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The MacRumors Show: Apple's Plan to Launch Low-Cost MacBook With iPhone Chip

All this will do is bump up prices on the list.
No more, no less.
Make some disappointed that the low end will not do things the next tier up does and cost more $$$ to buy it.
Marketing at best.
PC manufactures get called bad names because they sell low end models that are slow sluggish and dont perform well.
Therefore people will never buy from that company again.
I think Apple is shooting themselves in the foot.
 
I want MBA to get a better selection of ports (at least one of every port MBP has) for real world practicality in a thin and light. MBA screen sizes annoy me, I’d like a 14.5” machine. I think 13.6” is a bit small for a mid-sized machine, and 15.3” is too big. The right size for the Airs is 13” (thinner bezels now) and 14.5” as the mid model. MBP should also adopt this size of 14.5” with the larger 16.2” staying the same. Further, Apple should not make MBP thinner, they should double-down on what makes the chonky machine good (fans, cooling, power and upgradability), celebrating it as a true “Pro” machine, physically distinct from thinner models.
 
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Even with an A18 a cheap Macbook would handily outperform a similarly specced 13th Gen Intel machine in virtually all the tasks it's designed for.

My M1 Air (16/512) is still a seriously capable machine and trumps most modern laptops, an A18 gets almost identical overall benchmarks and better in single core (which counts more for real-world apps anyhow).

Although, knowing Apple they'll cram a M5 ultra in the thinnest laptop they've ever built, 4k camera, 2TB SSD and the shortest battery life of any Apple device at an introductory price of only $4000.

Two years later they'll claim that sales were poor, small and light was a complete failure and no-one ever wanted a device like that.

:rolleyes:
 
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victorvictoria said:
I hope Apple isn't joining the "race to the bottom" pursued by the Windows market segment. Apple's mission has always been a premium product, both in design and implementation, and customers have been willing to pay a premium for that. Sure, Apple found the limit when they priced the visionpro at $3,500 (plus). That doesn't mean it's time to compete with Acer or Lenovo.
Click to expand...
Currently, I don't think they have a choice. Remember, Tim was chosen to be CEO because he was a logistics guy who could make the Chinese manufacturing so efficient that it would lead to high margins. That worked for over decade from Steve's passing because they had a full product development pipeline.

Now that the globalization AND the product pipeline are essentially exhausted, Apple doesn't have the same tailwinds to operate as a premium consumer brand. They've essentially become a modern-day Sony Corps.

As I've written here several times, they need to undergo a significant shake-up in leadership and the way they've conducted business before they have to:

  • Remove Tim from the CEO position. He's done a great job, but his era is over.
  • Stop releasing new devices every year. Do it no more than every other year. Stagger major products.
  • They have to get back to their hippie roots and rekindle their relationship with artists, developers, and niche consumers (ie their core evangelists).
  • They have to find a way to make their products outside of China.
  • Rebuild their industrial design team.
  • Stop the goofiness - for example, soldering the storage to the motherboard. Another is the dongle madness.
  • Create a boutique brand or store and revive the iPod. Create other devices that appeal to and complement main products and services while catering to niche markets like Apple-designed DJ turntables. Or niche software that helps visual artists turn their art into NFTs or 3D printed objects. Apple designed video editing tools and software that go beyond Final Cut Pro.
  • Win over the devs. Get deeply immersed into the Linux ecosystem while remaining completely open-source.
  • End ridiculous projects like the Apple Car and Vision. They overpromise and underdeliver. Alternatively, get into the boating and aviation space. People have been using iPads for the longest in cockpits. Why didn't Apple partner with or enter the space when it introduced Apple Maps? It's a no-brainer.
  • An underserved market is the sleep market. Bose used to sell sleep buds that helped you sleep but they didn't go far enough. Imagine this as a feature or standalone product connected to your iPhone or iWatch? People spend a third of their day sleeping - capitalize on that.
  • Collapse the Beats brand into the Apple Brand. Why have two?
  • Apple Music is a complete mess. So much so that many long-time former iTunes users, including myself, have abandoned it. Was this on purpose to get people to pay a subscription?
  • Make Final Cut Pro easier and more versatile. Make it better than Adobe.
  • Lead the crypto revolution with increased usability and ubiquity. I should be able to use crypto to buy, sell, and share across Apple's ecosystem. This is a thing now.
  • Stop the woke programming on Apple TV. Much of it is unwatchable. Get the guys that built the the 1990s HBO line up. They took risks and made great tv.
  • Buy Disney and turn the ship around.
 
