It seems like they just made up this band around $500-$999 just so Apple's new price drop could be shown to be within it and we can write articles about how great this is. I'm glad Mr. Hall agrees this is much easier than his idea of a mouse/keyboard-based iOS(?).
It clear the $400-$799 band is more meaningful re: where lots of market share resides.
I'd also point out that there's a thriving after market on Ebay and elsewhere for MBAs that are within this band.
Huhhhhh? If you slide the red box in the graphic two sectors south to cover $300-$700 then you cover 75% of the PC market in which, price reduction withstanding, Apple still doesn't have a product to compete.......Am I missing a point here?
Yeah, you're both missing the point. It's long been understood that Apple takes customers away from lower priced products. If the product is pretty much the same, then Apple will take some of those sales. We've seen surveys for iPads, for example, that show that almost everywhere around the world, in order to take a sale away from an iPad, the competition needs to be $100 cheaper.
The same thing is true for all of Apple's products. They compete, not only against products of the same price, but with products that are priced somewhat lower. So it's not just someone who will spend $999 for a notebook that Apple was getting sales from, but from someone who would have spent $899 as well. Now, that someone who would have spent $799.
Apple isn't trying to become a major mass market seller. They just want sales to move up a bit, and slightly down into the segment. This gives more people the ability to think about moving to a Mac.
There's a major psyological value to have Mac sales move up as Windows sales move down. It's one reason the stock rose so much after the financial report came out this month. Mac sales are showing growth, even though growth is 5%. If Apple can bump that growth to 7% by this, and they could, then that means a lot. Read my other posts here where I explain it in more detail.
The new pricing brings Apple into only the smallest and most expensive of those ranges (the $900-$1000 one) with a total of 4% of the market. I mean it's a great move and all, but it's hardly a big part of the $63 billion core of this market segment.
Unfortunately you also have to count the 6% range for $800-$899 range because the 11" MBA starts at $899. They really should have gone with a starting of $899, or even lower to make sure they capture the charm pricing strategy. That of course only works for the model that are sold without any upgrades to RAM, but that's also true for the 13" MBA being included in this sub-$1000 market.
The price drop is not big enough to change much. Those macs will continu to be in a niche market
Selling about 20 million of any HW product a year s a niche market I'd like to have. As for change, it's unknown how much it will be affected but remember the customer base is a pyramid so a 10% drop in price will open you up to more than another 10% of the market.
Huhhhhh? If you slide the red box in the graphic two sectors south to cover $300-$700 then you cover 75% of the PC market in which, price reduction withstanding, Apple still doesn't have a product to compete.......Am I missing a point here?
In that price range they have no traditional "PC" but they are destroying that market with iPad sales. The beauty, for Apple and its investors, is that Apple makes a healthy profit on the iPad whilst "PC" vendors seem to be unlike to break even for products in the same range. And now if they continue to come at it from the top it's hard to see how they can lose with this flanking maneuver.
No, MacBook Air = Netbook. Call it what you want, but its just a simple netbook. I know this pisses people off and I'm an idiot, but really thats all it is, especially the 11" MBA.
Well, I could agree with you, but where would the fun be in that?
But, no, it's definitely not a netbook. Screen size does not define a netbook by itself. Even if it did, it wouldn't fit the description. When Microsoft offered Windows XP Starter to netbook manufacturers for, at the time, a startling $15, they laid down the specs the machines would need to meet.
No bigger than a 10" screen.
An Atom CPU.
No more than 2GB RAM.
They spec'ed the largest storage, though I don't remember the max size right now.
And, of course, the very cut down OS itself.
The 11" Air meets none of those specs. Even when it first came out, wimpy as it was, it was still much more machine than the best netbook, and I had what was the best netbook for my daughter one summer, priced at $589 with the 2GB RAM upgrade. That was six years ago. A really pathetic machine. It was so slow, the curser used to leave trails across the screen. It also didn't run much software, despite what the Windows nerds used to say. A lot of software wouldn't even install because of the pathetic specs.
Most users do not need optical drives. They take up space and also consume power. Ethernet? Really? It is not needed either. Streaming works just fine with wireless. My entire house is wireless as is my corporate office. I guess it is the difference between forward thinking and being stuck in the past.
Well, OK.. what happens with your single point of failure wireless NIC dies on you? You're left with a computer that can't talk to the internet, without using some USB dongle work around, instead of native hardware.
