So far, this has been a very successful strategy. Earlier this year, Apple revealed the 2014 MacBook Air product line with faster chips, more RAM and lower price. That helped drive Mac sales up by nearly 20 percent.
Now, here comes the 2014 MacBook Pro product line up with faster chips, more RAM and lower prices — fulfillment of a rumor that popped up roughly 24 hours ago.
Apple has announced updated Retina MacBook Pro configurations featuring faster Haswell processors, beefier entry-level RAM complement and some lower prices.
“People love their MacBook Pro because of the thin and light, aluminum unibody design, beautiful Retina display, all day battery life and deep integration with OS X,” said Philip Schiller, senior vice president, Worldwide Marketing. “The MacBook Pro with Retina display gets even better with faster processors, more memory, more affordable configurations and a free upgrade to OS X Yosemite this fall.”
• 13-inch MacBook Pro
— 2.5GHz dual-core Intel Core i5, $1,099
— Turbo Boost up to 3.1GHz
— 4GB 1600MHz memory
— 500GB 5400-rpm hard drive
— Intel HD Graphics 4000
— Built-in battery (7 hours)
• 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina
— 2.6GHz dual-core Intel Core i5, $1,299
— Turbo Boost up to 3.1GHz
— 8GB 1600MHz memory
— 128GB PCIe-based flash storage
— Intel Iris Graphics
— Built-in battery (9 hours)
— 2.6GHz dual-core Intel Core i5, $1,499
— Turbo Boost up to 3.1GHz
— 8GB 1600MHz memory
— 256GB PCIe-based flash storage
— Intel Iris Graphics
— Built-in battery (9 hours)
See also: Refurbished MacBook Pro Now from $929
— 2.8GHz dual-core Intel Core i5, $1,799
— Turbo Boost up to 3.3GHz
— 8GB 1600MHz memory
— 512GB PCIe-based flash storage1
— Intel Iris Graphics
— Built-in battery (9 hours)
• 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina
— 2.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i7, $1,999
— Turbo Boost up to 3.4GHz
— 16GB 1600MHz memory
— 256GB PCIe-based flash storage
— Intel Iris Pro Graphics
— Built-in battery (8 hours)
— 2.5GHz quad-core Intel Core i7, $2,499
— Turbo Boost up to 3.7GHz
— 16GB 1600MHz memory
— 512GB PCIe-based flash storage
— Intel Iris Pro Graphics
— NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M w/ 2GB GDDR5 memory
— Built-in battery (8 hours)
Apple’s price leader pro portable is the now two-year-old 13-inch MacBook Pro with standard display, which is now $100 cheaper than it was yesterday. As is oft the case with Apple at the entry-level, one really must skimp to get the better price.
However, the worst offender is Apple’s $1,099 iMac.
The rest of today’s 2014 MacBook Pro announcements are good news without qualification — faster chips and more RAM for the same or a lower price…
Ready to buy a 2014 MacBook Pro?