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Considering they're selling a device with a 10.5" touchscreen and an A12 SoC for $500 today, I think they can go even lower than $800 for a device with only a s

Considering they're selling a device with a 10.5" touchscreen and an A12 SoC for $500 today, I think they can go even lower than $800 for a device with only a slightly larger LCD and no digitizer. While they won't be competing with Chromebooks for general education use cases, I could very well see Apple trying to upsell schools on a $599 alternative that happens to run GarageBand, iMovie, and even XCode.

eugeniub 6y ago
Eh I don't see Apple selling their cheapest education MacBook for $600 instead of $900 simply because one of many components suddenly got significantly cheaper.
- Despegar 6y ago
  I can see them doing that for big volume buys for education. I don't see why they wouldn't just pass on the entire Intel margin to them, getting students using Apple products young has value.
  - sjwright 6y ago
    Chromebooks are doing well in education at the moment. If Apple launched a product in that space, they could easily claw half of that back overnight. The ability to run real software is huge, especially for subjects like graphic arts and engineering.
ogre_codes 6y ago
> Considering they're selling a device with a 10.5" touchscreen and an A12 SoC for $500 today, I think they can go even lower than $800 for a device with only a slightly larger LCD and no digitizer. While there is no digitizer, there is a keyboard and a touchpad. Also, I expect Apple is going to try to keep a gap between the base Mac and the iPad price-wise so they would add to the base storage and maybe RAM. Then again, considering the pricing on the base iPad, maybe they will bring it down to $600.
- martin_bech 6y ago
  They actually demoed the performance of an arm mac with a low amount of ram
  - ogre_codes 6y ago
    It didn't have stock iPad RAM, it had 16GB of RAM. More details on it here: https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/06/22/apple-developer-transition-kits-for-apple-silicon-house-a12z-in-a-mac-mini https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/06/22/apple-developer-t...
ViViDboarder 6y ago
Maybe if they take a bet on (or force) the App Store to be the primary method of obtaining software. I’d expect Apple forecasts some amount of yearly revenue per iPhone/iPad and a lower amount per MacBook.
ReticentVole 6y ago
Why do we need to buy so many devices anyway? Why can't I just plug my iPad or iPhone into a dumb dock with a laptop screen and its own storage and battery, and use the CPU and GPU from the phone/ipad?
- m_mueller 6y ago
  So far: different architectures. But with this announcement it would make running macOS on a future (or even current) iPad quite feasible, so your kind of dock might become true soon. Apple's new magic iPad keyboards use a lot of weight to balance the heavy screen - might as well make that a battery.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  I don't need VSCode, Docker, or node.js on my phone. I don't want all the clones of the various repositories I'm working on on my phone. Even the best phones lack the RAM, high capacity drives, and video card my computer has. Nor does it have a keyboard or trackpad. If your phone is good enough to take care of your day to day computing, you can probably get by with an inexpensive all-in-one computer and save the headache of docking.
  - int_19h 6y ago
    The dock can have the extra storage. (And the GPU, and maybe even more RAM etc).
    - SlackingOff123 6y ago
      You'll need something to connect all those dock components together so you don't have to run several cables to the phone. Something like a motherboard. So you'll have a full computer sans a cpu.
      - int_19h 6y ago
        More like a Thunderbolt dock with a screen.

eugeniub 6y ago

Eh I don't see Apple selling their cheapest education MacBook for $600 instead of $900 simply because one of many components suddenly got significantly cheaper.

Despegar 6y ago
I can see them doing that for big volume buys for education. I don't see why they wouldn't just pass on the entire Intel margin to them, getting students using Apple products young has value.
- sjwright 6y ago
  Chromebooks are doing well in education at the moment. If Apple launched a product in that space, they could easily claw half of that back overnight. The ability to run real software is huge, especially for subjects like graphic arts and engineering.

ogre_codes 6y ago

> Considering they're selling a device with a 10.5" touchscreen and an A12 SoC for $500 today, I think they can go even lower than $800 for a device with only a slightly larger LCD and no digitizer. While there is no digitizer, there is a keyboard and a touchpad. Also, I expect Apple is going to try to keep a gap between the base Mac and the iPad price-wise so they would add to the base storage and maybe RAM. Then again, considering the pricing on the base iPad, maybe they will bring it down to $600.

martin_bech 6y ago
They actually demoed the performance of an arm mac with a low amount of ram
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  It didn't have stock iPad RAM, it had 16GB of RAM. More details on it here: https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/06/22/apple-developer-transition-kits-for-apple-silicon-house-a12z-in-a-mac-mini https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/06/22/apple-developer-t...

ViViDboarder 6y ago

Maybe if they take a bet on (or force) the App Store to be the primary method of obtaining software. I’d expect Apple forecasts some amount of yearly revenue per iPhone/iPad and a lower amount per MacBook.

ReticentVole 6y ago

Why do we need to buy so many devices anyway? Why can't I just plug my iPad or iPhone into a dumb dock with a laptop screen and its own storage and battery, and use the CPU and GPU from the phone/ipad?

m_mueller 6y ago
So far: different architectures. But with this announcement it would make running macOS on a future (or even current) iPad quite feasible, so your kind of dock might become true soon. Apple's new magic iPad keyboards use a lot of weight to balance the heavy screen - might as well make that a battery.
ogre_codes 6y ago
I don't need VSCode, Docker, or node.js on my phone. I don't want all the clones of the various repositories I'm working on on my phone. Even the best phones lack the RAM, high capacity drives, and video card my computer has. Nor does it have a keyboard or trackpad. If your phone is good enough to take care of your day to day computing, you can probably get by with an inexpensive all-in-one computer and save the headache of docking.
- int_19h 6y ago
  The dock can have the extra storage. (And the GPU, and maybe even more RAM etc).
  - SlackingOff123 6y ago
    You'll need something to connect all those dock components together so you don't have to run several cables to the phone. Something like a motherboard. So you'll have a full computer sans a cpu.
    - int_19h 6y ago
      More like a Thunderbolt dock with a screen.