> 7th gen processors (the touchbar model was updated, but only to an 8th gen processor. All 15 inch models were updated to 9th gen).

Well it's all 14nm Skylake, so that really doesn't matter at all.

My suspicion (and I'm not alone in this) is that the 13" non-touchbar model -- Marco Arment dubbed it the "MacBook Escape," which I kind of love -- was intended to be the replacement for the MacBook Air, but it misunderstood a lot of what people liked about the Air. Now that Apple has reconsidered and actually updated the Air in its beloved wedge form factor, the MacBook Escape is kind of in philosophical limbo. Apple's modus operandi these days is to leave models around way past their reasonable expiration date, and I think that's what we're seeing here; there's a good chance that the Air is going to get a refresh within 12 months and when that happens, the Escape is going to go away.

I also suspect today's bump is kind of a "holding pattern" update and Apple is working on a more significant redesign of their laptop line that's going to try and address the criticism they've been receiving over the last couple of years. (While it's possible we'll see the first sign of that at WWDC, seeing this press release just a couple weeks before WWDC makes me suspect that we won't see truly new laptops until 2020.)