The New MacBook Air Will Be The Death Of Either The MacBook Or 13-inch MacBook Pro

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The New MacBook Air Will Be The Death Of Either The MacBook Or 13-inch MacBook Pro

Apple's consumer strategy has always been centered around clear, concise choices. The new, less expensive MacBook Air seems to change that. The line between consumer and pro, between entry level and top-tier is gone and it means that something is going to change in the Apple line-up sooner than later.

Let's look at the pricing. The new MacBook Air starts out at just $999. That's the same entry level price as the white MacBook, ostensibly Apple's "cheap" computer. Sure, the specs are slightly different with the MacBook blowing away nearly all of the base-level MacBook Air's specs. But it's a mere $300 jump up to the least expensive 13-inch MacBook Air and things level out a bit more. The MacBook still beats it in raw processing power and storage space, but Apple has never been about hardware specs anyway. It's about the entire experience and the MacBook Air will quickly overtake the MacBook in this department.

For the longest time Apple had two computer lines: consumer and pro. Students would buy MacBooks and iMacs while professionals and wannabes would drain their funds for MacBook Pros and Mac Pros. This is the way it's been for years. There were just a few products with a distinct line separating their target demographic.

That line is nearly gone at least regarding Apple's three notebook groupings. Now, there's a 13-inch notebook option at $999, $1,199, and $1,299. That move takes a page out of HP's playbook, a company notorious for flooding the the market with lots of options with similar prices. There's the $999 MacBook with a 10-hour battery life, Core 2 Duo CPU, 2GB of RAM and 250GB hard drive followed up by the nearly identical Macbook Pro with 4GB of RAM and unibody construction MacBook Pro. Lastly, there's the mid-level MacBook Air with a 7-hour battery, slightly slower Core 2 Duo CPU and 128GB flash storage.

That's a lot of options at nearly the same price point. And something's gotta give. I think someone is getting cut from the team.

The MacBook is classic Apple. It's everything Apple was about, but nearly overnight, Apple went from the hipster computer company to mainstream. Apple doesn't seem to want to go back to the old days, either. Even the once-quirky iMac is now a straight-laced business type. Maybe ...

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