Having alternate ways to connect to the internet isn't being stuck in the past.. it's called preparing for outages, and allowing longer life to a product.
As to the optical drives, perhaps you want to burn a DVD or video from your iPhone to a disk to give to a family member. What now? Oh.. I should have bought that 150$ super-drive that's slower than a PC counterpart. Superdrives and ZIP Drives were the hit rage of the 90's with 120MB storage floppy disks. I remember having one for the first blueberry iMac because Apple took away the floppy disk drive.
The price point for a plastic, bare bones mac should be 500-600$.
They have this, it's called the Mac Mini.
Now add the 150$ to 200$ for a comparable display, for what we're discussing. We're not discussing the headless PC market. We're discussing laptop computer markets.
The price drop is not big enough to change much. Those macs will continu to be in a niche market.
What proportion of the profits of the PC market do you think Apple has? Or, like the silly analysts and consulting firms (Gartner, IDC, et. al) do you only care about the market share?
?If not the latter, perhaps I am missing the point of your post.
It’s not for the cheap market. But it’s now for a cheaper market. Now, between a $600 PC and the $899 Air… more people are going to save up than before.
I can agree with that, as it's the same thing I've been saying here. But I don't think we're going to see a doubling of sales, though that would terrify everyone else, and send us investors of Apple stock into a buying frenzy.
But Apple could possibly pick up an additional million or two yearly Air sales from this, possibly more. I also think, as I mentioned before, this is an attempt to regularize prices before a retina model comes out later this year. Something similar to what they did with the Macbook Pro models. If so, it could also mean that they intend to discontinue these "older" designs so etime after the retina models come out, and along with them, the lower prices.
Now add the 150$ to 200$ for a comparable display, for what we're discussing. We're not discussing the headless PC market. We're discussing laptop computer markets.
The amount of trolling on AI amazes me.
You said a plastic bare bare bones mac, so I mentioned the Mac Mini because that is what it is. Since you said Mac and not Macbook, I assumed you meant desktop. Besides, Apple doesn't make plastic laptops. Why would that be trolling?
While the price is attractive, I don't think this will eat into PC sales like AI thinks. for 600$, you can get a nice PC laptop that still has optical drives and twice the memory space. Apple seems to be stuck in the idea that everything will remain server side with cloud services, and computing will stay in the dumb terminal phase in the long run wit these products. The iPad is already slumping in sales, because people are not interested in buying a new tablet every 2 years like a phone. PCs should last a decent 5-6 years before needing replaced, even longer now that the wear on PCs is being shifted to tablets and phones.
The price point for a plastic, bare bones mac should be 500-600$. Yet Apple still thinks they can be a PC competitor by having a high priced product, and then take everything out of it that people use daily. Currently, only ONE Macbook product comes with an ethernet port! IF everything's supposed to be cloud based, I would like to hard wire my Mac for streaming movies without the lag of wireless due to interference. Is it really that costly to include a gigabit ethernet port on a computer these days??
One of the most mind-numbingly stupid posts I've ever read.
1. Do you REALLY think Apple removed ethernet/optical drives because of cost? Jesus. Talk about a massive lack of awareness and understanding. And what the hell is "memory space"? RAM? SSD? HDD? Most Macs use SSDs, which as you know alot more pricey (and have infinitely better performance) than larger HDDs.
2. The Mac Mini is $500. But yeah, let's conveniently forget about that product.
3. Not a single fucking person I know needs an ethernet jack and optical drive "daily". Hell, most people NEVER need these things anymore. If things were up to you, we'd still have floppy drives and parallel ports in our machines, because you irrationally cling to the past. Only the cheap PC laptops out there include those- the prieir ones (ie. that can be compared to macs) do not. Why do you think that is? These aren't "features" they're legacy shit that make machines large and clunky. Get out of your bubble.
4. My basic N connection can easily stream 2 1080P streams at once- and the AC connections now are potentially much faster- no clue what you're referring to with "lag of wireless". What percentage of people do you actually think use an ethernet cable to stream things like netflix? Maybe your network is shit? Again, you show a complete disconnection of reality. Again, you bring up cost, which is so asinine. The Macbook Airs/Pros are not even thick enough to hold an ethernet jack, yet you chalk up the exclusion to "cost"? Incredible. For the TINY percentage of users that need one, you can go ahead and buy the dongle. That makes more sense than having drives and ports that 99% of users wont use.
