Apple announced Wednesday it will slash the price of a popular line of its MacBook computers while updating hardware to make the laptops faster.
In a blog post yesterday, Apple announced changes to the base model of its 13-inch MacBook Pro with "Retina" display by $200.
The 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display now goes for $1,499 for a model with 128 gigabytes of solid-state flash memory. For a higher-end model with the faster 2.6 GHz Intel Core i5 processor and 256 gigabytes of flash memory, the cost is now $1,699.
The 15-inch MacBook Pro still goes for $2,199, but the laptop now boasts a faster 2.4 GHz quad-core i7 processor. The top-of-the-line 15-inch Retina notebook now comes with a new 2.7 GHz quad-core i7 processor and 16GB of memory for $2,799.
Apple also announced it lowered the price of the 13-inch MacBook Air with 256 gigabytes of flash memory to $1,299 from $1,399.
The new electronics and prices will be effective in stores and online later Thursday.
The move counteracts criticism that electronics with retina display, which is sharper than regular display, are costly.
News of the price reductions came just weeks after the tech giant, the second-most profitable publicly traded company in the world, announced a steep decline in sales.
Q4 profits for 2012 showed 4.1 million Macs sold in December 2012, a 21 percent drop from the previous year. Apple missed Wall Street projections for the third quarter in a row, it was announced in January, as new iPhone sales came in well below expectations.
This is despite reports that
Apple is now the largest cellular phone seller in the United States, with 17.7 million iPhones shipped from October to December.
Apple also unveiled a new iPad model in January, hoping to boost sales. The new version of the tablet computer, one of the most popular in the world, boasted a higher of memory, hovering at 128 gigabytes of solid-state memory.
© 2013 Newsmax. All rights reserved.