Apple unveiled its new line of MacBooks yesterday, but for customers in the UK the announcement brought some unpleasant surprises: a price bump across the board for Apple products. Not only are the new MacBook Pro laptops hundreds of pounds more expensive than previous generations, but while Apple was updating its store, it also raised the prices on a whole range of other products, including the Mac mini, Mac Pro, and iMac.
In the UK, the 13-inch MacBook Pro without a Touch Bar costs £1,449, while the version with the Touch Bar starts at £1,749. The base 15-inch model (with a Touch bar, 256GB of memory, and a 2.6GHz Core i7 processor) costs £2,349. By comparison, the previous version of the 13-inch MacBook Pro used to start at £999, while the 15-inch model cost from £1,599. Apple is still selling this older 13-inch MacBook Pro (i.e. the one that wasn’t unveiled on stage yesterday and that doesn’t have the latest innards), but that’s got its own price increase — to £1,249.
APPLE HAS RAISED ITS PRICES EVERYWHERE, BUT THE UK HAS BEEN HIT WORSE THAN MOST
Now, this is partly because MacBook Pro prices are higher everywhere, but the extra increase in the UK is most likely due to the plummeting value of the pound — itself a result of the UK’s decisions to leave the EU. As has been pointed out on Twitter, although it might look like Apple is being unfair here (simply switching its $ prices to £ and lopping off £50), the new UK MacBook Pro prices are simply what you get when you convert dollars to pounds and add in the UK’s 20 percent VAT.
Unfortunately, these price bumps aren’t just confined to the new laptops and the plummeting pound means everything Apple is getting more expensive. The Mac mini now costs £479 (previously £399), the iMac 4K is now £1,449 (up from £1,199), and the iMac 5K now starts at £1,749 (up from £1,449). Even the Mac Pro — a product that has not had a spec increase since 2013 — received a price bump from £2,499 to £2,999. Some things can’t be blamed on Brexit alone.
[Source:-The Verge]
