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M1 Air price drop $0 after M2 Air is announced
- Thread starter babyexercise
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Try contacting Apple and see if they could do it retroactive. They might request educational use confirmation.
Yes, the Back to School promotion provides another reason for keeping the M1 Air around, even at the same price. M2 Airs might be hard to come by for a while, and people who really need one for school, or want to buy right now, can get the gift card, education pricing, and a very capable machine by walking into an Apple store today.
Part of the reason for the delay is Apple is busy stockpiling M2 MBA. Otherwise, the M2 MBP wouldn't be so widely available at Apple Stores.
It serves as the standard department or large organization issued MacBook. Many people underestimate that. If it sold as terribly as the iPhone 12/13 mini for example, Apple would have deleted it a long time ago.
It sells and has an audience. A badly selling device is terminated by Apple.
It's really an amazing laptop for $999. I guess people would feel better if it started at $1099 at release, and got a price reduction to $999 now that the M2 version has been announced?
If you're patient, you wait for a $829/$899 sale from Costco. If you're in an urgent situation (your kid's laptop stopped working) then you buy one for $999 and feel good they have a rock solid laptop with great processor, screen and keyboard that will likely have support for 7+ more years from Apple.
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Though the lack of a price drop is disappointing (especially given the age of the device, less the M1 SoC), it's not hard to see why Apple stood firm.
The M1 Air will continue to sell in bucketloads for a long time to come, because for many people the M1 is more than generous for their computing needs. It will continue to sell well in education and businesses where a lot of productivity is achieved from the cloud rather than locally.
Further, had Apple reduced its price, then the new M2 Air would have become an even harder sell. The M2 SoC is an iterative release and while not 'bad' per sè, the issue is that Apple set the bar so high with M1 that it was inevitable a revised chip was going to appear disappointing to the more tech-savvy crowd.
The M1 Air can still be configured on Apple's BTO page (minus the 8-core GPU option), and I have to say is an even more attractive proposition now that we know what M2 is all about. Here in the UK with education pricing (my profession), the M1 Air with 512gb SSD and 16gb RAM is £1,258, whereas the new M2 Air with 256gb SSD, 16gb RAM and dual-charger is £1,359. Is £100 really worth it for a hotter chip, MagSafe, a slightly better screen and half the storage? That's for you to decide
My only concern with the M1 Air is how long it will continue to receive major macOS updates for now it's close to 2 years old.
The M1 Air will continue to sell in bucketloads for a long time to come, because for many people the M1 is more than generous for their computing needs. It will continue to sell well in education and businesses where a lot of productivity is achieved from the cloud rather than locally.
Further, had Apple reduced its price, then the new M2 Air would have become an even harder sell. The M2 SoC is an iterative release and while not 'bad' per sè, the issue is that Apple set the bar so high with M1 that it was inevitable a revised chip was going to appear disappointing to the more tech-savvy crowd.
The M1 Air can still be configured on Apple's BTO page (minus the 8-core GPU option), and I have to say is an even more attractive proposition now that we know what M2 is all about. Here in the UK with education pricing (my profession), the M1 Air with 512gb SSD and 16gb RAM is £1,258, whereas the new M2 Air with 256gb SSD, 16gb RAM and dual-charger is £1,359. Is £100 really worth it for a hotter chip, MagSafe, a slightly better screen and half the storage? That's for you to decide
My only concern with the M1 Air is how long it will continue to receive major macOS updates for now it's close to 2 years old.We can use common sense and history to see how long Apple supports their own chips vs. Intel, and iOS devices vs. MacBooks.
We already know that Apple supports their Intel Mac platforms for ~7-8 years. There are few exceptions for 6 or 9 years of macOS support, but the vast majority of Macs from the past dozen years have gotten between 7-8.
For iOS (where Apple 100% controls the silicon design), we know Apple supports them for 6-7 years, with a few longer exceptions (looking at you, iPad Air 2).
So it's reasonable to assume that Macs (which people keep longer than iPhones, typically) will get 2 more years of support than an iOS-based device.
When you combine the longer Mac timelines of support, with the fact that Apple controls the silicon (like iOS), it's reasonable to expect all M1 Macs getting 8-9 years support.
I absolutely agree, but it's whether Apple also agrees on what's 'reasonable' 😉
Even though Apple don't reduce their prices, you can always find it cheaper elsewhere. Most places charge £949 for the base model. Amazon often have it under £900. The RRP might not change, but if you shop around you can easily save yourself around £100-150.
Managed to get a brand new MBA M1 base model for around USD$818 (tax included). Had a superb weekend sale from authorised apple resellers. Not in the US.
Seems like some countries are dumping the m1 mba cheap.
apple knew these countries consumers would most likely buy the m2 for sure.
Seems like some countries are dumping the m1 mba cheap.
apple knew these countries consumers would most likely buy the m2 for sure.
The iPhone 7 (there is no 7s) got 6 years of iOS support. Just like I wrote above.
A Mac typically has 2 years longer support than a iPhone, so the minimum support we should expect from Apple Silicon Macs is 8 years, with 10 not out of the question in my opinion.
I was in Costco yesterday and they had the base model M1 Air for $849.00 which is a great price for a really good machine. Quite a bit cheaper than the new base M2 model.