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Apple to Launch 'Low-Cost' MacBook Series Next Year to Rival Chromebooks

tfigs said:
Oh I hope so. I've been in education for 25 years and when I began, my school was all Macs. And that led me to by my first personal computer, a red iMac. I've been an Apple user ever since. About 5 years ago, we switched to Windows and Microsoft and I had to learn how to use that God-awful PC. Ugh, so unintuitive and not user friendly at all. I still bring my MacBook Pro to work and use it. I use Keynote over PowerPoint, Pages over Word. It's just easier for me.

Of course, can Apple produce something schools will consider "cheap"?? I hope so.
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Serious question, why do American schools buy the computers? Why not just have the kids BYOD? The state government could subsidise the disadvantaged, who would still get to choose their device.

in my country they do and the most common school computer is the MBA.
 
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This reminds me of how Apple and IBM were both trying to market less expensive computers to a younger generation in the 1980's. IBM fumbled with the IBM PCjr and Apple offering a 50% student discount on the Apple IIe. History does repeat. Let's hope Apple doesn't produce a "PCjr"
 
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A low cost macbook makes perfect sense to me. How they will manage the available memory (in particular the disk) remains to be seen.
 
The Chromebooks at the school I'm teaching at costs 200$ and are bought in the thousands every year because of the high amount of kids in our city but also they break so easily. It is cheaper to buy new than to fix/repair them. If they can compete in that market with a durable machine it will be interesting. Luckily enough my boss aloud me to get a MacBook Air as my work machine instead of a HP windows laptop.
 
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Edsel said:
This reminds me of how Apple and IBM were both trying to market less expensive computers to a younger generation in the 1980's. IBM fumbled with the IBM PCjr and Apple offering a 50% student discount on the Apple IIe. History does repeat. Let's hope Apple doesn't produce a "PCjr"
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Well the IBM PC Junior or the codename at that time the peanut. Was just an entry-level desktop IBM was trying to offer at that time. I have a family member who actually worked on the peanut and the 286. they are trying to compete against Apple at that time but remember there are also other solutions or companies that were producing computers. IBM was just trying to get a foothold in to the Tandy and RadioShack etc.
 
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I doubt that. The M1 Air is already a great deal at the $799 discounts it's been getting and I think that's as low as it'd go for a MacBook. As for cannibalising iPad sales, I also don't think it would do that. iPadOS is cumbersome for any other activity than just wanting a big iPhone. And getting a keyboard to make it less so already goes to MacBook Air pricing.
 
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Absolutely not. Apple and “low-cost”?!!? How can you even post such an obviously-false rumor?!?! 😂🤣😂🤣

It is one thing for Apple to sell MacBooks for the education market that are simply priced less than normal (“less“ can still be pricey with Apple’s typical high-margins). But it’s another thing entirely to sell (specifically) a “low-cost“ MacBook.

Could you imagine Tim Apple saying the words “low-cost” on an earning conference call? The shareholders would run as fast as they could for the exits.
 
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I suspect, unfortunately, this will be an opportunity to actually move the floor up for the current line in pricing while offering something of a bit lower cost, making that price seem even lower than it actually is. Rumors seem to point to them doing the same with the iPhone 15.
 
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nihil0 said:
How about 12-inch Macbook in original chassis with M1 CPU? That could be lowcost.
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Could it? That started at $1,499. So, it was a pricier chassis than the current M1 Air.

Falhófnir said:
If I had to guess a spec, basically the 13" MacBook Pro with the Touch Bar removed, M2 chip, 128/8GB starting configuration, rebranded as the 13" MacBook for $799.
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Could be.

Let's say the M3 Air starts at $1,099 like the M2 Air does today. Then the M2 Air gets the $999 slot, and the M1 Air gets killed in favor of this "decontented" 13-inch M1 Pro, at $799. Maybe.

But why? Wouldn't it be less effort to just drop the M1 Air's price to $799?

 
I can see 11” being the smallest they’d aim for, though I’m skeptical at what “low cost” actually is in Apple’s campus. As far as I’m concerned, if it’s more than $700 then they’re wasting their time.

I’d like to hear what everyone’s opinion is on a plastic body too, as that would help to reduce the price.
 
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I'm thinking 12-13 inch with a binned M1 (less than 7 GPU cores), no keyboard backlight, no retina display, old school plastic trackpad, no fingerprint sensor, smaller battery, crippled thunderbolt (and only one port, not even a headphones jack) so you can't run a 4K display.
 
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