Apple updates MacBooks and MacBook Pros with Kaby Lake processors; new low-end 13-inch MacBook Pro SKU with function keys and 128GB storage costs $1,299
Tim Hardwick / MacRumors :
Context & Ripple Effects
This refresh lands a year after Apple's Skylake-era MacBook update, and its most telling move isn't the Kaby Lake bump across the line — it's the new SKU. By adding a $1,299 13-inch MacBook Pro with function keys and 128GB of storage, Apple is re-opening an entry rung below the Touch Bar models.
That $1,299 figure turns out to be durable: when Apple later ships the Magic Keyboard 13-inch MacBook Pro update in 2020, the entry price is still $1,299, while the 2019 MacBook Air cut to $1,099 shows how much pressure sat on this part of the ladder.
First-order effects
- Buyers get a cheaper on-ramp to the 13-inch MacBook Pro line — $1,299 for a function-keys model with 128GB — while every other MacBook and MacBook Pro moves to Kaby Lake silicon.
Second-order effects
- The new SKU squeezes the space between the MacBook Air and the Touch Bar Pros, forcing Apple to manage a three-way price ladder that culminates two years later in the Air dropping to $1,099.
Third-order effects
- The $1,299 entry anchor holds through the 2020 Magic Keyboard refresh, but the Intel-era cadence of annual spec bumps ends once Apple transitions the Pro to its own silicon — by the M4 generation in 2024, the 14-inch Pro starts at $1,999, resetting the entry point far higher.
The trend: Apple's laptop strategy through the late Intel years was a holding pattern of processor refreshes and price-ladder management, until the move to in-house silicon dissolved the sub-$2,000 Pro entry tier entirely.