I'm sure you can go out and buy a PC laptop now, for $400, which includes all your fantasy hadrware (optical drives, ethernet ports, etc). I'm not sure what you're waiting for- hopefully not for Apple to suddenly decide to redesign their machines so they can put these obsolete elements back in, as you'd be quite insane for believing in that possibility.
Huhhhhh? If you slide the red box in the graphic two sectors south to cover $300-$700 then you cover 75% of the PC market in which, price reduction withstanding, Apple still doesn't have a product to compete.......Am I missing a point here?
Yes. Apple will still maintain a healthy profit margin.
Well, OK.. what happens with your single point of failure wireless NIC dies on you? You're left with a computer that can't talk to the internet, without using some USB dongle work around, instead of native hardware.
Having alternate ways to connect to the internet isn't being stuck in the past.. it's called preparing for outages, and allowing longer life to a product.
As to the optical drives, perhaps you want to burn a DVD or video from your iPhone to a disk to give to a family member. What now? Oh.. I should have bought that 150$ super-drive that's slower than a PC counterpart. Superdrives and ZIP Drives were the hit rage of the 90's with 120MB storage floppy disks. I remember having one for the first blueberry iMac because Apple took away the floppy disk drive.
Who's really stuck in the past?
So are you saying they should add a modem too? Just in case the Ethernet port dies and wireless isn't working.
As for your optical drive scenario, how often does that occur? In addition, you can put it on a USB drive.
Well, OK.. what happens with your single point of failure wireless NIC dies on you? You're left with a computer that can't talk to the internet, without using some USB dongle work around, instead of native hardware.
I have never had an Apple notebook WiFi go out on me, but if it did, I wouldn't have an ethernet cable handy or any switch to plug it into. Laptops/notebooks are made for mobility which is why they are rarely if ever hard wired to the network. If you are a professional network engineer or installation tech, sure you need an ethernet port, although those types of careers are usually Windows centric, but in this day and age, the vast majority of the world's Mac notebook users do not need an ethernet port, but if they did, they would have purchased the thunderbolt to ethernet adapter.
Well, OK.. what happens with your single point of failure wireless NIC dies on you? You're left with a computer that can't talk to the internet, without using some USB dongle work around, instead of native hardware.
Having alternate ways to connect to the internet isn't being stuck in the past.. it's called preparing for outages, and allowing longer life to a product.
As to the optical drives, perhaps you want to burn a DVD or video from your iPhone to a disk to give to a family member. What now? Oh.. I should have bought that 150$ super-drive that's slower than a PC counterpart. Superdrives and ZIP Drives were the hit rage of the 90's with 120MB storage floppy disks. I remember having one for the first blueberry iMac because Apple took away the floppy disk drive.
Who's really stuck in the past?
Thunderbolt to Ethernet.
If you're that paranoid about that kind of failure, I'd expect you to have an ethernet cable, so why not just bring a TB->E dongle along? There's no need to neither waste space in and on, nor spend more money in production for a port that is going to be used very very rarely, especially when a newer port can support legacy connections. There will _always_ be exceptions, don't get me wrong, but there are fallback for those cases and those exceptions become less and less relevant each day.
Optical drives have fallen into the same category as Ethernet ports: they've become more or less obsolete in todays consumer computers. You can think of a million exceptions, I'm sure, but it's faster* to upload a video to YouTube and share it with family than to burn it to DVD format these days. Hell, I've had a optical MBP for 3 years now, and have used the drive just once to copy a mix CD from a friend. That's it and even that was annoying (no metadata). Why waste the time and effort when it doesn't pay and allows for more advanced and better organized computer internals by freeing up large chunks of space? This is also the reason you do not see many people with Superdrives - the Internet is a much superior way of sharing media and it's become the exception to require physical media.
Well, OK.. what happens with your single point of failure wireless NIC dies on you? You're left with a computer that can't talk to the internet, without using some USB dongle work around, instead of native hardware.
Having alternate ways to connect to the internet isn't being stuck in the past.. it's called preparing for outages, and allowing longer life to a product.