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NewOldStock said:
All this will do is bump up prices on the list.
No more, no less.
Make some disappointed that the low end will not do things the next tier up does and cost more $$$ to buy it.
Marketing at best.
PC manufactures get called bad names because they sell low end models that are slow sluggish and dont perform well.
Therefore people will never buy from that company again.
I think Apple is shooting themselves in the foot.
Click to expand...
Is there any product currently in the Apple lineup that performs slow and sluggishly at this point in time? Even the humble base model iPad

The only thing I can think of that might run slower than the pro machines right now, is running the type of pro apps that are expected to run on pro hardware. And even then the sluggishness is mostly only apparent at the time of export.

Cheap PC's on the other hand (let's say Intel Atom/Celerons/Pentium) can be sluggish at the simplest of tasks like editing word docs, opening multiple browser tabs or playing a video - not to mention they tend to throttle a whole faster and more frequently than Apple products.
 
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dan110 said:
Currently, I don't think they have a choice. Remember, Tim was chosen to be CEO because he was a logistics guy who could make the Chinese manufacturing so efficient that it would lead to high margins. That worked for over decade from Steve's passing because they had a full product development pipeline.

Now that the globalization AND the product pipeline are essentially exhausted, Apple doesn't have the same tailwinds to operate as a premium consumer brand. They've essentially become a modern-day Sony Corps.

As I've written here several times, they need to undergo a significant shake-up in leadership and the way they've conducted business before they have to:

  • Remove Tim from the CEO position. He's done a great job, but his era is over.
  • Stop releasing new devices every year. Do it no more than every other year. Stagger major products.
  • They have to get back to their hippie roots and rekindle their relationship with artists, developers, and niche consumers (ie their core evangelists).
  • They have to find a way to make their products outside of China.
  • Rebuild their industrial design team.
  • Stop the goofiness - for example, soldering the storage to the motherboard. Another is the dongle madness.
  • Create a boutique brand or store and revive the iPod. Create other devices that appeal to and complement main products and services while catering to niche markets like Apple-designed DJ turntables. Or niche software that helps visual artists turn their art into NFTs or 3D printed objects. Apple designed video editing tools and software that go beyond Final Cut Pro.
  • Win over the devs. Get deeply immersed into the Linux ecosystem while remaining completely open-source.
  • End ridiculous projects like the Apple Car and Vision. They overpromise and underdeliver. Alternatively, get into the boating and aviation space. People have been using iPads for the longest in cockpits. Why didn't Apple partner with or enter the space when it introduced Apple Maps? It's a no-brainer.
  • An underserved market is the sleep market. Bose used to sell sleep buds that helped you sleep but they didn't go far enough. Imagine this as a feature or standalone product connected to your iPhone or iWatch? People spend a third of their day sleeping - capitalize on that.
  • Collapse the Beats brand into the Apple Brand. Why have two?
  • Apple Music is a complete mess. So much so that many long-time former iTunes users, including myself, have abandoned it. Was this on purpose to get people to pay a subscription?
  • Make Final Cut Pro easier and more versatile. Make it better than Adobe.
  • Lead the crypto revolution with increased usability and ubiquity. I should be able to use crypto to buy, sell, and share across Apple's ecosystem. This is a thing now.
  • Stop the woke programming on Apple TV. Much of it is unwatchable. Get the guys that built the the 1990s HBO line up. They took risks and made great tv.
  • Buy Disney and turn the ship around.
Click to expand...
I don't want to live in your world. That's not Apple. That's, in the words of Peter Lynch, "diWORSEification."
 
