I’m going to preface this column by noting something that’s really quite important, given the headline: I can be comically bad at making tech predictions. Some years ago, at the dawn of my tech-writing career, I was quoted in MacUser arguing that the iPod wouldn’t be a hit. In hindsight, I foreshadowed Steve Ballmer’s infamous iPhone take. “I said that is the most expensive phone in the world and it doesn’t appeal to business customers because it doesn’t have a keyboard,” he chortled. I was similarly all “this thing is very expensive and no one will want it”. Nope. Nope, nope, nope.
What I’d failed to take into account was, well, everything. The iPod was a marvel. The device was pricier than most rival players, sure, but far more usable. It was just… better. And that was the secret sauce that transformed Apple from beleaguered and doomed into an interesting-again upstart and, eventually, a tech giant. But, hey, back then I was young and stupid. Now I’m cynical and jaded, I should know better than to make any sort of tech prediction. But I’m making this one anyway: Apple won’t increase the price of the MacBook Neo. Unless it’s gone completely mad.
Brave Neo world
This latest parp from the Apple rumour mill’s guessing trousers comes courtesy of Tim Culpan. In a blog post, he claims Apple is doubling MacBook Neo production. Which tracks with Apple CEO Tim Cook recently admitting that while Apple was “bullish on the product before announcing it”, the company “undercalled the level of enthusiasm”. Translation: way more people want a MacBook Neo than Apple expected. Great for incoming CEO John Ternus, who reportedly backed the project. Yet also a headache for Apple.
That’s because, as Culpan notes, these laptops are powered by ‘binned’ chips. Not in a literal sense – they weren’t fished out of the trash by factory staff armed with nothing more than torches and steely resolve. But these chips weren’t considered performant enough to be shoved inside of iPhones. However, with their iffy GPU cores disabled, they’re serviceable for Apple’s cheapo laptop. The snag? Apple’s reportedly burned through its stockpile. And manufacturing fresh A18 Pro chips especially for the Neo means slimmer margins.
A whole Neo ball game
“Oh no”, you might exclaim. “Won’t someone think of the children (shareholders)?” And, yes, Apple surely has room to absorb extra costs if the goal really is to boost market share and lure people into Apple’s ecosystem where they might later buy an iPhone, services, or a swanky polishing cloth. But with AI driving up component prices, it’s unclear how much wiggle-room Apple truly has. If RAM and storage prices keep climbing, something may have to give. And Apple doesn’t strike me as a company keen to run a loss leader.
Some pundits reckon Apple will sneakily kill the cheapest MacBook Neo model or ramp up the price while adding new colours to distract the masses. But unless Apple genuinely has no alternative, either move would be mad. Unlike the iPod, the Neo’s killer feature isn’t that it’s better. It’s that it’s cheap enough to make people seriously consider buying a Mac for the first time.
At $599/£599, that works. At $749/£749? Probably not. At $899/£899, you’re drifting into MacBook Air territory and wondering why the Neo exists at all. And if Apple does hike the price, people will see it as proof that the company could make a cheap-but-great laptop, but only briefly before cruelly snatching it away. At that point, a few new fun colours won’t fool anyone – and thinking otherwise would be the maddest thing of all.
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