
Apple Just Gutted Its Laptop Lineup - khartig
https://gizmodo.com/apple-just-gutted-its-laptop-line-up-1836210895
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dangus
I'm actually rather surprised that so many of these reactions are so negative.
I guess it's another case of outrage being a more profitable form of
journalism.

In reality, Apple just price cut all its most popular laptops in a pretty
major way.

Want a quad core laptop? It's $1300 instead of $1800 now, and adds the Touch
Bar.*

Want a basic MacBook for school or light browsing? The MacBook Air is $100
cheaper now and has a better screen.

These are big, big price cuts, and I think Apple's going to sell more laptops
in Q4 than they ever have before.

The 12" MacBook was discontinued, but we can only assume it was never really
selling all that well. I think the Air's extra 3/4 pound of weight is somewhat
unfortunate but I'd imagine that the extra horsepower is probably needed for
most people over the anemic performance of the 12" MacBook.

* Love it or hate it, you still get more tech for the money with the addition of the Touch Bar to the lowest MacBook Pro model. Why exactly do we assume that _most_ people dislike the Touch Bar again? Just because some people are vocal about it online? Apple does collect plenty of telemetry and I assume they wouldn't add it to more models if they figured out that nobody used it.

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perl4ever
"I think the Air's extra 3/4 pound of weight is somewhat unfortunate but I'd
imagine that the extra horsepower is probably needed for most people over the
anemic performance of the 12" MacBook."

Not having paid attention to Mac laptops in a while, that just seems
ridiculous. Maybe they're doing great things now, but they must have really
been out to lunch if they ended up with a product line where the "Air" model
was the heavy and high powered choice.

~~~
dangus
When it comes to the "Air" name it's more of a brand recognition thing than
anything else.

The 12" MacBook was launched after the Air but did not replace it. I'm not
sure why the MacBook was just named "MacBook" but it is what it is, people
just didn't really make the extra dollar tradeoff and the Air was a best
seller. Especially at launch, the MacBook was quite a bit more expensive than
the Air.

I suspect the Air's slightly larger size and cost-optimized design won out
over the more expensive, slower MacBook.

Perhaps Apple intended to eventually replace the Air with the MacBook but for
whatever reason it just didn't happen.

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Redoubts
Sad to see the 12” go. It’s the portable that makes sense to me, saving a lot
of weight and shaving almost too much power for that goal. Meanwhile the air
just seems like a 13” not-pro.

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khartig
Likely Apple is reducing the laptop lineup because they aren't selling enough.
Although they have been great machines (I still use a Pro every day) they are
not competitively priced. Especially for a student, a laptop at roughly half
the price for enough comparative capabilities is a much better selection. For
hardcore software development and graphics work, a Dell XPS is also roughly
half the price. The display performance may not quite compare to the Pro but
the price difference is huge.

Reducing the line up indicates to me that Apple recognizes they are not
competitive in this market and they are pulling out. Apple's business focus
has been and continues to go in other directions.

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giancarlostoro
I never liked the Macbook. I think if they rename the Macbook Air as Macbook
and keep that similar form factor I wont have complaints about that.

The Macbook Air was their smallest laptop, this became the opposite when they
brought those smaller Macbook Laptops since otherwise they would of just had a
rename. I dunno why they didnt just rename the line up. Then they coulda
called those smaller Macbooks the new Macbook Airs.

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stcredzero
Does Apple really need to cater to developers anymore? I don't think they
think they need to.

~~~
gumby
Sure. People still write code you know.

And all their Macs work for development. I wrote about 100K lines of C++ on
one of those tiny MacBooks, both at my office desk and all around the world.
MacBook Air is OK, but that tiny MacBook was so light I couldn't even tell if
it was in my bag without checking.

~~~
stcredzero
_Sure. People still write code you know._

 _And all their Macs work for development._

Yes they work, of course, but at this point Apple is powerful and dominant.
Apple doesn't need to _court_ developers like us anymore. At this point, many
of us are stuck with them.

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surfsvammel
I feel the Touch Bar is the only fault with the MacBooks at this point. Get
the F1-F12 buttons back and it's all good.

