FEBRUARY 2020 MACWORLD 9the iPad mini to the iPad
to the iPad Air.
The same could be
said about price points.
The MacBook Air, in
addition to being the
only consumer-focused
laptop in Apple’s lineup,
is also the company’s
entry-level option, just
barely hitting that
sub-$1,000 price tag.
That’s long been a
staple for the company, but if it’s time to
shake things up in the laptop lineup,
perhaps it’s time to reconsider the price
range that the Mac exists in as well.
I’m not suggesting Apple make a
bargain basement laptop—that’s simply
not the way the company does business.
But even experimenting with an $800 or
$900 price point could go a long way to
making the Mac seem more accessible,
especially to first-time buyers. That may
position the Mac in direct competition with
the iPad—but, honestly, that’s already
happening. The entry-level 12.9-inch iPad
Pro is just $100 less than the entry-level
13-inch MacBook Pro, and if the iPad lineup
can scale up to what’s traditionally been a
laptop price point, there’s no reason the
Mac can’t scale down into tablet territory.
This gets to the heart of something that
Apple seems to finally be recognizing: Mac
users and iOS users aren’t the same. Sure,
many folks use both platforms, but there are
always going to be customers who prefer
one or the other, so why not appeal to both?
The company has, in recent declarations,
staunchly upheld that the Mac is the Mac
and iOS is iOS, and never shall the twain
meet—or, less poetically, what works for iOS
users doesn’t always work for Mac users.
Mac customers buy Macs because they
want the Mac, not just because they want
any consumer-level computing device. To
many of them, an iPad—comparable though
it may be to a Mac laptop—simply doesn’t fill
the same niche.
Perhaps it’s time for Apple to take a
long look at exactly what a consumer
Mac is, with the same sort of attention so
recently bestowed on the pro market.
Let’s just hope it doesn’t take two and a
half years. ■The MacBook Air is Apple’s entry-level option.