Following last month’s ‘There’s More in the Making Event’, there was a lot of speculation about the future of Apple’s Mac product line. In particular, people have focussed on the new iPad Pro and whether or not it can be a true laptop replacement.  Now some time has passed, MacWorld’s Jason Snell highlights another issue – the new MacBook Air only comes with one processor option. Consumers can expand a new Macbook’s Air’s storage capacity to 1.5TB and its memory to 16GB. However, you still get the 1.6GHz dual-core Core i5 processor. Mr. Snell argues that this move might signal the end of configurable Macs.

This feels like the future of the Mac, certainly on the consumer end of the product line. With the new MacBook Air, Apple has picked a processor and stuck with it. Would any of us be surprised if it did the same with a future update to the MacBook? Or low-end iMacs? Looking a bit further into the future, if Apple starts building Macs with ARM processors, is it going to want to offer different classes of processors within those models? On iOS, Apple has steadfastly refused to do this. Every model-year of a given model is generally powered by the same processor across the board.

A new patent, reported by AppleInsider, reveals that the Apple Watch might be able to help protect users from sun damage in the future. The patent details a device with a number of sensors. These could be used to record how much sun the user is getting. Alerts could be triggered when the level of sun exposure gets too high. This news ties in with recent developments in which Apple is trying to turn the Apple Watch into an all-in-one wellness device.

Granted on Tuesday by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the patent for “UV dosimetry and exposure alert” effectively describes a system where UV light sensors detect sunlight and tracks exposure over time. The system can then provide the user with alerts about their exposure, including guidance on preventative measures if the levels are excessive.