{"id":208571,"date":"2026-01-30T10:58:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T15:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/30\/apple-just-completely-changed-how-you-buy-a-new-mac\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T13:30:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T18:30:11","slug":"apple-just-completely-changed-how-you-buy-a-new-mac","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/30\/apple-just-completely-changed-how-you-buy-a-new-mac\/","title":{"rendered":"Apple just completely changed how you buy a new Mac"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.macworld.com\/article\/3048329\/apple-just-completely-changed-how-you-buy-a-new-mac.html\">Apple just completely changed how you buy a new Mac<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.macworld.com\/article\/3048329\/apple-just-completely-changed-how-you-buy-a-new-mac.html\">https:\/\/www.macworld.com\/article\/3048329\/apple-just-completely-changed-how-you-buy-a-new-mac.html<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-01-30 10:58:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.macworld.com\">www.macworld.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span>Summary created by Smart Answers AI<\/span><\/p>\n<h3 class=\"miso-summary-title\" id=\"in-summary\">In summary:<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Apple has shifted from selling pre-configured Mac models to a fully customizable build-to-order system on its website, allowing customers to select display size, chip, memory, and storage options.<\/li>\n<li>Macworld reports this change emphasizes building a machine within budget rather than choosing from set configurations, potentially preparing for future CPU\/GPU core selection with M5 chips.<\/li>\n<li>Third-party retailers like Amazon and Best Buy are expected to continue offering standard configurations for customers preferring traditional purchasing methods.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For as long as Apple\u2019s been selling Macs online, it has offered them in a very specific way. There\u2019s the base model, then models with more RAM and storage, higher processor options, larger displays, etc. It requires a bit of study\u2014some models have more storage but less RAM\u2014but it made the pricing very clear.<\/p>\n<p>If you go to buy a new Mac from Apple.com today, you\u2019ll notice that things have changed. Instead of a variety of pre-configured options, you\u2019ll see a single product page with \u201cCustomizable specs\u201d that let you build your machine from the ground up. For the MacBook Pro, for example, you\u2019ll select from the following options:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Display size<\/li>\n<li>Color<\/li>\n<li>Screen type<\/li>\n<li>Chip<\/li>\n<li>Processing power<\/li>\n<li>Unified memory<\/li>\n<li>SSD storage<\/li>\n<li>Power adapter<\/li>\n<li>Keyboard<\/li>\n<li>Pro apps<\/li>\n<li>Payment options<\/li>\n<li>AppleCare coverage<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The individual options haven\u2019t changed\u2014you still get 24GB of RAM standard with the M4 Pro and Max processors, for example\u2014but the buying process puts more of an emphasis on building a machine within your budget rather than choosing from a variety of prebuilt configurations.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not clear how this will affect third-party sellers such as Amazon and Best Buy, but it\u2019s likely Apple will continue to ship common configurations.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Apple is rumored to offer the ability to customize CPU and GPU cores with the upcoming launch of the&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.macworld.com\/article\/3048329\/apple-just-completely-changed-how-you-buy-a-new-mac.html\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Apple just completely changed how you buy a new Mac https:\/\/www.macworld.com\/article\/3048329\/apple-just-completely-changed-how-you-buy-a-new-mac.html Publish Date: 2026-01-30 10:58:00&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":208572,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.macworld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/mac-family-tahoe-2.jpg?quality=50&strip=all&w=1024","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[51],"class_list":["post-208571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-macintosh","tag-macbook-pro"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208571"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208571"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":208573,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208571\/revisions\/208573"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}