Source of Apple's MacBook Price Cut Revealed

Apple AAPL surprised consumers when it announced that it had lowered the price of the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display. It did not make much sense for Apple to cut the price so soon after release. At the time, the 13-inch model was less than four months old. That did not stop Apple from reducing the price, prompting critics to speculate about the cause. There have been signs that the smaller Pro machines are selling poorly, especially after bloggers got hold of the device. "In terms of gaming performance, there isn't much," The Verge's Nilay Patel wrote in his review. "While the Retina MacBook Pro is easily the most desirable 13-inch Mac laptop to date, the high price and lack of discrete graphics make it a tough call versus either the more powerful 15-inch Retina Pro or the more affordable 13-inch Air," CNET's editors concluded. The low performance also caught the attention of Computerworld's Michael deAgonia. "In terms of actual performance, the Intel INTC i5 processor isn't as fast as the quad-core i7 I'm used to," he wrote in his review. Apple's problems may not be limited to disappointed reviewers and a weak launch. According to DigiTimes, the entire computer segment is expected to remain stagnant throughout the first half of the year. Taiwan-based supply chain makers are hopeful that sales will pick up after Intel launches the Haswell platform in June. Windows Blue, which is thought to be the first major update to Windows 8, is also expected to give the industry a boost. In theory, Apple should have been able to accomplish the same thing when it released the MacBook Pro with Retina Display. Consumers do not seem to be overwhelmingly interested in spending $2,199 on a 15-inch model, or $1,699 on the 13-inch iteration. The latter was reduced to $1,499 this month. It is not yet known how much of an impact this will have on Apple's sales. Google GOOG, which was rumored to developing a touch screen laptop last November, has expanded its market potential with the company's first high-end machine. Officially known as the Chromebook Pixel, the new notebook is Google's answer to the MacBook Air. However, if consumers are unwilling to spend $1,499+ on a MacBook Pro with Retina Display, they may not be overly interested in a weaker $1,299 machine from Google. Follow me @LouisBedigianBZ