As to the optical drives, perhaps you want to burn a DVD or video from your iPhone to a disk to give to a family member. What now? Oh.. I should have bought that 150$ super-drive that's slower than a PC counterpart. Superdrives and ZIP Drives were the hit rage of the 90's with 120MB storage floppy disks. I remember having one for the first blueberry iMac because Apple took away the floppy disk drive.
Who's really stuck in the past?
Obviously, you are. What happens when that single point of failure router dies? It's hard to understand your point there. As for optical, it's rarely used these days. Even most software installs are done over the Internet, and that was the major use for an optical drive. So, for $79 I keep an Apple external SuperDrive. I hardly ever use it though. It was for my daughter when in college for her Retina Macbook Pro. I do have a BR writer in my Mac Pro though.
But I've got literally hundreds of recordable CD and DVD disks that I don't really use anymore. It's either move something to a (free!) 8GB USB stick for someone, or send it to them over the Internet.
The "under $1,000 segment" might be a convenient label to put on the market, but there's zero significance to it. Looking at the chart, the only reasonably identifiable segment is the $400 - $800 range. Not only does each hundred dollar range within it capture at least 10% of buyers, no hundred dollar range outside of that group captures 10%. If Apple really wanted to aim at the sweet spot, they'd go for something around $600. Pretty unlikely we'll see that.
Well, OK.. what happens with your single point of failure wireless NIC dies on you? You're left with a computer that can't talk to the internet, without using some USB dongle work around, instead of native hardware.
What happens when you native hardware dies? You are left with a computer that can't talk to the Internet without some USB dongle work around.
Having alternate ways to connect to the internet isn't being stuck in the past.. it's called preparing for outages, and allowing longer life to a product.
If you have to prepare for hardware failure type of outages, you ought to rethink your hardware choices.
Oh.. I should have bought that 150$ super-drive that's slower than a PC counterpart. Superdrives and ZIP Drives were the hit rage of the 90's with 120MB storage floppy disks. I remember having one for the first blueberry iMac because Apple took away the floppy disk drive.
Pining for a Zip drive... and whining about slow DVD drives. Does anyone under 30 even know what you're talking about?
The "under $1,000 segment" might be a convenient label to put on the market, but there's zero significance to it. Looking at the chart, the only reasonably identifiable segment is the $400 - $800 range. Not only does each hundred dollar range within it capture at least 10% of buyers, no hundred dollar range outside of that group captures 10%. If Apple really wanted to aim at the sweet spot, they'd go for something around $600. Pretty unlikely we'll see that.
1) It's not convenient, it's psychological. This is why so many process end in 99. That extra dollar or penny isn't a wallet breaker bu psychologically it makes a difference to the buyer.
2) You're basing the "sweet spot" on where most of the units are sold, not where the money is made. Apple already owns the "sweet spot" by creating products people want that provide them a healthy profit margin... and now has expanded their "sweet spot" even further.
The "under $1,000 segment" might be a convenient label to put on the market, but there's zero significance to it. Looking at the chart, the only reasonably identifiable segment is the $400 - $800 range. Not only does each hundred dollar range within it capture at least 10% of buyers, no hundred dollar range outside of that group captures 10%. If Apple really wanted to aim at the sweet spot, they'd go for something around $600. Pretty unlikely we'll see that.
Again, to point out that they don't. The $899-$999 segment is a additional 4%. That moves the Air into an additional 25% of possible sales for them directly. The $799-$899 segment is another 6%, which is close to 40% of the Air's total sales. Apple will pull sales from that segment as well. The will even likely pull a few sales from the next segment down, which they weren't very likely to have been doing before.
It's very obvious that you guys are just looking at the numbers on the chart without understanding what it has to do with Apple's sales. Apple has no intention of competing with the majority of Windows sales. They never have, and it's not likely they ever will. All they are interested in here is moving to segments that will give them incremental sales increases. And this will definitely do that. If they can take just a percent from these lower segments, that will increase Air sales by 10%, which would be a coup for them. That could add an additional 2% to their 5% Mac sales increases. When you compare that to the 8% drop in Windows sales, which interestingly, are more tilted to notebook sales than to desktop sales, Apple will do a lot of good financially and psychologically.
Somehow, you guys are thinking that Apple isn't competing with cheap Dell, Hp and other notebook sales, so it doesn't matter, but that's clearly wrong.
Comments
It clear the $400-$799 band is more meaningful re: where lots of market share resides.
I'd also point out that there's a thriving after market on Ebay and elsewhere for MBAs that are within this band.
