Apple today updated MacBook Air with faster processors and lower prices, making the perfect everyday notebook an even better value. Now starting at $899, MacBook Air features powerful processors, fast flash storage, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, up to 12 hours of battery life and Apple’s iLife and iWork apps, giving you everything you need to handle all your work, all day long.
“With MacBook Air starting at $899, there’s no reason to settle for anything less than a Mac,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, in a statement. “Macs have never been more popular, and today we’ve boosted the performance and lowered the price of MacBook Air so even more people can experience the perfect everyday notebook.”
Power-efficient fourth generation Intel Core i5 and Core i7 processors work in conjunction with OS X Mavericks to give the 13-inch MacBook Air up to 12 hours of battery life and the 11-inch MacBook Air up to 9 hours of battery life. iTunes movie playback times increase to 12 hours on the 13-inch notebook and 9 hours on the 11-inch notebook, adding up to two hours of playback time to the updated MacBook Air. Flash storage makes MacBook Air extremely responsive, whether you are working on presentations, streaming movies and music from iTunes or organizing your photo library.
iLife and iWork come free with every new Mac. iLife lets you edit your favorite videos with iMovie, create new music or learn to play piano or guitar with GarageBand, and organize, edit and share your best shots with iPhoto. iWork productivity apps, Pages, Numbers and Keynote, make it easy to create, edit and share stunning documents, spreadsheets and presentations. iWork for iCloud beta lets you create a document on iPhone or iPad, edit it on your Mac and collaborate with friends, even if they are on a PC.
Every Mac comes with OS X, the world’s most advanced operating system, which is designed for ease of use even while taking full advantage of the powerful technologies built into every Mac. The latest version, OS X Mavericks, introduces more than 200 new features, including core technologies designed specifically for notebooks to boost performance and improve battery life. Mavericks introduces amazing apps like iBooks, which gives you instant access to your iBooks library, more than two million titles in the iBooks Store, and works seamlessly across your Apple devices. The new Maps app allows you to look up directions on your Mac and send them right to your iPhone or iPad, and with iCloud, whatever you do in apps like Mail, Contacts and Calendar also appears on your other devices.
Pricing & Availability
MacBook Air is available today through the Apple Online Store, Apple’s retail stores and select Apple Authorized Resellers. The 11-inch MacBook Air comes with a 1.4 GHz processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 2.7 GHz, 4GB of memory and is available with 128GB of flash storage starting at US$899, and 256GB of flash storage starting at $1,099. The 13-inch MacBook Air comes with a 1.4 GHz processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 2.7 GHz, 4GB of memory and is available with 128GB of flash storage starting at $999, and 256GB of flash storage starting at $1,199. Configure-to-order options include a 1.7 GHz Intel Core i7 processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.3 GHz, up to 8GB of memory and up to 512GB flash storage. Additional technical specifications, configure-to-order options and accessories are available online through the Apple Online Store.
More info: www.apple.com/macbook-air
Source: Apple Inc.
MacDailyNews Take: These prices are tremendous values for our favorite Macs ever (11-inch MacBook Airs). Wow!
Schiller is right: There’s no reason to settle for inferior, upside-down and backwards Mac wannabes that can only run a subset of the world’s software.
Clearly Apple is passing on the reduction in cost of SSDs to customers. Very nice but – WHERE IS MY 4K CINEMA DISPLAY APPLE???? Don’t make me buy that Dell one!
Sorry Tom, the world doesn’t revolve around you. You’ll get your turn.
Another yawnfest. Where the fuxk is the MB Air Retina display?
Nice, 100 dollars cheaper.
And this perfectly sets the stage for the next major update, which will likely occupy the price points now vacated by these Macbook Airs. Well played, Apple.
(I’m finding it increasingly difficult to justify not replacing my old Macbook Pro with a shiny new Macbook Air.)
I think this shows that Apple will have something big to unveil at WWDC. They always have some new hardware to show off. I’m glad to see Apple taking the Mac more seriously. With the MacPro reinventing the top end now the Air taking on the bottom end. This puts two MacBooks in the under $1,000.00 range. This should help with YOY sales, and markets share. Even though Mac is no longer Apple’s star product it is still very important. The PC industry is in trouble and having Mac the bright spot is great for news stories. Also it is a boost for the Mac faithful who lived in the 5% days.
What can you do with a computer which only has 128GB? Not much! In fact you can’t do much with 256GB. What’s the point of these “laptops”?
A heck of a lot more than one could do with my old 80 GB ‘Wallstreet’ PowerBook.
A lot, epically for it’s market. MBA and Air are references to business pros who do a lot of traveling. Those who need small, light, long battery life, and a fast computer. Most of their work will be stored on a server or external drive. The stuff they need for a job usually does not take up a lot of space. SSD is great for VRAM. Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 make external drives fast. If you need a lot of storage and don’t travel with your laptop a lot then the MBA is not the best computer for you. Every computer is a tradeoff. For those who travel a lot storage is not their top need.
Stop downloading porn and you won’t run out of space right away.
i stopped downloading porn and spaced out right away… whad did i do wrong, was it the mushies?????
For the target audience, PLENTY!
that settles it! My next tablet computer will be an 11 inch Macbook.
This is a sweet deal, great price!
iHaters will say $899? I can buy a 21″ inch Laptop for $599 that has quad core, THX, HDMI, 8GB of RAM, 1GB HD…okay its plastic, bulky as hell, creaks when you pick it up, Fan is always running up and down up and down, full of bloatware, best of all it has Windows 8.1 confusing POS OS ever!
Wanting a new mini. Hopefully they are next.
I think my next plan is a new iMac and iPad. With Jump I can access the iMac anywhere if I need to do more complex work or access what I can’t do in the iPad. For all else and all day outside of the desk work, the iPad is the best lug around device that Apple has created for the masses.