Apple launches $1,099 MacBook Air, gives cheapest MacBook Pro Touch ID

Apple is reshuffling its MacBook Pro and Air lineup, and changes are significant. 

The company has reduced the price of the entry-level MacBook Air to $1,099 ($999 for students), and given the cheapest, $1,299 13-inch MacBook Pro a Touch Bar, effectively killing the “escape edition” of the MacBook Pro, which no longer exists in the lineup. 

The MacBook Air now comes in two flavors: the $1,099 variant and the $1,299 variant. 

Both have a 1.6GHz, dual-core, 8th-gen Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM memory and Intel’s UHD Graphics 617. The cheaper version has 128GB of storage, while the other has 256GB of storage. Both have a new 13-inch Retina display with True Tone support, a first for the Air. 

As for the 13-inch MacBook Pro, it’s now available in three basic flavors, all of which have a Touch Bar. This means that the MacBook Pro without a Touch Bar — often dubbed escape edition(because of the inclusion of a hardware escape key — is no more. 

The cheapest variant costs $1,299 and has a 1.4GHz, quad-core, 8th-gen Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM, Intel Iris Plus Graphics 645, 128GB of storage, a Touch Bar and Touch ID, and two Thunderbolt 3 ports. 

The $1,499 variant is the same, only with 256GB of storage, whereas the $1,799 variant has a 2.4GHz, quad-core, 8th-gen Intel Core i5 processor, and four Thunderbolt 3 ports. 

Oh, and there’s one more important bit of news: The 12-inch MacBook no longer exists in Apple’s lineup. 

Developing…