-new-hardware is depressing. It also removes features while artificially “lowering” the price — notably, it removes the Thread radio which enables Matter connectivity — that’s important! It’s a bad product that removes features, tricks consumers by “lowering” the price, AND ups storage while becoming thinner and lighter for some reason (???). The only good thing about the refresh has nothing to do with the actual box itself but rather what’s used to control it — the Siri remote now gains USB-C and moves away from Lighting — further completing Apple’s (late but welcome) USB-C transition. While I don’t own a new USB-C remote since I only charge mine like once a year, this is a major step forward for the company and I’m hoping other products like AirPods also gain a USB-C port for better interoperability. Major win. What’s not a major win however is the Apple Watch SE. The only reason it’s up this high is because it’s the overdue replacement to the asinine Series 3, which gave both developers and consumers headaches because of its terrible screen (making screen size adaptations for developers harder) battery life, and storage limitations. However, the SE didn’t add any new groundbreaking features, instead ditching the all-metal build in return for a plastic back while only dropping the price by $20-or-so-bucks. If the SE was, say, $150, it would be a total win and undoubtedly the best Apple Watch purely for its price, but I can’t say that now. Here’s hoping for some good third-party deals, but for now I’d just go out and buy a refurbished Series 7 or 6 which both offer more features for (oftentimes) a lower price. The new SE really isn’t a good buy — just like the new iPad Pros, which are the final products in D Tier. These products… they’re not bad, they’re just kind of… boring. They don’t have a place in the lineup, in my opinion. On one hand, the 11" model still hasn’t gained a miniLED screen — something that the 12.9" model got last year — which is especially annoying since the only other big feature is dubbed ”Apple Pencil Hover.” I mean, Hover is cool and adds a whole other dimension to the device, but as I spent more time with it I found it to just be a weird gimmick that mostly did nothing worthy of note for me. Apple is essentially just cutting production of the M1 since the M2 is out — which makes the chips cheaper to produce in mass quantity. If you want the latest and greatest iPad, then yeah, this’ll do everything the last one did with a couple other new bonus features you’ll probably never use, but mostly I’d recommend just getting another iPad new iPad or a refurbished 2020/2021 iPad Pro — which can be found en masse for hundreds of dollars off on clearance. These products aren’t necessarily bad — but they’re disappointing, especially when comparable products can be had at a much better price with sometimes more useful features.
C Tier houses average products that didn’t totally knock my socks off, but that also weren’t super terrible either. I wouldn’t have a super tough time recommending any of these — but they do present some obvious shortfalls and drawbacks. The easy one in the list is, of course, the green iPhone 13 Pro — it was another mid-cycle color refresh for PR points and really nothing else. The only reason it ranks higher than the 13 is because I think that the Pro was the more appealing phone — and that’s basically it. What was not as easy to rank was the Apple Watch Series 8, which didn’t really gain any new features that most people would benefit from. However, there is a small subset of people who would find value in this watch — particularly people who are looking to have a child because of the wrist temperature sensor and family planning features. I won’t delve into these additions now since I committed a substantial section to them during my September event recap, but they’re mainly the reason I’ve decided to rate this product a C. If you don’t think you’d benefit from these small additions or crash detection, the other new “big” feature (i.e you don’t drive), I’d skip the Series 8 and instead buy a refurbished Series 7 (or just stick with your current watch for another year). It’s a pretty okay product for a small set of people or people who are upgrading from super old watches, but it’s certainly not revolutionary and not a must-have. It’s not the best buy and not the worst buy — it’s just kind of… meh.* *The same goes for the iPhones 14/Plus. There are, without a doubt, better iPhones for sale at this price point (or cheaper) — in fact, I even recommended the iPhone 13 new from Apple over the 14 — and I still stand by that recommendation; however, the 14s — even though they might be lousy — aren’t bad phones. They don’t fall behind in any particular category and neither did they receive massive price increases — I actually feel like the new 14 Plus is an actively good buying decision if you want the extra software updates and the new phone. They’re not the best phones in the world with the best price/performance ratio, but they’re fine, and that’s enough for me to rate them C. The C tier products aren’t egregiously bad like some of the other products I’ve rated so far, but they wouldn’t be my first pick at the Apple Store — and I wouldn’t feel confident blindly recommending them without knowing the full extent of the situation.
