Apple had it 50th anniversary celebration on April 1. They had concerts and exhibitions. Tim Cook even wrote a letter.. One thing was missing. A discount. If you went to the Apple Store on April 1 you didn’t find any deals.
Apple did things differently. They talked about the future of lowering prices to celebrate the past. Some other stores like Amazon and Walmart had deals on Apple products. For example the AirPods Pro 3 were $199 down from $249. The M5 MacBook Air was $949, which’s the lowest price its ever been. You could even get an AirTag 4-pack for $59.99 at Walmart.. Apple itself didn’t have any deals.
The thing is Apple had already made a move before the celebration.
On March 4 Apple announced the MacBook Neo. This is the cheapest laptop Apple has ever made and it starts at $599. That’s half the price of the MacBook Air, which used to be the cheapest laptop from Apple. It’s even cheaper than the iPhone 17 which starts at $799. Apple was able to make the MacBook Neo so affordable by using an A18 Pro chip of the more expensive M-series processors. The MacBook Neo is still a Mac. It has a display, aluminum body, Apple Intelligence and a battery that lasts up to 16 hours.
Tim Cook said the MacBook Neo had the launch week ever for first-time Mac customers. The CFO of Asus said it was a shock to the market. That’s not something you say about a product release.
This isn’t the time Apple has done something like this. In 2016 Apple released the iPhone SE. It was an iPhone for people who couldn’t afford the main model. In 2017 Apple released a $329 iPad. That was the iPad they had ever made at the time. Apple has a pattern. Of running a sale Apple builds something new at a price that wasn’t possible before.
So even though Apple didn’t have any discounts on April 1 they did something important. They made their products more affordable. Not for one day. For good.
Fifty years ago Apple started with one computer prototype in a garage. Today there are 2.5 billion Apple devices in the world. That number didn’t happen by keeping prices high. Apple figured out over time that more people, in the ecosystem means business. The MacBook Neo is the example of that thinking.
For 50 years Apple rarely competed on price. The MacBook Neo shows that might be changing.
