Apple Working on a Cheaper MacBook with iPhone 16 Pro Chipset

Apple is reportedly working on an affordable MacBook that could be cheaper than any of its offerings in the current lineup. This could make the upcoming device cheaper than the entry-level MacBook Air that starts at Rs 99,900 and for this to happen, the company may opt to use an iPhone processor on the MacBook instead of an M-series chip. 

According to Apple expert and analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple is planning to introduce a "more-affordable" MacBook that will be powered by the A18 Pro SoC. This chipset is what powers the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max that launched last year.

Kuo also adds that this MacBook will come in a 13-inch variant and will enter mass production, at the end of 2025 or the start of 2026. The Cupertino company is reportedly planning on producing 5–7 million units of the cheaper MacBook in 2026. This number represents at least one-fifth of Apple's MacBook production for 2026, that's estimated at around 25 million units. It could mean that the company is expecting a high demand for the budget-oriented MacBook when it arrives next year. 

For the unknown, Apple's A18 Pro has 6 cores (compared to the 10 cores on the M4 chip) and clocks at a peak frequency of 4.04 GHz (vs the M4's 4.46 GHz maximum frequency). While it may not be as capable as the latest M-series chip, the iPhone processor could still be powerful enough to run regular tasks for most MacBook users. In fact, the A18 Pro has scored higher points (3,452 and 8,573 on the iPhone 16 Pro) in both single-core and multi-core tests on Geekbench than the M1 chip (2,364 and 8,438 on the Mac mini), which was Apple's first M-series processor. 

Besides, the iPhone processor has the same NPU architecture as the M4 with 16 Neural cores, offering up to 38 TOPS in performance. And with Apple banking on its improved AI capabilities in the future, the affordable MacBook could get all the Apple Intelligence features that are available on the M-series models. 

It's still too early to speculate on the pricing of such a MacBook, but if this rumour is indeed true, this model could be cheaper than the Rs 99,900 price tag that the MacBook Air M4 currently sells for.