If you’re looking for a great MacBook for everyday use, it’s hard to look past the MacBook Air. The 2020 MacBook Air M1 is still available for $999 from the Apple Store. Air’s capabilities will serve a wide audience thanks to Apple Silicon.
That leaves the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro “professional” laptops to go for if you need power. And that power will be more evident in the M2 Pro and M2 Max variants of the MacBook Pro. Unfortunately, while geekerati expected them to arrive in October, Apple had other ideas and made the shocking decision to delay the laptops until at least the first calendar quarter of 2023.
What to make of MacBook Pro sales in the last quarter of the year? Apple had made another decision…to quietly offer discounts until the new macOS laptops went on sale.
Apple Macbook Pro 16 inch with touch bar. Focus on the MacBook Pro logo
Getty
While Apple hasn’t shown the same zeal in promoting Black Friday discounts, there have been a few moves that show the company is working harder than normal to keep the turnover of the MacBook platform as high as possible.
One of these is in the retail space, offering small business customers discounts of up to ten percent on the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models. Those who need to upgrade to the professional MacBook Pro models may have been waiting for the M2-equipped models in the summer. Still, Apple would like you to keep buying the older M1 model, which will soon be replaced.
While there may not be any visible discounts for consumers, those looking for a better deal on Apple’s website know to head to the revamped part of the store (although you might be faster by using a search engine for the link , Apple doesn’t make it easy to spot in the UI). Here you’ll find the same larger MacBook Pro models at discounts of up to twenty percent.
Given that refurbished MacBooks are typically ten percent off (all backed by the same warranty and AppleCare options as a brand new machine.), this is an added discount for consumers looking for the larger MacBook Pro laptops.
The mystique surrounding Apple has extended to pricing and browsing the Apple Store reveals very little out of the ordinary. Yet just below the surface, Tim Cook and his team have been quietly offering more discounts to boost MacBook sales in the final quarter of the year. In other years, this will be the role of a new release; with the delay of the M2 Pro and M2 Max variants of the MacBook Pro, Apple has decided to move more into the brave new world of discounting.
If you want as much power as possible, you’ll have to wait for the M2 family. If you need a lot of performance right now, then you’ll be looking at the M1 option, with the added temptation of those discounts. Apple has made its decision. Now you have to make your own.
Now read the latest MacBook, iPhone and iPad stories in Forbes’ weekly Apple Loop digest…
Add Comment