The MacBook Air has been one of Apple’s more neglected product lines. The 11-inch model was discontinued in 2016, and the 13-inch model hasn’t seen any major updates since 2015.
I thought I knew why Apple was keeping the machine in the lineup: it needed an entry-level Mac to bring people into the ecosystem, and at a time when most people buy laptops, the Mac mini wasn’t going to be it. The 12-inch MacBook was the obvious successor, but at $1299 it was just too expensive.
So my theory was that Apple was holding onto the MacBook Air until it was able to bring the 12-inch MacBook price down to hit the magic $999 number. But it now seems that Apple has a different, more ambitious plan …
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