As expected, Apple announced their latest updates to the Mac line in yesterdays “Hello Again” event. I didn’t watch the event myself, but I caught up with people’s opinions on the announcements this morning. Some of the highlights:

Michael Tsai was dissapointed with the announcments:

The new MacBook Pro has a premium price for a Mac that’s still limited to 16 GB of RAM, has CPU performance that is likely lackluster because Apple didn’t talk about it in the keynote, and apparently doesn’t have such a great GPU, either. Apple prioritized thinness and lightness, which I care about hardly at all. I would rather have better performance, a good keyboard, more storage, a larger display, more ports so I don’t have to carry dongles, an SD card slot, etc. Double the weight and half the battery life would be fine with me. I’m not saying Apple shouldn’t make thin and light notebooks, but why do they all have to be that way?

Stephen Hackett liked the new Touch Bar, but pointed out that Apple still haven’t addressed their full lineup - most notably their desktops:

The notebook line is pretty confusing right now. There are several machines — ahem, MacBook Air — that seem to exist to hit a price point. I understand and respect that, but I am already dreading offering buying advice over the next year.

But there’s a bigger problem. Apple may have fixed what was wrong with its notebook line, but the Mac is still broken. Just look at the MacRumors Buyer’s Guide:

Marco Arment mentioned the elephant in the room - price:

The substantial price increases are putting a big damper on these announcements for a lot of people.

— Marco Arment (@marcoarment) October 27, 2016

Genarally speaking, these are some good updates to the MacBook line. The new Touch Bar looks like a great way to add an extra user input option in a less clumsy way than a touch screen, and they are thinner, lighter and faster than ever before.

But all that aside, there’s no getting away from the price. The cheapest MacBook Pro with the new Touch Bar is €2099. TWO THOUSAND AND NINETY NINE EURO ¹.

Macs were never cheap, but I think at this price point, Apple has raised the bar to a price point that just can’t be justified by many people, myself included. This is the exact opposite of what the Mac needs right now, and obviously won’t help their struggling mac sales.

The Mac already seems like it’s a bit of an afterthought at Apple. Spending that sort of money on a product that most likely won’t see a meaningful update for a long time seems like a bad move. I won’t be abandoning my ‘101’ any time soon.