Yeah, you're both missing the point. It's long been understood that Apple takes customers away from lower priced products. If the product is pretty much the same, then Apple will take some of those sales. We've seen surveys for iPads, for example, that show that almost everywhere around the world, in order to take a sale away from an iPad, the competition needs to be $100 cheaper.
The same thing is true for all of Apple's products. They compete, not only against products of the same price, but with products that are priced somewhat lower. So it's not just someone who will spend $999 for a notebook that Apple was getting sales from, but from someone who would have spent $899 as well. Now, that someone who would have spent $799.
Apple isn't trying to become a major mass market seller. They just want sales to move up a bit, and slightly down into the segment. This gives more people the ability to think about moving to a Mac.
There's a major psyological value to have Mac sales move up as Windows sales move down. It's one reason the stock rose so much after the financial report came out this month. Mac sales are showing growth, even though growth is 5%. If Apple can bump that growth to 7% by this, and they could, then that means a lot. Read my other posts here where I explain it in more detail.
Well, a reported 01% but that was 2009 and I think it's safe to say Apple is dominating that sector even more now.
Unfortunately you also have to count the 6% range for $800-$899 range because the 11" MBA starts at $899. They really should have gone with a starting of $899, or even lower to make sure they capture the charm pricing strategy. That of course only works for the model that are sold without any upgrades to RAM, but that's also true for the 13" MBA being included in this sub-$1000 market.
Selling about 20 million of any HW product a year s a niche market I'd like to have. As for change, it's unknown how much it will be affected but remember the customer base is a pyramid so a 10% drop in price will open you up to more than another 10% of the market.
In that price range they have no traditional "PC" but they are destroying that market with iPad sales. The beauty, for Apple and its investors, is that Apple makes a healthy profit on the iPad whilst "PC" vendors seem to be unlike to break even for products in the same range. And now if they continue to come at it from the top it's hard to see how they can lose with this flanking maneuver.
Well, I could agree with you, but where would the fun be in that?
But, no, it's definitely not a netbook. Screen size does not define a netbook by itself. Even if it did, it wouldn't fit the description. When Microsoft offered Windows XP Starter to netbook manufacturers for, at the time, a startling $15, they laid down the specs the machines would need to meet.
No bigger than a 10" screen.
An Atom CPU.
No more than 2GB RAM.
They spec'ed the largest storage, though I don't remember the max size right now.
And, of course, the very cut down OS itself.
The 11" Air meets none of those specs. Even when it first came out, wimpy as it was, it was still much more machine than the best netbook, and I had what was the best netbook for my daughter one summer, priced at $589 with the 2GB RAM upgrade. That was six years ago. A really pathetic machine. It was so slow, the curser used to leave trails across the screen. It also didn't run much software, despite what the Windows nerds used to say. A lot of software wouldn't even install because of the pathetic specs.
So, please, don't compare the Air to that junk.
Suppose
Most users do not need optical drives. They take up space and also consume power. Ethernet? Really? It is not needed either. Streaming works just fine with wireless. My entire house is wireless as is my corporate office. I guess it is the difference between forward thinking and being stuck in the past.
Well, OK.. what happens with your single point of failure wireless NIC dies on you? You're left with a computer that can't talk to the internet, without using some USB dongle work around, instead of native hardware.
Having alternate ways to connect to the internet isn't being stuck in the past.. it's called preparing for outages, and allowing longer life to a product.
As to the optical drives, perhaps you want to burn a DVD or video from your iPhone to a disk to give to a family member. What now? Oh.. I should have bought that 150$ super-drive that's slower than a PC counterpart. Superdrives and ZIP Drives were the hit rage of the 90's with 120MB storage floppy disks. I remember having one for the first blueberry iMac because Apple took away the floppy disk drive.
Who's really stuck in the past?
The price point for a plastic, bare bones mac should be 500-600$.
They have this, it's called the Mac Mini.
Now add the 150$ to 200$ for a comparable display, for what we're discussing. We're not discussing the headless PC market. We're discussing laptop computer markets.
The amount of trolling on AI amazes me.
The price drop is not big enough to change much. Those macs will continu to be in a niche market.
What proportion of the profits of the PC market do you think Apple has? Or, like the silly analysts and consulting firms (Gartner, IDC, et. al) do you only care about the market share?
