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Apple dominates the high-end laptop market with its fab MacBook Pros.
And Apple dominates the midrange laptop market with the great-value MacBook Air.
The low-end, budget segment is the only place where Windows notebooks are competitive — and Apple’s about to blow that up.
The low-cost MacBook, rumored to be powered by an older but still powerful iPhone chip, is due any day now. It’s likely to be a smash hit.
Steve Jobs famously said that Apple would never compromise quality just to hit a price point.
The idea of shipping cheapo products that were seriously compromised rankled him, and Apple has largely stuck to his game plan.
OK, yeah, Apple strayed once or twice. It did not find huge success with past attempts to cater to the budget segment of the market. The “unapologetically plastic” iPhone 5c comes to mind.
But Apple’s more recent entry-level products have largely been successful. The Apple Watch SE, iPhone 16e and the iPad 11 are all largely great gadgets that aren’t hobbled in meaningful ways. They are all solid, affordable products that are very capable for first-time users.
That looks to be true for the upcoming budget MacBook — which, surprisingly, even with an iPhone chip inside, will run rings around low-cost Windows laptops.
And it won’t be made out of cheap plastic, either.
Also in today’s newsletter:
Apple largely ate the cost of President Donald Trump’s tariffs, which the Supreme Court just invalidated. Will Apple get its billions back?
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On this week’s Cult of Mac podcast, we had a pretty good discussion about Apple’s trio of upcoming AI products and what they have in common! 🤯
Here’s how iPhone’s Emergency SOS via satellite helped save six survivors of a deadly California avalanche.
Even after months of use, I’m still a bit befuddled by the new Phone app in iOS 26. Here’s how to use it properly — or get the old one back!
🔥 DEAL OF THE DAY: This isn’t the biggest discount, but you can get 9% off a 27-inch 5K monitor from Asus, which boasts similar specs to the gorgeous Apple Studio Display but costs half as much.
Every monitor should come with this great MagSafe mount for iPhone.
Ooofff: Yesterday's poll about mobile gaming sends a clear message that you guys are not mobile gamers!
— Leander Kahney, EIC.
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One more thing ...
When I realized that I was smarter than my parents, I felt tremendous shame for having thought that.
Today’s poll
If you got a low-cost MacBook, what color would you get?
Results from yesterday’s poll: Are you a mobile gamer?
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