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In late 2023, Digitimes reported that Apple was developing a low-cost MacBook, kicking off a lot of speculation about what that might mean and how the company might execute on such a product.
Here’s what I wrote then:
The modern Apple strategy is to re-use older technologies to create more affordable products… Why does the M1 MacBook Air [still] exist? Because Apple wants to have a product available at a (relatively) low price point…
Now let’s imagine a world with a M3 MacBook Air in it. Does Apple discontinue the M2 model, or push it down into the $999 range? Does Apple discontinue the M1 Air at that point? In the Intel era I’d have answered yes, but the Apple silicon era is something different. The truth is, even now, the M1 is more than enough for most potential Mac users.
Just as a thought experiment, consider what Apple might do if it was planning to import the iPhone SE strategy to the Mac. It would take some older, but still quite capable technologies—say, everything that makes up an M1 Mac. The device’s parts are carefully scrutinized with an eye toward eliminating cost wherever possible, without sacrificing a basic Apple level of quality.
Today we’ve got an M4 MacBook Air, but I can still buy an M1 MacBook Air at Walmart for $649. And on Sunday that Digitimes report boomeranged back to us in the form of a post from supply-chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo:
More-Affordable MacBook… Expected to enter mass production in late 4Q25 or early 1Q26, with an approximately 13-inch display and powered by the A18 Pro processor. Potential casing colors include silver, blue, pink, and yellow… The more-affordable MacBook is projected to account for 5–7 million units for 2026.
(MacRumors says they’ve also seen evidence for this product.)
The more things change, the more they remain the same. My thoughts about this rumor are very similar to my thoughts 22 months ago. First off, the M1 MacBook Air can’t be sold forever. I’m sure the margins on a five-year-old product are great, but Apple and TSMC surely want to stop making M1 chips at some point! So how do you make a new product that’s still well below the $999 of the (incredible value) M4 MacBook Air?
Using the same A18 Pro processor found in the iPhone 16 Pro might be a good start. Let’s look at the relative speed of the A18 Pro versus the M series found in Apple silicon Macs:
Well, would you look at that? The A18 Pro is 46% faster than the M1 in single-core tasks, and almost identical to the M1 on multi-core and graphics tasks. If you wanted to get rid of the M1 MacBook Air but have decided that even today, its performance characteristics make it perfectly suitable as a low-cost Mac laptop, building a new model on the A18 Pro would not be a bad move. It wouldn’t have Thunderbolt, only USB-C, but that’s not a dealbreaker on a cheap laptop. It might re-use parts from the M1 Air, including the display.
I like that Apple sells a laptop at $649, and I think Apple likes it, too. A new low-end model might steal some buyers from the $999 MacBook Air, but I’d wager it would reach a lot of customers who might otherwise not buy a full-priced Mac—the same ones buying M1 MacBook Airs at Walmart.
(See also: Stephen Hackett’s thoughts on this topic.)
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