Apple:
Apple today updated MacBook Air, adding True Tone to its Retina display for a more natural viewing experience, and lowering the price to $1,099, with an even lower price of $999 for college students.
And:
In addition, the entry-level $1,299 13-inch MacBook Pro has been updated with the latest 8th-generation quad-core processors, making it two times more powerful than before. It also now features Touch Bar and Touch ID, a True Tone Retina display and the Apple T2 Security Chip, and is available for $1,199 for college students.
Apple will throw in a pair of Beats Studio 3 Wireless headphones with either of these Macs as part of the back to school promo.
I particularly like the tagline on the MacBook Air section of Apple’s official Mac page: Lightness strikes again.
Remind me the difference between a MacBook and a MacBook Air again? Oh, wait, looks like the MacBook has been officially end-of-lifed. On that same Mac page, you’ll see the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro as the full laptop lineup. No MacBook. I’m good with that.
Hang on, wasn’t the MacBook one of Ive’s creations?
And I remember reading plenty of “One port wonder” articles.
Could it be that now Jony’s gone, so too will his designs?
The MacBook did not spark joy.
Neither did Pouty Ive.
Super excited about the good decisions they’re finally making. They really seem to be cleaning house over there. Make the emoji bar optional next…
Regarding the clock speed comparison you drew, what do you make of the “Turbo Boost up to 3.9 GHz” part of the spec? Sounds to be like that 1.4GHz processor can “turbo boost” past the 2GHz speed, when do you notice the difference and how does that fare in your use case?
This is one of the things I’ve been hoping they’d do. SKU and model proliferation is deadly. Operationally, it makes things more complex and costly and from a marketing perspective, it’s harder to explain why THIS one and not THAT one.
The MacBook didn’t make sense the moment they added a Retina display to the Air. Yes, it was a few ounces lighter but that wasn’t ever going to matter to very many people (if you can hoist 2lb you can hoist 2lb 7 oz or whatever the difference was). This also frees them up to use a keyboard in all of their models that works in the Air and thicker without worrying about the ultrathin model.
That said, the base clock speed on the entry Pros is idiotic. 1.4Ghz??? I have the 2016 version of this and it’s a 2ghz base clock.
Pricing… things aren’t really cheaper except at the Air level. The Pro with 4 USB3 ports (the ‘real’ Pro) starts at $1799 still.
Yeah I don’t know how it works in practice. I mean, if it’s 1.4 when it’s just booted but in practice as apps run it’s always 2+… maybe it’s not that bad. On the other hand, what’s its thermal capability (i.e how long can it run at higher rates without overheating and throttling?
Apple also dropped the prices of SDD upgrades from insane to merely gouge-y.
Judging by the previous throttling tests on the other MacBooks, you’ll do above base except on punishing and very long workloads. If that’s an issue for you, the higher-clocked models are still there are the same price.
I know they’re available. My point is that the current entry MBP is clocked at 2.0g and above. 1.4 feels like a significant step back for those.