I understand I’m a little late with this. Well, very late. Oh well.
I’m impressed - mildly - with Apple’s decision to cut the price of the base MacBook to $999. Of course, due to the weakening pound (DARLING!!!) it’s actually become £20 more expensive this side of the pond, but hopefully, if the economy stabilises, the price will drop to a slightly more reasonable £649, or somewhere in that region.
Now, the newer MacBooks. Let’s get the most important bit out of the way first - there’s no denying they are beautiful. However, it seems a bit odd to me that Apple now effectively has a similar situation to that it had with the iMac in 2002-ish, when it was selling both the G3 and G4s at the same time.
This makes me think that Apple is planning something. The base MacBook is prohibitively expensive to a lot of people, so they’ve now dropped the price. However, in the post-keynote Q&A, the Dear Leader himself said, when asked if we were going to see a netbook:
…that’s a nascent market that’s still getting started.
Now, looking at Apple’s track record with ‘nascent markets’ (multi-touch smartphones, portable HDD-based music players) this is the sort of situation Apple loves to throw itself into. I suspect that Apple is preparing a cheaper ultrasub, which, I suspect, will be called the MacBook Mini, and will be announced at MacBook 2009. I predict it will be similar in appearance to the iPod Nano (with the colour options), have a 10-12inch screen, replace the white MacBook, and be priced at $899 (so, for us Brits, depending on whether Brown’s kept his mouth shut, between £499 and £599.)
The Mac Mini is also in desperate need of a revamp, so I think that will also be revamped at MW 2009. I suspect the two machines will be desktop/notebook partners - they’ll both have 2gB of RAM, be made of aluminium, be aimed squarely at the strapped-for cash family or student. If Apple can provide a real recession-busting product, then in my opinion, it’s guaranteed to be a winner.
Other points of note - the 24″ Cinema Display now has a webcam in it (how did it take this long?) and Steve Jobs’s blood pressure is 110/70. Steve certainly seemed better (I’ve yet to actually watch the video to see, but from the photos he looked more ‘healthy’ skinny than ’sick’ skinny) but the fact that he left a lot of the keynote to Tim Whatshisname and Jonathan Jonny Ive came as a bit of a surprise to some.
I think it makes sense though. This tells shareholders that although Steve is here to stay for now, Apple is planning for its future. There’s no denying that the Great Leader is getting older, and will eventually have to pack it in. It may not be for another five years - heck, it may not even be for another decade or two. However, Apple has to show that it can function without Jobs’s RDF; they certainly are trying to project, to the markets, the idea that it’s resilient. And, I have to say, I think it may well work.
