Apple unveiled a new line of Macbooks today to appeal to the consumers that are looking for a light weight but powerful laptop. The new Macbook weight about 2lbs and is 13.1 inch thin. These sleek laptops come equipped with 12 inch retina display and have a battery that is expected to last 10 hrs. Available in four different colors, the prices start at $1299 for the 12 inch model equipped with 512 GB of flash storage and 1.1 Ghz intel core m3 processor. The model sports a full size keyboard and a trackpad in a fraction of the space. It also comes with a USB-C port. The USB-C port puts just about everything you need in a port all in one place. This amazing port provides charging, speedy USB 3 data transfer, and video output in a reversible design that’s one-third the size of a USB 3 port, giving you the flexibility to easily connect your favorite devices.
This announcement comes at a time when Intel announced today that it is laying of 12,000 workers or 11% of its worldwide workforce in an effort to streamline costs and transform its business to shift away from PCs. The company bet heavily on the stability of the PC business years ago, and its microprocessors have dominated the PC industry. But the company has failed to replicate that success across mobile devices that have now replaced traditional desktops and laptops.
This begs the question as to why Apple is trying to re-invent itself in a category which is shrinking quarter over quarter for the overall industry. When Apple reported its Q1 2016 results, a record $75.9 billion dollars in revenue in Jan this year, it also reported that its Mac sales were slipping quarter over quarter. On a longer term trend, as other computer manufacturers have struggled to position their products, Apple has been steadily gaining momentum when it comes to growing the established base of Mac users on a global basis. Although there has been a slip in sales over the past few quarters, Apple hopes to turn this around with continued innovation to meet customer preferences.
This is probably one of the reasons why Apple believes that there is an opportunity here and with the right set of product characteristics it can revive the slumping sales of Macbooks and other Mac products. This perseverance on Apple’s part is also seen in how it is trying to rebrand and reposition the operating system for the Macs. Latest rumors point to rebranding of OS X to MacOS moving forward. Clearly Apple is not giving up on this product category and is hoping to re-ignite the momentum in sales that it commanded a few quarters back.
The other important aspect that we should consider is that over the past few years, Apple has been increasing its revenues that it makes via its Apps from the iTunes Store. With every new Mac sold there is always the potential to increase your bottom line numbers from app sales.
The reaction to the unveiling of the new Macbook line has been tepid at best by users. It remains to be seen how Apple reshapes its product strategy and associated economics when it comes to revamping this product line. If there is a positive outcome from this move, once can definitely expect more refresh coming to the other Mac products very soon.
We would love to hear your thoughts on this. Will you be open to upgrading to a new Macbook? If not, What are some of your reasons to choose to not upgrade at this time?