“Apple’s new entry-level 11-inch MacBook Air is the company’s most affordable notebook in its history — an aggressive pricing move that one analyst has predicted will help the Mac further eat away at the largest segment of the existing Windows PC market,” Neil Hughes reports for AppleInsider.
“Traditional Windows PCs thrive in the price range between $500 and $1,000, where some 100 million units are sold every year,” Hughes reports. “Analyst Rod Hall of J.P. Morgan pegs this market segment as worth $63 billion per year.”
“With the launch of its updated MacBook Air models on Tuesday with a new, lower entry price of $899 for the 11-inch model, Apple has firmly placed itself in that massive segment of the notebook industry. The 13-inch variety of the MacBook Air has also dropped to $999, and both new models sport slightly faster Intel Haswell processors boasting all-day battery life,” Hughes reports. “The new $899 MacBook Air is in fact the cheapest portable Mac ever sold by the company.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Adios, Microsoft, and good riddance!
There is nothing on the market that comes close to competing with the value offered by Apple’s MacBook Air. Nothing.
Go, Tim, go!
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Apple kills the Windows PC and no one seems to mind – April 30, 2014
3 ways Apple improved the MacBook Air today – April 29, 2014
Apple updates MacBook Air with faster processors and lower prices; now starting at $899 – April 29, 2014
MDN, ye take is right.
Consider this a very friendly takeover.
Competitors of Apple will not consider this “friendly!”
But the competitors have had about a 6 years to counter the MB Air from the original 2008 MacWorld introduction.
In the end, all the competition has thrown at the wall are el-cheapo “Netbooks.”
The MacBook Air is one great example of Apple getting a product right, design, price, usabilty all fantastic. I will be buying the new version as soon I can get my hands on one and hope a new iMac will be out soon too.
MacBook Air is marvelous, love it very much, love it a lot.
So the real reason TC waited so long to intro new hardware was because he knew that all new apple tech would cost way less than previous tech because of massive economies of scale. He also knew that if released too close between old and new paradigm, we would all whine because “I just bought a new xMacXxxX last month and now the price is $400 less for a better model??” “Eff-Me Gawd dambit!”
(I’m sure a lot more would say F-Apple, but hey – that’s why Tim’s doing it this way)
Now, time for the Mac Mini. Tim, please rework it to be inside a light weigh keyboard that can also connect wirelessly to ATV and other devices. Kind of a throw back to the Commodore line of computers but smaller and more elegant with a touch pad.
Up next: WIntel portables drop in price/profit to compensate. iHaters will point out how Apple remains “expensive” (selling at the price ‘their’ laptops sold at yesterday and were considered affordable). This will force more consolidation in the PC world, and another huge write-off by Microsoft a couple of quarters from now. Full disclosure: I am long AAPL 🙂
It’s amazing how badly PC manufacturers screwed up ultrabooks. Overpriced, poorly designed, crappy trackpads, poor battery life and low build quality. But at least they had great screen resolutions!
Yet the one thing Apple was content to not bother with was the screen. They got everything else right and it has made all the difference.
And now it’s likely that the Airs have retina screens some time this year. It just shows that Apple is content to do their own thing in their own time and reap the rewards in due time.
The “massive notebook marketing” … oh you mean the one that is having the life squeezed out of it from below by iPads and now from above by an even more affordable MacBook Air?
“massive notebook market” – doesn’t this site allow editing
I hope the iMac is next.