?If not the latter, perhaps I am missing the point of your post.
I can agree with that, as it's the same thing I've been saying here. But I don't think we're going to see a doubling of sales, though that would terrify everyone else, and send us investors of Apple stock into a buying frenzy.
But Apple could possibly pick up an additional million or two yearly Air sales from this, possibly more. I also think, as I mentioned before, this is an attempt to regularize prices before a retina model comes out later this year. Something similar to what they did with the Macbook Pro models. If so, it could also mean that they intend to discontinue these "older" designs so etime after the retina models come out, and along with them, the lower prices.
Now add the 150$ to 200$ for a comparable display, for what we're discussing. We're not discussing the headless PC market. We're discussing laptop computer markets.
The amount of trolling on AI amazes me.
You said a plastic bare bare bones mac, so I mentioned the Mac Mini because that is what it is. Since you said Mac and not Macbook, I assumed you meant desktop. Besides, Apple doesn't make plastic laptops.Why would that be trolling?
While the price is attractive, I don't think this will eat into PC sales like AI thinks. for 600$, you can get a nice PC laptop that still has optical drives and twice the memory space. Apple seems to be stuck in the idea that everything will remain server side with cloud services, and computing will stay in the dumb terminal phase in the long run wit these products. The iPad is already slumping in sales, because people are not interested in buying a new tablet every 2 years like a phone. PCs should last a decent 5-6 years before needing replaced, even longer now that the wear on PCs is being shifted to tablets and phones.
The price point for a plastic, bare bones mac should be 500-600$. Yet Apple still thinks they can be a PC competitor by having a high priced product, and then take everything out of it that people use daily. Currently, only ONE Macbook product comes with an ethernet port! IF everything's supposed to be cloud based, I would like to hard wire my Mac for streaming movies without the lag of wireless due to interference. Is it really that costly to include a gigabit ethernet port on a computer these days??
One of the most mind-numbingly stupid posts I've ever read.
1. Do you REALLY think Apple removed ethernet/optical drives because of cost? Jesus. Talk about a massive lack of awareness and understanding. And what the hell is "memory space"? RAM? SSD? HDD? Most Macs use SSDs, which as you know alot more pricey (and have infinitely better performance) than larger HDDs.
2. The Mac Mini is $500. But yeah, let's conveniently forget about that product.
3. Not a single fucking person I know needs an ethernet jack and optical drive "daily". Hell, most people NEVER need these things anymore. If things were up to you, we'd still have floppy drives and parallel ports in our machines, because you irrationally cling to the past. Only the cheap PC laptops out there include those- the prieir ones (ie. that can be compared to macs) do not. Why do you think that is? These aren't "features" they're legacy shit that make machines large and clunky. Get out of your bubble.
4. My basic N connection can easily stream 2 1080P streams at once- and the AC connections now are potentially much faster- no clue what you're referring to with "lag of wireless". What percentage of people do you actually think use an ethernet cable to stream things like netflix? Maybe your network is shit? Again, you show a complete disconnection of reality. Again, you bring up cost, which is so asinine. The Macbook Airs/Pros are not even thick enough to hold an ethernet jack, yet you chalk up the exclusion to "cost"? Incredible. For the TINY percentage of users that need one, you can go ahead and buy the dongle. That makes more sense than having drives and ports that 99% of users wont use.
I'm sure you can go out and buy a PC laptop now, for $400, which includes all your fantasy hadrware (optical drives, ethernet ports, etc). I'm not sure what you're waiting for- hopefully not for Apple to suddenly decide to redesign their machines so they can put these obsolete elements back in, as you'd be quite insane for believing in that possibility.
Yes. Apple will still maintain a healthy profit margin.
So are you saying they should add a modem too? Just in case the Ethernet port dies and wireless isn't working.
As for your optical drive scenario, how often does that occur? In addition, you can put it on a USB drive.
I have never had an Apple notebook WiFi go out on me, but if it did, I wouldn't have an ethernet cable handy or any switch to plug it into. Laptops/notebooks are made for mobility which is why they are rarely if ever hard wired to the network. If you are a professional network engineer or installation tech, sure you need an ethernet port, although those types of careers are usually Windows centric, but in this day and age, the vast majority of the world's Mac notebook users do not need an ethernet port, but if they did, they would have purchased the thunderbolt to ethernet adapter.