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turbineseaplane said:
Doesn't that user just use their iPhone or an iPad? (with or without a keyboard case)

Seems like macOS is "an elephant gun to shoot a mosquito" for that hypothetical user.
Click to expand...
It doesn’t mean they don’t have to upgrade every 4 years cycle, perhaps 8 years or so
 
victorvictoria said:
I don't want to live in your world. That's not Apple. That's, in the words of Peter Lynch, "diWORSEification."
Click to expand...
Yeah . Only thing i kind of agree with is apple needs to get back to its roots. They need to be “hungry” again. In my opinion nothing else you suggested makes much sense and seems like a losing proposition
 
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dan110 said:
Apple Music is a complete mess.
Click to expand...
Largely. It's clearly a subscription first service now. I have to beat it severely to make it play my playlists on my own SSD. it is possible though.

On the new laptop, the M4 is so seriously overpowered for the sort of things I actually do it's ridiculous. The A18 could be just the ticket. Note that Linux laptops have a similar problem, Everything for the Gamers, the rest of you don't really matter and two hours of battery life is just fine. Then Intel undershoots too far to low side with N100.

Can we have something between 130 watts of 200 FPS 4K graphics and 6 watts at 2014 dual-core performance? A die-shrunk M1 or this A18 Pro is sitting in the right spot is Apple doesn't turn it into a 4GB RAM 64 GB eMMC Chromebook clone.

A18/8 GB RAM/256 GB storage in the 2020 MacBook Air case/screen/battery with one more USB port (power, HDMI dongle, something else) and keep the headphone jack and that would be quite the winner. Then bump up the MacBook Air and Mini to 512 GB storage base configuration to keep up with the rest of the industry.
 
millar876 said:
Although I know apples profit margins are on the higher side and iPhone 16 pro is a halo/flagship product and commands a premium markup because of that, I can’t quite wrap my head round how the chip from a $1000+ phone, with a bigger screen, bigger battery, more metal in the case (and subsequently more tooling time) and a keyboard and trackpad comes out cheaper enough to be the “low cost” Mac, even with production costs potentially lowering due to improved manufacturing over the year since production started on a18 pro. Now it’s a perfectly capable chip and will be plenty performant, so no complaints on that side, just don’t get how it’ll be “cheaper” enough.
Click to expand...
Yes, that and putting your phone's flagship processor in your cheapest entry level computer, not very coherent.

The 600-800$ market is interesting. Selling a MacBook with a previous generation M chip would make more sense. I still have an M1 Air and it performs incredibly well (even programming simple 2D games in Unity).
 
turbineseaplane said:
Doesn't that user just use their iPhone or an iPad? (with or without a keyboard case)

Seems like macOS is "an elephant gun to shoot a mosquito" for that hypothetical user.
Click to expand...
Since I retired and when on the road, I am that user.

Specifically, when I travel I have no need for a powerful computer. Magic Keyboard was the game changer for me and, paired with an iPad Air, is a very good travel device. This is not a light combo though, which might be a showstopper for some.

YMMV, naturally.
 
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victorvictoria said:
Apple's mission has always been a premium product, both in design and implementation, and customers have been willing to pay a premium for that.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure that is entirely true. The polycarbonate MacBooks were quite affordable and, combined with easy-to-upgrade RAM (by which I mean: no need to pay Apple's daft memory prices up front), made for a long-lasting investment.

I think a lower-end, A-chipped MacBook makes perfect sense. They can also offer it at a lower price without undermining the price of M-chipped devices.
 
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goro123 said:
Yes, that and putting your phone's flagship processor in your cheapest entry level computer, not very coherent.

The 600-800$ market is interesting. Selling a MacBook with a previous generation M chip would make more sense. I still have an M1 Air and it performs incredibly well (even programming simple 2D games in Unity).
Click to expand...
It really is what a new MacBook probably should have been, simply make the processor a generation (even 2) behind - easy for the customers to understand what they are getting (Like back in the G3/G4 days).

But manufacture of older generations of M series might not necessarily be less expensive and I believe they are physically bigger?
 
