Lowest-Ever Deals: Save on the New 15-Inch MacBook Pro, 11-Inch iPad Pro, and Get the Apple Pencil 1 for $60 ($40 Off)

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Amazon and Best Buy are closing out the week with a variety of sales on the 15-inch MacBook Pro, 11-inch iPad Pro, and the Apple Pencil. In most cases, the prices listed below offer the lowest prices ever seen on each model, and reach up to $300 off the MacBook Pro and up to $250 off the iPad Pro.


For the 15-inch MacBook Pro, you'll find the same discounts offered at both Amazon and Best Buy, but the 11-inch iPad Pro's best deals are largely found at Best Buy. If you're looking for bargains on the 13-inch MacBook Pro, yesterday's discounts on these models can still be found on Amazon.

15-Inch MacBook Pro Sale

The below models are both $300 off for a limited time, representing their lowest prices ever.

• 2.6 GHz 6-Core, 16 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD - $2,099.99, down from $2,399.99 [Amazon / Best Buy]
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• 2.3 GHz 8-Core, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD - $2,499.99, down from $2,799.99 [Amazon / Best Buy]

11-Inch iPad Pro Sale

• Wi-Fi, 512 GB - $949.99, down from $1,149.99 [Best Buy] ($200 off, lowest ever)
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• Cellular, 64 GB - $824.00, down from $949.00 [Amazon] ($125 off)
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• Cellular, 256 GB - $949.00, down from $1,099.00 [Amazon] ($150 off)
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• Cellular, 512 GB - $1,099.99, down from $1,299.99 [Amazon / Best Buy] ($200 off, lowest ever)
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• Cellular, 1 TB - $1,449.99, down from $1,699.99 [Amazon / Best Buy] ($250 off, lowest ever)

Apple Pencil 1 Sale

Lastly, you can purchase the original Apple Pencil for just $59.99 today, representing savings of $40 off the original price of the accessory and the lowest we've ever seen it.

• Apple Pencil (first generation) - $59.99, down from $99.99

More of the latest discounts and sales can be found in our full Deals Roundup.

Related Roundup: Apple Deals

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Jony Ive Once Insisted on Apple Car Without a Steering Wheel

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Following the big news that Jony Ive will be resigning from Apple later this year after nearly 30 years at the company, new details continue to emerge about the iconic designer and his work over the years.


One of many secretive projects that Ive worked on was the so-called Apple Car, according to The Information. The report claims that Ive came up with multiple early prototypes of the autonomous vehicle, including one made out of wood and leather that lacked a steering wheel at Ive's insistence.

Ive instead wanted the vehicle to be controlled by Siri, and to demonstrate the concept to Apple CEO Tim Cook, the report claims a nearby actress pretended to be Siri by responding to voice commands from Apple's executives. It is unclear exactly how this would have worked or how serious Apple was about the idea.

The report adds that Ive also worked on a much-rumored but never-released Apple television set and early prototypes of the Apple Watch.

In an internal memo to Apple employees obtained by BuzzFeed News, Cook noted that Ive has collaborated closely with Apple's COO Jeff Williams for many years. Williams, who has led development of the Apple Watch since its inception, will spend more of his time working with Apple's design team in their studio.

Cook's full memo:

Team,

I'm writing to let you know about some changes to the ET involving two people who embody Apple's values and whose work will help define Apple's future.

I'm happy to announce that Sabih Khan has been named to the executive team as senior vice president of Operations reporting to Jeff Williams. Sabih has worked on every Apple product since the late 90s, always committed to delighting our customers while advancing quality, sustainability and responsibility in manufacturing. His team makes possible some of the most beloved — and most complex — products in the world, and Sabih leads them with heart. I am thrilled to have him overseeing our supply chain.

Today, we also mark another important evolution for our company. After nearly 30 years at Apple, Jony Ive is starting an independent design firm which will count Apple among its primary clients and will depart the company as an employee later this year. Jony's contributions are legendary, from the central role he played in Apple's revival beginning in the late 90s, through the iPhone and perhaps his most ambitious project, Apple Park, where he has put so much of his energy and care in the past few years. I am proud to call Jony a friend, and those who know him know his ideas and curiosities are boundless. We will all benefit — as individuals who value great design, and as a company — as he pursues his passions and continues his dedicated work with Apple.