Suppose
Well, OK.. what happens with your single point of failure wireless NIC dies on you? You're left with a computer that can't talk to the internet, without using some USB dongle work around, instead of native hardware.
Having alternate ways to connect to the internet isn't being stuck in the past.. it's called preparing for outages, and allowing longer life to a product.
As to the optical drives, perhaps you want to burn a DVD or video from your iPhone to a disk to give to a family member. What now? Oh.. I should have bought that 150$ super-drive that's slower than a PC counterpart. Superdrives and ZIP Drives were the hit rage of the 90's with 120MB storage floppy disks. I remember having one for the first blueberry iMac because Apple took away the floppy disk drive.
Who's really stuck in the past?
Thunderbolt to Ethernet.
If you're that paranoid about that kind of failure, I'd expect you to have an ethernet cable, so why not just bring a TB->E dongle along? There's no need to neither waste space in and on, nor spend more money in production for a port that is going to be used very very rarely, especially when a newer port can support legacy connections. There will _always_ be exceptions, don't get me wrong, but there are fallback for those cases and those exceptions become less and less relevant each day.
Optical drives have fallen into the same category as Ethernet ports: they've become more or less obsolete in todays consumer computers. You can think of a million exceptions, I'm sure, but it's faster* to upload a video to YouTube and share it with family than to burn it to DVD format these days. Hell, I've had a optical MBP for 3 years now, and have used the drive just once to copy a mix CD from a friend. That's it and even that was annoying (no metadata). Why waste the time and effort when it doesn't pay and allows for more advanced and better organized computer internals by freeing up large chunks of space? This is also the reason you do not see many people with Superdrives - the Internet is a much superior way of sharing media and it's become the exception to require physical media.
I have a 2011 MacBook Pro. I cannot remember the last time I used the DVD drive or ethernet.
Actually, I don't know if I ever used them!
The Airs are pure Apple. Sweet and great for the value - if you value great products.
Obviously, you are. What happens when that single point of failure router dies? It's hard to understand your point there. As for optical, it's rarely used these days. Even most software installs are done over the Internet, and that was the major use for an optical drive. So, for $79 I keep an Apple external SuperDrive. I hardly ever use it though. It was for my daughter when in college for her Retina Macbook Pro. I do have a BR writer in my Mac Pro though.
But I've got literally hundreds of recordable CD and DVD disks that I don't really use anymore. It's either move something to a (free!) 8GB USB stick for someone, or send it to them over the Internet.
What happens when you native hardware dies? You are left with a computer that can't talk to the Internet without some USB dongle work around.
If you have to prepare for hardware failure type of outages, you ought to rethink your hardware choices. 1997 called. They want you forget this cloud thing. Forget the Internet. Forget YouTube. The lack of VHS compatibility is not the iPhone's fault. Pining for a Zip drive... and whining about slow DVD drives. Does anyone under 30 even know what you're talking about? Are you trying to be ironic?
1) It's not convenient, it's psychological. This is why so many process end in 99. That extra dollar or penny isn't a wallet breaker bu psychologically it makes a difference to the buyer.
2) You're basing the "sweet spot" on where most of the units are sold, not where the money is made. Apple already owns the "sweet spot" by creating products people want that provide them a healthy profit margin... and now has expanded their "sweet spot" even further.
Again, to point out that they don't. The $899-$999 segment is a additional 4%. That moves the Air into an additional 25% of possible sales for them directly. The $799-$899 segment is another 6%, which is close to 40% of the Air's total sales. Apple will pull sales from that segment as well. The will even likely pull a few sales from the next segment down, which they weren't very likely to have been doing before.
It's very obvious that you guys are just looking at the numbers on the chart without understanding what it has to do with Apple's sales. Apple has no intention of competing with the majority of Windows sales. They never have, and it's not likely they ever will. All they are interested in here is moving to segments that will give them incremental sales increases. And this will definitely do that. If they can take just a percent from these lower segments, that will increase Air sales by 10%, which would be a coup for them. That could add an additional 2% to their 5% Mac sales increases. When you compare that to the 8% drop in Windows sales, which interestingly, are more tilted to notebook sales than to desktop sales, Apple will do a lot of good financially and psychologically.
Somehow, you guys are thinking that Apple isn't competing with cheap Dell, Hp and other notebook sales, so it doesn't matter, but that's clearly wrong.