B Tier houses products that I was happy and satisfied with, even considering some minor complaints. First a universally-liked product, the M1 iPad Air — a product I originally wasn’t super impressed with. But under more deliberate consideration, I think that it’s the best iPad one can buy in 2022. It houses the M1 — which brings good features like multiple display support and Apple Music Sing while packing a good screen, battery, and comparable camera along with a good (enough) overall feature set and a cheap (enough) price. You’ll miss out on a couple features like Face ID and ProMotion, but in practice, you’ll probably get used to these omissions after a while. The Air is fast, powerful, cost-effective, and is all-around just a great device. It’s the most iPad-y iPad for most that also has the ability to turn into a “laptop replacement.” There’s only one caveat; if you can find a 2020/2021 iPad Pro for cheaper (the likelihood of that happening is high), I’d get that over the Air. Both models pack more features and smaller bezels which constitute as wins over the Air. But if you’re stuck and/or can’t find a good deal, I’d go with the Air without a hitch. The more controversial pick here is the 10th generation no suffix iPad — I know many are going to be really mad at me for this — but I personally feel like the new not-so-base-level-iPad is actually… not so bad. Hear me out: even though the Apple Pencil dongle situation, the lack of Magic Keyboard support, and price/market segmentation are major pitfalls, I feel like this is a good entry-level iPad for someone who doesn’t want to commit to the iPad experience while getting an adequate iPad that takes advantage of (the admittedly lackluster) iPadOS. The truth is that the 9th generation iPad is just a bad tablet — it’s cheap and gets its job done, but it’s not a good experience! Its display feels straight out of 2014, it’s slow, the laminated display feels like it’s plastic, it doesn’t support new accessories, and it doesn’t support many iPadOS creature comforts. The 10th generation iPad, even though it doesn’t do well in the accessory department, looks modern and fits in with other iPads, feels fast, and is otherwise well-rounded. It’s good at mostly everything… except for its price — I have to admit, $450 is a lot for an iPad that doesn’t support the latest pencil. But if you can get a good deal, I’d strongly consider it — it’s not a particularly bad tablet and offers a competitive feature set that’s (obviously) more compelling than the 9th generation — which should be reserved for extreme circumstances like the elderly or kids. I’m not giving it A tier status purely for that price and Apple Pencil support, but I think that it’s a really great iPad worth considering. Both of these iPads are just that — iPads. And with iPadOS’ fatal flaws, I couldn’t really give any iPad an A tier spot. These are good products — but they never wowed me or were compelling enough for me to strongly recommend them to anyone.
A Tier houses some of my favorite products of the year — while I felt like they lacked some minor features or specs that’d have otherwise elevated them to S tier, both the MacBook Air with M2 and iPhone 14 Pro are spectacular devices. I’ll start with the MacBook Air — I feel like this year’s MacBook Air is the perfect Apple laptop for the vast majority of Apple customers, and I’m confident I’m not alone in thinking so; the M2 takes everything about the M1 and turns it up to 11 — packing even more power, and building on unique Apple Silicon-only features while offering the same industry-leading power consumption Apple Silicon is praised for. The build is astonishingly thin, beating out even the old MacBook Air and is second only to the 12-inch MacBook that, well, defied odds. The screen is even larger, brighter, and sharper — something I would have never thought I’d say about a display that was already industry-leading. And it added MagSafe, broader display support, more RAM options, a vastly superior webcam for 2022-era Zoom calls, and so much more for only a couple hundred bucks more — I can’t understate the sheer excellence of this machine. It’s unparalleled in its price range and I would even go as far as to say that it’s one of the best Apple laptops ever made. The only problem is the price; $1,200 for the base storage configuration — which is slower than last year’s model — and only 8 gigs of RAM is frankly appalling; it’s insulting. I outlined this a couple months ago in an opinion piece after WWDC, but this laptop should’ve been a direct replacement for the M1 MacBook Air, slating in at the $999 price. I’d have even settled for a $1,100 MacBook Air M2 if it came with a higher storage capacity out of the gate — 256 gigs in 2022 is borderline unusable, even with cloud storage. The negatives don’t outweigh the benefits of this machine, though — even considering the MacBook Air’s thermal throttling limitations, bad price, and disappointing value proposition. I still believe this is one of the best products Apple has unveiled this year, without a doubt. You’d be a fool for ignoring the M2 MacBook Air — it’s truly an Apple laptop — like the MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air it (essentially) replaces — that you can’t go wrong with. I feel the same about the iPhone 14 Pro — my full review appears negative at first, but is actually somewhat positive — granted, it’s not as positive as my iPhone 13 Pro review from last year, but that’s no sign that the 14 Pro is a bad phone. Sure, I feel like its upgrade proposition and features are lackluster at best — I still don’t have Dynamic Island support for Uber Eats and DoorDash, the battery life is utter garbage, and the AOD, even with improvements in iOS 16.2, feels more like an afterthought over a meaningful implementation. However, these negatives aren’t to take away from the amazing camera system that blows every other phone out of the water (that 2x lens is such a handy feature even Google copied it), the stunning and bright display that’s class-leading in contrast and brightness, and the iPhone experience that locks millions into the Apple ecosystem. The iPhone 14 Pro, considering all of its flaws and shortcomings which become obvious as you use the handset for more than a week, is the best phone one could buy in 2022. It’s not as flashy as some of the foldables, it doesn’t have the features of the S22 Ultra and Xiaomi whatever-the-hell, and it doesn’t have the helpful Google-ness that the Pixel has — but it’s a good phone and it’s good at being a good phone. The 14 Pro still amazes me with its 48mp sensor (that’s leagues ahead of Samsung’s “128mp” sensor that they’re still crying about), reliably producing crisp shots with amazing dynamic range, contrast, and color science. Its Dynamic Island, while not overwhelmingly useful, adds some sort of utility to an otherwise static eyesore that’d usually attempt to slip away from the gaze of your eyes. And the display continues to be one of my favorite parts of using the 14 Pro, with its (at this point) industry-leading screen-to-body ratio and blisteringly high brightness with frankly astonishing HDR. As a package, the 14 Pro won’t disappoint, and for that, it deserves an A tier spot for showing competence in a crowded phone market. Both the iPhone 14 Pro and new MacBook Air are class-leading products that truly give me hope for the future of the company — they were excellent releases that had their flaws, but also have major strong points and are compelling buys.