Of all his accomplishments, Jony cites the team he helped to build as one of his proudest. His longtime collaborators, Evans Hankey and Alan Dye, are strong stewards of Apple's design ethic and creative culture. Collaboration and teamwork are defining features of Apple's success across the company.

Evans and Alan will report to Jeff Williams. As many of you know, Jony and Jeff have been close collaborators and partners for many years. In particular, Jeff's leadership in developing Apple Watch brought together a cross-organizational team, unprecedented in scope, to produce Apple's most personal device ever. This is what Apple does at its best: elevating a category beyond its imagined limits, and revealing how a single device can be so much more than the sum of its parts. I'm incredibly excited about the design team's work, both underway and yet to come.

Tim

In line with a Bloomberg report, The Information claims that Ive's day-to-day involvement at Apple has already been declining since the Apple Watch launched in 2015. Ive's recent focus has been on the company's Apple Park headquarters, which had a formal grand opening in May.

Apple announced that Ive will be forming an independent design studio named LoveFrom that will count Apple among its "primary clients," suggesting that he will continue to have some influence on the company's products.

Related Roundup: Apple Car

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Jony Ive's Involvement at Apple Reportedly Tapered After the Original Apple Watch Launched in 2015

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Following Apple's surprise announcement yesterday that Jony Ive is leaving the company, fresh details have emerged about the design chief's day-to-day involvement at Apple in recent years that suggest his exit has been a long time in the making.


Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports that after the Apple Watch launched in 2015, Ive had already started relinquishing his responsibilities because of the strain it was putting on him personally.

Around the time, Ive told the New Yorker he'd become "deeply, deeply tired," and said the year leading up to the Apple Watch debut was "the most difficult" since he joined Apple.

To extend his time at the company, Apple subsequently agreed to change his official role to Chief Design Officer, which allowed day-to-day responsibility of the hardware and software design teams to shift to executives Alan Dye and Richard Howarth.

From then onward, Ive began coming to Apple headquarters "as little as twice a week," and many meetings with his design team reportedly took place in San Francisco so Ive could avoid the long commute from his home in the Pacific Heights district to Apple's HQ in Cupertino, California.

Ive sometimes even met with his team at the homes of his employees, at hotels, or other venues, according to people familiar with the matter, while the design executive did much of his work at a San Francisco office and studio, which has now become the base of his new LoveFrom business.

Ive also frequently travelled to London, near to where he was raised, according to Bloomberg's Gurman.

About two years into his new role, at the end of 2017, Apple said Ive had re-assumed some of the leadership responsibilities he had previously given up, and Howarth and Dye were removed from Apple's leadership page. But still Ive only came to the office a couple of days a week.

Some people familiar with Apple are worried about the new design leadership, reports Gurman. With Ive leaving, Evans Hankey will run the hardware design group. Hankey is described as a "great team leader", but Apple "now lacks a true design brain on its executive team, which is a concern," a person familiar with the design team said.

Hankey and Dye will report to Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams, who will likely gain more control over product direction, and some employees are said to be concerned that the re-organization is another sign that Apple is less design-focused and becoming more of an operations company.

"The design team is made up of the most creative people, but now there is an operations barrier that wasn't there before," one former Apple executive said. "People are scared to be innovative."

Howarth is a designer at heart and didn’t want to manage. Hankey is known as a better manager, but isn’t a designer. The entire group of designers has reported to her and she to Ive after Howarth was demoted from VP a couple years ago. The org structure isn’t actually changing. https://t.co/oSxLRFUkkf

— Mark Gurman (@markgurman) June 28, 2019

As for the fate of Richard Howarth, Gurman tweeted that he didn't want to manage the design team, whereas "Hankey is known as a better manager, but isn’t a designer." The entire group of designers has been reporting to Hankey, "and she to Ive after Howarth was demoted from VP a couple years ago," said Gurman. "The [organizational] structure isn't actually changing."

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