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No MacBook Air Updates Would Be WWDC's Biggest Gamble

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What will Apple announce at its Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) on June 4th? The annual gathering has never been the launchpad for top-tier hardware, but it has been a place to refresh line-ups and give the second tier products a chance to shine in the spotlight.

Could this be the time for the MacBook Air to rise like a phoenix?

The last time the Air was updated was at WWDC last year, with a tiny kick in specifications of the CPU, but arguably the Air remains the same machine that it was in 2015 (and you could point to the first reveal of the Air in 2008 and still say it’s the same machine).  In design terms, a decade is a very long time for any consumer electronics manufacturer to support a design. In Apple terms… almost unheard of.

Apple does have a newer option - the cleanly monikered MacBook is the obvious replacement in the portfolio, while the entry-level MacBook Pro offers a little bit more power.

But they are both well above the $999 sticker price of the MacBook Air. And that’s perhaps the biggest consideration for Apple. The MacBook Air continues to sell well, it simply won’t die. It has found its own place of natural buoyancy in the market.

The summer months lead on to new arrivals at college, new terms in schools and universities, and new budget allocations for the year. Apple may have its crazy idea of pushing every educationally based buyer to the iPad Pro, but the market has been consistent in saying that it wants a macOS-powered machine at $999, even if there are lighter, smaller models with retina screens and fancy butterfly-equipped keyboards.

The gamble for Apple is this. Update the MacBook Air at WWDC and give your consumer base what it wants, or make a definitive decision to kill the Air completely and try to bump users up to a higher priced model because those inside Cupertino consider it ‘better’. The former seems like the obvious choice to make, but with the pricing strategy of the iPhone X fresh in my mind, Tim Cook’s Apple may continue down the road of higher prices and higher margins for new machines.

Now read why macOS is not getting enough love from Apple on stage…

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