A low cost A-chip MacBook would be an instabuy for me if the price was right. It's more than enough power for what I'd use it for, and if I need more "serious" computing power I have an M3 iMac on my desktop.

It's definitely 100% "want" and 0% "need" - I could slap a keyboard on my iPad Air and accomplish everything I really need, but it's nice to have the option of MacOS when I'm away from my desktop.

I think Apple has to be careful with the pricing and stay well below the MBA to make it tempting. Price it too close to the Air and a lot of people would probably ante up the extra $100-200 for the Air instead, or wait and pick one up from a sale price or refurb deal.
 
It really depends how cheap is cheap. Knowing apple it wont be that cheap. To me, if its $300-200 cheaper than the next upgrade up , id just go higher end. For me it would need to be like a $599-699 macbook to be like an impulse buy. I dont see apple selling a whole laptop at those prices. $799 up, is too close to MacBook air. Unless its some crazy ultraportable laptop that does something that an ipad and a macbook air cant do. Like a convertible, hybrid macos/ipad os maybe touch screen flip thing. Apple doesnt really do those types of devices though.
 
Polkajunior said:
It really depends how cheap is cheap. Knowing apple it wont be that cheap. To me, if its $300-200 cheaper than the next upgrade up , id just go higher end. For me it would need to be like a $599-699 macbook to be like an impulse buy. I dont see apple selling a whole laptop at those prices. $799 up, is too close to MacBook air. Unless its some crazy ultraportable laptop that does something that an ipad and a macbook air cant do. Like a convertible, hybrid macos/ipad os maybe touch screen flip thing. Apple doesnt really do those types of devices though.
Click to expand...
It might just be incredibly thin and light (seeing as it basically needs no cooling). It high time the perfectly designed, poorly executed 12" MacBook makes a come-back.
 
millar876 said:
Although I know apples profit margins are on the higher side and iPhone 16 pro is a halo/flagship product and commands a premium markup because of that, I can’t quite wrap my head round how the chip from a $1000+ phone, with a bigger screen, bigger battery, more metal in the case (and subsequently more tooling time) and a keyboard and trackpad comes out cheaper enough to be the “low cost” Mac, even with production costs potentially lowering due to improved manufacturing over the year since production started on a18 pro. Now it’s a perfectly capable chip and will be plenty performant, so no complaints on that side, just don’t get how it’ll be “cheaper” enough.
Click to expand...
$1000 is mark up not the cost of processor. I would bet the cost to Apple to produce an iPhone is less than $300 dollars
 
What an exciting time to be alive with all this new technology coming out. I wouldn’t mind a 13 inch MacBook. I think it will appeal to a lot more people than we realize. For the most part, the people I see running computers are generally doing basic things like checking email and going on the Internet. This product will appeal to that customer base.
 
A sub 1kg machine is what I'd like for moving around on the road for training presentation work. My M1 Air is built like a tank but I wish it was even lighter. 16GB RAM and at least one thunderbolt port BTO options very welcome.
 
im ok with it being non-touch ipad os in a macbook body for $499. that's already a much better experience than the clunky top-heavy ipad + magic keyboard combo.

give us a skinny legend 12" 2lbs chassis though... if it runs macOS then $699/$599 edu

hurry-up-judge-judy.gif


apple is targeting the education chromebook market which hovers $300 so their range should be like $500-700
 
An A18 Pro has more transistors than an M1, 50% improvement over M1 in Geekbench SC, and is better than the M1 in MC.

Pretty close to an M2... (and again, better here in GB SC)

I can live that that - just resurrect the name MacBook...
 
dandyryan said:
im ok with it being non-touch ipad os in a macbook body for $499. that's already a much better experience than the clunky top-heavy ipad + magic keyboard combo.

give us a skinny legend 12" 2lbs chassis though... if it runs macOS then $699/$599
Click to expand...
While I would love this, I have to consider how the current iPad mini with its A17 Pro chip and touchscreen but no keyboard costs $499 retail. Assume that a laptop chassis with mechanical keyboard and a larger screen (12-13”) and battery has to cost at least $100 more, maybe $200 irrespective of the OS running it.
 
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