We Are Heading to a 3,099$ Base MacBook Pro

We Are Heading to a 3,099$ Base MacBook Pro

January 18, 2016 16:41 EST • Alexandre Vallières-Lagacé • 2 minute read

After today’s announcement that Apple will increase the tier prices for many markets, including Canada, where the 99¢ app that costed 1.29$CA will now cost 1.39$CA (a 7% increase), what will happen to the Mac line?

I’ll take the Retina MacBook Pro 15" for this example, but be sure that all of the Mac will increase in price when the new refresh will take place.

2014 and 2015

In 2014, Apple updated the MacBook Pros. The 1,999$ base model became 2,099$ (+100$) and the top of the line at 2,499$CA was sold for 2,499$CA (+200$). A logic difference, when you look at the exchange rates for the month of May 2014, it was around 1.08 (CAD -> USD). But then, a bit over a year later, the new 15" MBP received a Force Touch trackpad and some small specs bump. What was not expected by Canadians is the price bump that happened.

The same two models, 1,999$ and 2,499$ became 2,449$CA and 3,049$CA, a 450$ and 550$ price difference representing a 22% price difference with our American counterparts. The exchange rate was around 1.22 in May 2015.

2016

Today, Canadians are looking at their wallets thinking that they will need to work overtime since the exchange rate is at 1.45 today and could even reach an all-time low of 1.55, a rate not seen since 2002, when Google was still one of the many search engines…

If Apple were to release new MBP today, the price would be around 2,899$CA and 3,599$CA given that the US price for the two models do not change. And if the exchange rate forecast goes down another 10%, we can see the dawn of a new age. The age of the 3,099$CA MacBook Pro base model and 3,899$ higher model.

What about the most affordable Mac? The Mini would sell for a 759$CA price tag (499$US). And the top of the line Mac Pro? A whopping 6,199$ for the 6-core model (3,999$US) and what happens if you need it spec’d out?

Roll up your pennies, because the most expensive Mac now becomes 14,879$, the price of a car. Or the inflation adjusted Macintosh IIfx… or more than the sticker price of both the Apple Lisa and the Twenty Anniversary Mac… Oh boy!

I will now cry in a corner as I was looking forward to the Skylake CPUs to replace my MacBook Pro…