Macbook Air 15 pricing guesses

[vgolfoz]

As I mentioned earlier, Apple are in a real quandary. Their laptop sales are down close to 40% on the same quarter as last year...granted there's a bit to do with COVID and people working from home, but they are still massively down on pre COVID volumes.

So they'll either need to cut the price, or dramatically reduce production in order to keep margins high. And it's Apple...so there's very little chance of the former happening.

 

[tstafford]

As I mentioned earlier, Apple are in a real quandary. Their laptop sales are down close to 40% on the same quarter as last year...granted there's a bit to do with COVID and people working from home, but they are still massively down on pre COVID volumes.

So they'll either need to cut the price, or dramatically reduce production in order to keep margins high. And it's Apple...so there's very little chance of the former happening.

I don't disagree with this. But I'll add some speculation - I think part of the reason that Mac sales are down is that the upgrades they made aren't all that compelling. Maybe some diehards on MR are willing to spend $$$ to go from an M1P to M2P MBP but I think the majority of Apple owners don't care. The move from Intel to AS was a quantum leap. Since then it's been incremental. I have two M1 based machines and an M2 and wouldn't upgrade any of them.

 

[Tagbert]

I don't disagree with this. But I'll add some speculation - I think part of the reason that Mac sales are down is that the upgrades they made aren't all that compelling. Maybe some diehards on MR are willing to spend $$$ to go from an M1P to M2P MBP but I think the majority of Apple owners don't care. The move from Intel to AS was a quantum leap. Since then it's been incremental. I have two M1 based machines and an M2 and wouldn't upgrade any of them.

Even if the M1 to M2 performance increase was larger, how many people would upgrade a 1 year-old computer just to get a new chip? The ones that Apple is expecting to buy an M2 are the ones who still have Intel Macs sitting around with their fans blasting.

 

[tstafford]

Even if the M1 to M2 performance increase was larger, how many people would upgrade a 1 year-old computer just to get a new chip? The ones that Apple is expecting to buy an M2 are the ones who still have Intel Macs sitting around with their fans blasting.

I think that's right. But if the M1 series wasn't enough for those folks to make the leap from Intel, is the M2 enough better to tip them over? What I'm saying is the decline in sales seems expected. Apple came out with an awesome upgrade, a lot of us bit (I dumped all my Intel Macs) and now we are happy.

 

[Tagbert]

I think that's right. But if the M1 series wasn't enough for those folks to make the leap from Intel, is the M2 enough better to tip them over? What I'm saying is the decline in sales seems expected. Apple came out with an awesome upgrade, a lot of us bit (I dumped all my Intel Macs) and now we are happy.

those Intel machines are 1.5 years older, over time those people are going to want to upgrade, hopefully to an AS Mac. The initial bump was from enthusiasts. From here on it will be business-as-usual turnover that drives traffic.

 

[LeeW]

10-20% higher than the current MBA. Apples has great big balls, they are not going make it cheaper than anything.

 

[hans1972]

Even for kids/oldies I think people are just being Apple apologists at this point. It's fricking 2023 and there's no reason machines should still come with 8gb of RAM. (especially PCs since NAND is dirt cheap right now). I realize Apple's memory is built into the SoC so it's a bit different but.... come on. This is a joke.

Who cares how much memory a Mac comes with as a default? The important thing is how much it costs at the amount you need or want.

Almost everybody who wants 16Gb of memory to be the default, just wants it to be cheaper. So why not just argue for cheaper Macs?

 

[Tagbert]

Who cares how much memory a Mac comes with as a default? The important thing is how much it costs at the amount you need or want.

Almost everybody who wants 16Gb of memory to be the default, just wants it to be cheaper. So why not just argue for cheaper Macs?

Because that sounds a little desperate. If you argue that Apple should just include the extra RAM at the same price, that sounds like you are advocating for "the little guy".