Reddit:

The baseline MacBook costs more than the MacBook Air and is a downgrade in literally every way. Smaller screen, older generation keyboard, 480p camera, no thunderbolt 3, only 1 port, worse CPUs that are from last generation, no Touch ID.

The MacBook no longer makes sense, and it didn’t even make sense compared to the baseline MacBook Pro.

Jim and I spent some time discussing this on yesterday’s Dalrymple Report. I do find the relationship between the MacBook Air and the MacBook a bit confusing.

Two comments from the linked Reddit thread:

I always thought that the Macbook was replacing the Macbook air, similar to what they did with the iPad

And:

You thought correctly. This new laptop is just a bigger MacBook (Retina). It’s not an Air. Apple is just calling it an Air for marketing purposes. It has the same screen type and Y-series CPU as the Retina, not the U-series as the Air uses.

Instead calling the product lineup the MacBook 12″ and MacBook 13″, they’re calling it the MacBook and the New MacBook Air.

One possible motivation for this move, aside from giving the (MacBook Air) people what they want, is addressed in this thoughtful Op-Ed piece from Ben Lovejoy:

When Apple launched the iPhone X, it did more than just change the design language of the iPhone: it also offered a whole new pricing level. Not just for iPhones, but for any smartphone. It was a move that has significantly boosted the average selling price (ASP) of the iPhone range as a whole.

This is a trick Apple is now repeating with the 2018 MacBook Air

Interesting. Is this ASP ladder-climbing, an effort to raise the price of the entry level Mac? Though I do find the branding a bit confusing between the MacBook and MacBook Air, there’s no doubt that Apple is genius when it comes to product pricing.