Apple updates MacBook Air with True Tone display, lowers price to $1,099, and updates base MacBook Pro with new processors, Touch ID, Touch Bar, and True Tone
Eleven years after Steve Jobs introduced … Official Apple Support : Keyboard Service Program for MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro Vlad Savov / The Verge : Apple has made shopping for MacBooks simple again Mariella Moon / Engadget : Apple Music student trials now last for six months Julio Ojeda-Zapata / TidBITS : Apple Updates Air, Pro Laptops, Kills off the MacBook MacDailyNews : Om Malik's requiem for the MacBook Jack Purcher / Patently Apple : Apple Discontinues 12" MacBook While Introducing new MacBooks with added Back to School Promotions including Apple Music Teuta Franjkovic / Coinspeaker : Apple (AAPL) Lowers Prices on Upgraded MacBook Air and MacBook Pro Stephen Hackett / 512 Pixels : Apple Revises MacBook Air and Entry-Level MacBook Pro, Quietly Removes MacBook From Sale Trevor Daugherty / 9to5Toys : Amazon clears out MacBook Air inventory with deals starting at $999 Michael Allison / MSPoweruser : Apple closes the lid on the 12 inch Macbook Harry McCracken / Fast Company : A brief eulogy for the 12″ MacBook, a machine of unfulfilled promise Mahit Huilgol / iPhone Hacks : Apple Music Is Now Offering 6-Month Free Trial for Students Christopher Baugh / iPhone in Canada Blog : Apple Adds Brand-New MacBook Pro and MacBook Air Models to Keyboard Service Program Oscar Gonzalez / CNET : Apple kills $999 MacBook Air and 12-inch MacBook Tweets: Benjamin Mayo / @bzamayo : Apple just lowered its SSD pricing, almost halving storage upgrade costs across all Macs. https://9to5mac.com/... Owen Williams / @ow : Apple just announced minor updates to the MacBook Pro—what it *didn't* announce is that it killed the last remaining non-touchbar version of the Pro. RIP. https://twitter.com/... Dieter Bohn / @backlon : Apple discontinues 12-inch MacBook This was surely the right move, but I am still sad. https://www.theverge.com/... Alex Gollner / @alex4d : Apple have also halved the costs for many storage options for all Macs. Where a 4TB config was $2,400 yesterday, it is now $1,200 today. https://9to5mac.com/... Paving the way for MacPro and 16" MacBook Pro config pricing? Tom Warren / @tomwarren : Apple's updated Macbook Air and MacBook Pro are both launching with a keyboard service program. That means you'll risk your keyboard failing with sticky keys or characters repeating. I would totally avoid MacBooks until Apple figures this mess out https://support.apple.com/... https://twitter.com/... @om : R.I.P., MacBook. A post in memory of a laptop everyone disliked, but I loved from the very beginning-ish. $AAPL #apple #macbook https://om.co/... https://twitter.com/... M.G. Siegler / @mgsiegler : So confused by this. It was Apple's thinnest and lightest MacBook (yes, lighter than the ‘Air’ which made no sense, branding-wise). It was under-powered at first (like the OG 'Air'), but 2017 version was pretty solid. Maybe forthcoming keyboards wouldn't work with form factor? https://twitter.com/... Benjamin Mayo / @bzamayo : In the same day, Apple finally killed off the dinosaur MacBook Air, simplified product line by culling the 12-inch, lowered the price of the Retina Air, made Touch Bar / Touch ID standard on all MacBooks without raising prices, and significantly reduced the cost of SSD upgrades. Dan Seifert / @dcseifert : riddle me this: is it better to pay $200 more over the base MacBook Air to get the MacBook Pro's better processor + brighter screen, or use that same $200 to get 16GB of RAM in an Air https://twitter.com/... Owen Williams / @ow : The thing with these keyboard replacement programs is they're designed to make people feel better... *but* they hide the fact that you might be without a machine for days or weeks to get it fixed, and it almost certainly will break at some point. https://twitter.com/... Jane Manchun Wong / @wongmjane : Shame that Apple stopped selling 12" MacBook because it has no fans and couldn't keep up with its cool I'll show myself out. https://twitter.com/... @tailosivetech : Apple has just launched Lower priced MacBook Pro and MacBook Air with 8th gen CPUs and True Tone displays https://www.apple.com/... Rest In Peace: 12" MacBook (discontinued) Function keys MBP (Touch Bar with Touch ID only now) still 2 thunderbolt 3 ports tho Rene Ritchie / @reneritchie : Also, 12-inch MacBook is gone from the lineup. (As is the “MacBook Escape” because that version now includes the Touch Bar as well.) https://twitter.com/... Joanna Stern / @joannastern : Apple updated the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro for kidz https://www.apple.com/... Most interesting stuff to me: - Price on Air drops by $100 (Starts at $1,099) - Both have the new updates to the Butterfly keyboard - Entry level MacBook Pro now has Touch Bar Federico Viticci / @viticci : The best part of the updated 13" MacBook Pro today is we can finally stop saying “MacBook Escape” https://www.apple.com/... (It appears to be gone from the store.) Rene Ritchie / @reneritchie : “MacBook Air and MacBook Pro updated for back-to-school season” (TrueTone for MBA, price drop to $1099 — $999 for students, entry level MBP updated to Coffee Lake, Touch Bar/ID, True Tone, T2, starting $1,199 for college students) https://www.apple.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Eight months after the Retina MacBook Air launched at $1,199 with Touch ID and Thunderbolt 3, Apple is cutting it to $1,099 while folding True Tone in — and killing the 12-inch MacBook outright, so the Air now owns the ultraportable slot alone. That continues a downward march from the Kaby Lake era's $1,299 entry-level 13-inch Pro: the sub-$1,100 on-ramp to macOS keeps getting cheaper.
The companion moves matter as much as the price cut: the base MacBook Pro picks up Touch ID and Touch Bar (erasing what distinguished it from pricier tiers), storage upgrades get cheaper across the Mac line, and the Keyboard Service Program covering MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro quietly acknowledges the reliability cloud over the butterfly-keyboard generation.
First-order effects
- Buyers get a $100-cheaper Air and a base Pro whose spec sheet no longer looks stripped next to higher SKUs — while 12-inch MacBook owners face a discontinued model and a service program as the official remedy for its keyboard.
- Apple's Back to School promotion ties the refreshed laptops to extended Apple Music student trials, aiming the cheaper Air squarely at the education channel.
Second-order effects
- With the 12-inch MacBook gone, the Air's $1,099 price becomes the reference point every Windows ultrabook must beat in back-to-school pricing, and Apple's cheaper storage upgrades remove a margin lever rivals still rely on.
- The expanded keyboard warranty sets an implicit quality bar: any successor keyboard design has to clear the reliability perception this program formalized.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, Apple's laptop line settles into just two names — Air for volume, Pro for performance — with the entry price ratcheting down rather than up, a structure later silicon generations built on.
- Discontinuing the last legacy MacBook marks the completed transition of the whole notebook line to USB-C/Thunderbolt and Retina-only hardware, ending the mixed-port era for good.
The trend: Apple is consolidating its notebook lineup around fewer, cheaper entry points — Air below $1,100, Pro above it — while using warranties and promotions to repair trust in its laptop hardware.