And finally, we have the S Tier products, the ones that defied my expectations, created new product categories for Apple and greatly improved on their predecessors. 3 products were truly worthy of such a high ranking: unveiled at ‘Peek Performance’ in March, the Mac Studio, and unveiled at ‘Far Out’ in September, the Apple Watch Ultra and AirPods Pro 2nd Generation. I’ll begin with the Mac Studio, which I crown the best Apple product of 2022. Putting aside the bias of being a Mac nerd, the Mac Studio truly fulfilled everything I wanted out of Apple this year. It brought all the power of the Mac Pro into an enclosure the size of 2 stacked Mac minis, with the versatility and port selection I’ve dreamed of for years — it was the Mac I and many others like me dreamed of — a Mac Pro, but for nerds. Power brought to the masses. It’s the angelic successor to the trash can Mac Pro from 2013, but with more power, capability, reliability, and modularity (in Apple speak). I truly love the Mac Studio. It’s my everything computer; no matter the task, it never whines and never slows down — it’s the machine for the creators and nerds who want something that’ll work all the time. It has its shortcomings, but very few — the only one I can think of as being an actual issue is the repairability saga where Apple artificially limits storage swaps — but I feel like this, in retrospect, isn’t as much of an issue. The Mac Studio is a flawless machine that sets a precedent for the future of the desktop Mac as the MacBook Pro did in 2021 for Mac notebooks. I’m thoroughly impressed with its capability and reliability and hope that it gets even better in the future as time goes on and more versions are released. The Apple Watch Ultra, on the other hand, created a new class of watch — one that took the software and Apple-ness of Apple Watches past and the ruggedness and sheer utility of a dive computer and training watch. This unique blend is what makes the Apple Watch Ultra special — it doesn’t try to replace any of the other Apple Watches — I actually feel like it should be worn alongside a normal Apple Watch only to be used for extreme sports — but even if you don’t do that (which, obviously, most people won’t), the Apple Watch Ultra is truly a phenomenal watch in both price and in specs. Sure, it might not do *absolutely everything *a specialized dive computer might, but dang does it ever come close! And can we just appreciate the way it looks? It’s made entirely for utility, everything down to the crown guard for gloves and knurling on the crown screams “I’m a rugged utility watch.” It’s so… perfect! It’s not pretty, it’s ugly, and that’s great! And the watch crystal is flat and sapphire, making for an amazingly durable watch. The Apple Watch Ultra isn’t meant to one-up or be a premium version of the Apple Watch — it’s meant to be used, unlike any other Apple product; and that’s really special. I love the feature set and the hyper-focused mindset of the Apple Watch Ultra, and I truly do think it’s one of the best Apple products ever made. This is even more apparent thanks to its price — $800 for so much utility is frankly a bargain. Take a look at any other watch on the market that has the feature set of the Ultra — they’re all up in the thousands. I don’t know Apple managed to fit all of this tech into an $800 watch, but it’s absolutely a deal. The Apple Watch Ultra really is a phenomenal piece of technology. Last, but certainly not least, the new AirPods Pro — though we didn’t get the (hilarious stemless) redesign we were “expecting,” the new AirPods Pro are just… really good. In addition to the all-new precision finding Find My experience they added to the case — which in-and-of-itself is worth the upgrade, in my opinion — they improve on sound quality in a tremendous way to the point where many have said that they actually sound better than AirPods Max — no small feat. They also introduced Adaptive Transparency, something AirPods users have been wanting since the dawn of time, slightly better battery life, better noise cancellation, and a W2 chip for better EQ. All of that at the same price leads to a product that’s an instant purchase for previous-generation AirPods Pro users — Apple took an exceptional product and made it even better, and that’s worth celebrating. While my S tier picks might be controversial — all 3 products have truly blown me away. I have absolutely no hesitation in recommending any of them — they’re pricey, but really good.
There we have it — 6 tiers, 17 products, ranked. How do you feel about these picks? What would you have done better? Probably lots of things, but I’m pretty happy with this final tier list.
