By John Moltz
October 27, 2023 4:00 PM PT
This Week in Apple: Jump Scares
Apple attempts to shock us with a surprise event, but the scarier thing is the new prices of its services. Don’t worry, though—it’s totally going to ship a cheap MacBook! Uh-huh.
Event horizon
Hey, remember how Apple was done with announcements for the year, and if you wanted to buy an Apple product, you should just go ahead and do that? Haha, wellllll…
Surprise! We are now expected to get new Macs, most likely with M3 processors, next Monday at the bone-chilling hour of, uh, 5 p.m. Pacific time. WhoooooOOOOOOOhhhhhh! If you hurry, there’s just enough time to switch your existing costume out for “sexy M3-based Mac.”
Mark Gurman and Ming-Chi Kuo believe new iMacs and MacBook Pros could be introduced but are mum on the big question:
Will there be another skit?
And will it be Halloween-themed?
Would it kill Tim Cook to switch up his patented “Goood morrrning!” with a spooky “Goood eeeevening!”? Seems to me that if you’re going to do an event on Mischief Night and not make the best of it, you’re just leaving money on the table. And leaving money on the table isn’t exactly Apple’s style. Segue!
The god of services revenue must be appeased
Good news! Apple is raising prices on its services!
Sorry. I mean that it’s good news if you’re Apple. I should have specified. It’s terrible news for everyone else.
Yes, falling in the footsteps of every other streaming service, Apple is raising prices in order to squeeze customers for every cent they’re worth. How long can this go on? They’re all determined to find out!
Well, you may be paying more, but at least you’re also getting more conten—
Oh. Huh.
Look, you don’t get to be the richest company on Earth in the history of money and the Earth by giving things away. You also don’t get there by charging a reasonable rate for things and then leaving it at that rate.
Apparently.
Return of the Mac(Book)
An interesting ontological thought experiment is to consider that the existence of the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro implies the existence of a MacBook. (Actually, I think the existence of the MacBook Air more implies the existence of a MacBook Land and a MacBook Sea, but let’s not take this too far.)
For years, Apple made a MacBook with no second name, most recently the 12-inch device with few enough ports to make Jony Ive blush. Now it could be coming back.
$700 seems awfully low (let alone “less” than that), but that could be the educational price, meaning it would retail for $800. Or it could just be wrong.
This rumor was floating around early last month, too, and now has the backing of Ming-Chi Kuo who says Apple is “considering” it. What more proof do you need that it is absolutely, 100 percent happening? Seems like a done deal to me. Stop buying MacBooks right now.
The rumor mill claims Apple is concerned about the proliferation of Chromebooks in education and wants to claw back some of the market. I’m old enough to remember when the iPad was going to be Apple’s cheap laptop replacement. By which I mean I am older than about ten years old.
Apple being concerned about Chromebooks sounds a lot like Apple being concerned about netbooks. And what was the company’s response to cheap, underpowered, lightweight laptops? Yes, the iPad to some degree, but also the original MacBook Air, which sold for $1800. Don’t count your cheap MacBooks before they’re hatched.
[John Moltz is a Six Colors contributor. You can find him on Mastodon at Mastodon.social/@moltz and he sells items with references you might get on Cotton Bureau.]