Apple's answer to Chromebooks? Rumors point to low-cost MacBooks for 2024 | Hacker News Reader

Apple's answer to Chromebooks? Rumors point to low-cost MacBooks for 2024

techspot.com

5 pointsthunderbong6 comments

I could see them putting a keyboard on the hardware equivalent of an iPad and it selling like hotcakes. Call it a MacBook Air SE. I’m not sure that it would be a particularly good idea though. Apple has tried to maintain the image of luxury and quality, even as they released budget options like the m1 mini and the compromised MacBook Pro 13. Where are they going to go lower? 4/128gb? Cheaper/thinner material? I think it could be a mistake, or have significantly lower profit margins than Apple likes.

> I could see them putting a keyboard on the hardware equivalent of an iPad and it selling like hotcakes

That wouldn’t be much cheaper than a MacBook, would it?

> I think it could be a mistake, or have significantly lower profit margins than Apple likes.

Maybe they’ll only sell them in bulk, and only to schools?

Maybe they won’t sell them at all, but lease them? That could solve the profit margin issue (even if only in the perception of the public)

How will Apple compete with Google's Workspace for Education which has a comprehensive suite of apps like drive, sheets, classroom, sso, etc?

Apple has their own versions of some of those, but the great thing about Google apps is that all you need is a browser.

Mail, Notes, Keynote , Numbers and Pages also run in a browser. https://support.apple.com/en-us/102447:

“What is web-only access to iCloud?

Web-only access to iCloud lets you share and collaborate with others in real time on documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, even if they don't have access to an Apple device. That means you can invite anyone to share a file. Then they can use their web-only account to access the file and make edits, without leaving iCloud.”

I don't know about those other things, but Pages is horribly and notoriously incompatible with anything except itself. You can't share a Pages document with a Windows or Linux user, or a non-Pages user for that matter.

I don't know if Pages has robust export capabilities, but if Apple wants to compete, they had better start blatting out compatible file formats by default and stop with the vendor lock-ins.

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