Just in time for back to school Apple has not one but two new Mac books.
There's a new MacBook Air and a new MacBook Pro.
Well, I'm not going to say they're exactly new.
They really look the same as the current MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, but there are some changes inside that are pretty interesting.
There's also a few Apple products that we are saying a sad goodbye to.
But I'm going to start with the revamped MacBook Air.
The biggest physical change here is they're swapping out the regular Retina display for one that is a true tone display.
And that is what Apple calls display that can change its color temperature based on the lighting conditions.
So it could be warmer or cooler.
They already have this in some of the MacBook Pros, so it's a nice little add-on to the MacBook Air, which just got a big facelift in 2018 anyway.
The even more important news is that they've taken the price of this guy and dropped it by $100, it was 1199, now 1099.
Now, that is not the classic 999 MacBook Air that everybody bought for so many years.
But it's closer and I'll let you in on a little secret, if you qualify for Apples usually fairly generous student discount you can get this for 999, and frankly a new thinner, lighter, retina, true toned screen Macbook Air for 999, that's pretty good.
Hard to resist that one.
Over on the Macbook pro side, the changes are a little bit more significant the price actually stays the same the starting model is still 1299 but for that 1299 you now get a MacBook Pro that is more like the bigger more expensive MacBook Pros.
To wit they have taken that touch bar that everyone loves to hate on And they put it in this model also.
Before, you just got function key rows on the least expensive MacBook Pro.
Well, now you get the full touchbar with the fingerprint Touch ID with that T2 security chip.
So they're basically taking the one feature they left out of the cheaper one, hoping you wouldn't buy it and think, all right, we're gonna give that to you anyway.
SBC ports in fact that just had one USB port for both power and data and accessories.
People didn't love that either.
But I got to tell you, I love that laptop.
It was really one of my favorites for years because it was so thin and so light.
Yes, it had some things it was missing that you want a full featured laptop but for carrying around going to the coffee shop going on trips.
Storage space inside to get one of the higher end models as it is pretty darn good.
That's two big changes to the main 13 inch laptops however we are saying goodbye to the twelve 12 Inch MacBook that was the one laptop that was not an end not a pro, just plain old MacBook first introduced in 2015.
Very small first thing to have that butterfly super shallow keyboard that everybody still hates.
First one SBC ports in fact that just had one USB port for both power and data and accessories.
People didn't love that either.
But I got to tell you, I love that laptop.
It was really one of my favorites for years because it was so thin and so light.
Yes, it had some things it was missing that you want a full featured laptop but for carrying around going to the coffee shop going on trips.
I frankly thought it was awesome and I am going to miss it, so RIP 12 inch Macbook.
If no one else is going to miss you, I will.
Now there's a more consequential laptop getting dropped from the lineup and that is the predecessor to this guy.
The new Macbook era.
That is what we now call the classic Macbook era.
That's the old design that's been around for almost ten years, really.
And it was bigger and had the huge Silver bezel around the screen.
It had the big chunky keyboard, it had the HDMI port and the regular USB ports and the magsafe power adapter.
But frankly the screen was very old and low res, the processors were very old.
It was a very dated piece of hardware but it had some of those features that they've taken out of subsequent mac books.
And people like the fact that you could still go to Apple's website and click [UNKNOWN] but and find it's still for sale there, even if they were really pushing the new model.
This is the classic MacBook Air.
If you remember this, this is the, for years I called this the most universally useful laptop anybody could buy and that was true.
After a while they kind of got dated and I would say get one of those new ones now But for 999 you can still get this well.
Goodbye classic MacBook Air that has now been officially discontinued from Apple's consumer store.
You might still be able to get it through education channels and sure a lot of stores like best buy and other places will still stock them for a while.
At least.
But I bet you'll see a bunch of people rushing out to get the last of that classic MacBook Air design because they just don't want something that only has USB ports, or frankly is more expensive because no matter what your laptop costs 999 is a pretty magic number.
If you're a student, you can get that for the new MacBook Air everyone else 1099.
And of course for 1299 you can get the new 13 inch MacBook Pro that adds the touch bar and touch ID Touch Bar.
Yeah, Touch ID actually pretty useful.
I use it all the time.
So those are the latest back to school updates from Apple on the MacBook line.
