What is masterful is how they redirected the desirable-number-du-jour to be something that is both 1) proprietary and 2) not cutting into their service revenue (e.g. larger storage = less people shelling out for cloud storage)
Don't take my word, look it up.
Around launch date, everyone in the universe will post "new MacBook Air is by far the best laptop I've ever used. It has fantastic battery life". Then the same model 6-12mo later "I loved the thinness, but now it's being too slow for X so I might get a macbook"
The air has had great battery for a while that's true, but now it has great battery and great performance.
For one short year, in 2020, due to the ARM transition, Apple repeated that feat. It could keep on going, if for example, the refresh of the Macbook Air comes out in 2022 and beats the Pro machines that came out in 2021.
Form factor basically same, screen the same, OS the same, yet somehow the qualitative feel changes with the new responsiveness. I don't switch to any Mac other than the M1 now except of necessity because of the instant ability to feel the downgrade.
Not just marketing speak. If they can keep up this momentum with M2, etc... they'll be creating some defensive moats around their laptop/desktop business.