MacBook Neo: Whoa

My initial gut reaction upon seeing the details of the new MacBook Neo was that this was the smartest thing Apple has done in years. While I noted that it was not an overstatement, it was also noted on social media. The takes are necessarily hot. So I've sat on it for few hours and allowed the take too cool a bit. Out of the oven, I still stand by it: this is the smartest move Apple has made in years.

Very specifically one element of the MacBook Neo: $599.

When the product was first rumored in June of last year, my guess was that it would be priced at $799. Not shockingly low, but at $200 below their then-entry level MacBook Air, it felt very Apple. Yes, their M1 MacBook Air sold in partnership with Walmart was $699, but that was a different (older) product in a different (wider) channel.¹ After years and years of watching Apple, I felt confident enough in the $799 price that I doubled down on it in November:

While no specific price is given in this report aside from "well under $1,000", the big question is how low Apple will go here. They have a lot of room below the current $999 M4 MacBook Air – which is $899 with a student discount. Is $799 low enough for this product? Do they have to meet the $699 price of the Walmart MacBooks? Could they do $599 to get it in line with the iPad + Keyboards? *Do they dare do $499* to get their machines actually competitive with Chromebooks?

Let's not get carried away.

I guessed the $799 price point back in June and I'm sticking to that. Perhaps $699 with that student discount. And Apple would frame it, as they always do, as "not the cheapest, but the best" (in that general segment).

Well, Apple can still surprise me, as it turns out. And they seemingly swallowed their pride – and margins – and went with $599.²

Actually, let's get carried away: it's $499 for students. Boom.

And that's key because this is a machine built for students. This isn't a MacBook for you or me – we already have plenty of those – this is clearly for our children and perhaps parents. I know it sounds belittling to call it "My First MacBook" but the colored aluminum sort of fits... Apple made this a no-brainer buy for so many.

I've long been baffled by the notion that Apple would cede the education market – one they long dominated when I was a kid – to cheap Windows devices and more recently, Chromebooks. Yes, they clearly thought the iPad could be the answer there. But that always felt a bit off. Sure, the iPad is a brilliant device and great for some things in classrooms. But for a lot of work, including school work, you're going to want a "real" computer. Try as they might with keyboards and trackpads, Apple has not been able to morph the iPad into that real computer. And they keep insisting they don't want to! (Even if their constant tweaks suggest otherwise.)

That's fine. But again, it doesn't work in the classroom. Even if it works 90% of the time, it needs to work 100% of the time for students. And the MacBook Neo can. Finally.

A few more quick thoughts as I await the machine to actually give it a go. These are mostly nits, and they don't matter – again, all the really matters is the price...

First and foremost, I wish there was an option to upgrade to 16GB of RAM. I know I'm not the target audience for this, but I suspect that a lot of the students buying these may want to play around with some localized AI in the not-too-distant future, and I doubt 8GB is going to cut it. While 8GB has never seemed like an issue on the many iPhones that have it, I'm genuinely curious how it feels on a Mac (when paired with the A18 Pro iPhone chip). I suspect I'll feel it, but mainly because I'm coming from 32GB – if I were at 16GB, perhaps not as much.

Also, I don't do too much on my portable machine beyond using the web browser and an AI app here or there, so... we'll see!

While I've long hoped for a return to the 12" MacBook form factor, I suspect this will be close enough. It's smaller than the 13.6" screen on the MacBook Air and the footprint is obviously going to be a bit smaller. The weight is the same – the exact same – as the smaller MacBook Air, which is clearly on purpose. I guess Apple didn't want to make that some sort of debate.

I'm happy about the return to colorful portable machines – exactly what I hoped for/wrote about two years ago. I might have liked to see them a bit more bold – perhaps even NEOn? – but this is a good start. Obviously, I'm going with "Citrus".

No green machine though, as had been rumored...³ (And really, how much different is "Blush" from Rose Gold and Citrus from "Gold" – "Indigo" just gives Apple yet another shade of blue/gray/black?)

Sort of strange to only put Touch ID on the 512GB storage upgraded model (at $699)? It's such a key feature for not just convenience but security too? I guess we know where Apple drew the margin line!

While the battery life trade-off (versus the Air) is only said to be two hours on Apple's main specs, drilling down, it seems like it may be up to 4 hours less time doing regular "wireless web" stuff. 11 hours still should be enough for most people, but it's worth calling out. Again, we'll see!

As for the name, I like it. I think 'MacBook' would have made a lot of sense for this machine too, but it's a bit old school and bland. I like trying something new and it will clearly help with marketing. As Don Draper would tell you, the most important idea in advertising is "new". So why not put it in the name?

That plus being priced to move... Apple is going to sell a shit ton of the MacBook Neo.

One more thing: No Tim Cook? No problem. If you still had any question about who is up next at Apple, consider those put to rest. John Ternus just led the first live keynote for Apple in years. Sure, it was a small one, but important! You gotta start somewhere...

¹ Is that product/partnership now done? They obviously never upgraded it to the M2, let alone M3 chip and we're now on the M5 so... Maybe that deal gave Apple all the data points they needed to make this machine... ↩

² One suspects their margins are going to do just fine here... To quote Jared from The Big Short, "Let's not talk about my margins by the way being nice and fat." ↩

³ For the 20th year in a row, everyone read a bit too much into the invite – yes, there's yellow, but there's a lot of green there too... I might note: it was also glowing, sadly no return to those lovely glowing logos, it seems... ↩