The Case for an Ultralight Mac

The MacBook Neo is here, and it’s already obvious it will be a massive hit for Apple. People are going to buy so many of these. It will be transformative and bring lots of new users into the Apple ecosystem.

But I want to talk about what the Neo isn’t. If you’ve been waiting for Apple to make a truly ultralight Mac, something more premium, smaller, and yes, more expensive, the Neo isn’t that machine. The Neo is about accessibility and volume. It’s the MacBook for everyone.

I want the other thing.

Apple has made ultralight laptops before. The original MacBook Air was a revelation when Steve Jobs pulled it out of a manila envelope in 2008.

But every ultralight Mac has been held back by the same problem: Intel. Those chips ran hot, throttled under load, and demanded compromises in battery life that made the “Air” name feel like a warning label as much as a product category.

That constraint is gone now. Apple silicon changed everything about what’s possible in a thin enclosure.

The M-series chips run cool, sip power, and deliver performance that would have seemed absurd in an ultralight just five years ago. The engineering that makes the current MacBooks Air and Neo possible is the same engineering that could make something even more ambitious.

Think about it. Apple has covered the pro market with the MacBook Pro lineup. The Neo is about to cover the mainstream and budget-conscious buyer.

But there’s a gap at the top. A premium ultralight for people who travel constantly, who want the absolute minimum weight and footprint, and who are willing to pay for it. A MacBook that weighs two pounds or less, with a stunning display and all-day battery life. Not a compromise machine. A showcase.

The technology is ready. Apple silicon was basically designed for this. The question is whether Apple sees the market opportunity, or whether they think the Air (or whatever it becomes post-Neo) already fills that slot.

I don’t think it does. There’s a difference between a laptop that happens to be light and a laptop that’s built from the ground up to be as light as physically possible. Apple used to understand that distinction. The original Air proved it.

With the Neo handling the mainstream, there’s room in the lineup for Apple to go back to that idea. Not an Air. Not a Pro. Something else entirely. Something that shows what Apple silicon can really do when weight is the primary design constraint.

I’d buy one tomorrow.

Pixelmator Pro FTW

I recently realized that I’ve stopped using every photo editing app except Pixelmator Pro. It happened gradually over a couple of years, but now it’s the only tool I reach for.

I love Acorn and respect the other developers making great image editors. But Pixelmator Pro has become so ingrained in my workflow that I don’t even think about alternatives anymore. Whatever I need to do with an image, I know exactly how to do it in Pixelmator Pro.

Sometimes the best app isn’t the one with the most features. It’s the one you know so well that it disappears. Pixelmator Pro has become invisible to me in the best possible way.

The Robot Assistant Field Guide is Here

I spent the better part of a year experimenting with AI and coming away unimpressed.

The chatbots were fine for generating a quick summary or answering a trivia question. But every time I tried to use them for real work, the same problem showed up. They had no memory. No connection to my actual files. No way to do anything except talk. I’d describe a task, get a wall of text back, and then do all the work myself anyway.

Then Claude Code arrived. Suddenly the AI could read and write files on my computer. That changed things. I could point it at a folder full of notes and say “find every open task and organize them by project.” It would actually do it. But Claude Code ran in the terminal, which meant I had to think like a programmer to get anything done.

When Claude Cowork showed up, the programming barrier disappeared. Same power, but now I could just talk to it. Describe what I needed in plain English and watch it work. That’s when things got interesting.

Add MCPs (connectors that let the AI talk to your calendar, email, Slack, and other apps) and the whole picture comes together. Memory, because it reads your files. Skills, because you can teach it how you work. Reach, because it connects to the tools you already use. That’s the formula.

Once I had all three pieces, I started building. Email processing first. Then daily planning. Then task management. Then customer support, content publication, journaling, sponsor tracking, podcast production, weekly reviews, and a shutdown routine that wraps up my day in fifteen minutes instead of an hour.

At some point I looked up and realized I’d built something. Not a chatbot I ask questions. A system. A persistent assistant that knows my projects, remembers what I told it three weeks ago about that contractor invoice, and handles the tedious stuff I used to spend hours on every day.

I call it my robot assistant.

The biggest difference isn’t even the time saved. It’s that I stay in the zone. I used to break focus a dozen times a day to deal with admin. Email, invoicing, task shuffling, calendar juggling. Every interruption costs more than the minutes it takes. It costs the momentum. The robot handles the donkey work now, and I keep working on the stuff that actually matters.

Today I’m releasing the Robot Assistant Field Guide. It teaches the method behind everything I just described. How to use Claude Cowork and Obsidian to build your own personal AI assistant from scratch.

I want to be clear about what this is and what it isn’t. This is not “let AI write your stuff.” If you want a tool that does your thinking for you, this isn’t it. The Robot Assistant Field Guide teaches you to build an assistant for the donkey work. The email triage, the task management, the scheduling, the data entry, the repetitive admin. So you have more time for your real work.

You get ten foundation videos, about three hours total, that take you from zero to a working robot assistant. Each video builds on the last. By the end you have a functioning system ready for real work.

Then the 10-week live workshop series starts April 2. These aren’t webinars. They’re hands-on working sessions where we build real workflows together. Email processing. Calendar and daily planning. Task management. Personal CRM. Review cadences. All recorded if you can’t make it live.

You also get a Starter Kit with a vault template, sample workflows, and an AI-powered assembler that personalizes everything to your work. You don’t need to be a programmer. You need a Mac and a willingness to try something new.

The price is $199, one-time purchase, no subscription. Use code ROBOTLAUNCH for 10% off through March 30.

Get the Robot Assistant Field Guide

I’ve made a lot of Field Guides over the years. This one feels different. It’s the first time I’ve taught you to build the actual tool. The robot assistant isn’t a demo. It’s how I work now. And I think it can be how you work too.

Here’s the first Foundation Video:

Exploring Bloom, An Interesting Finder Alternative

Bloom is a new Finder alternative that’s been getting a lot of attention in the Labs community. It offers flexible multi-pane layouts, fast search, panel syncing that works like an advanced column view, and more settings than Apple’s Finder could dream of. At $16 for a lifetime license with a free trial, it’s easy to kick the tires.

This is a post for MacSparky Labs Pathfinders and Insiders only. Care to join? Or perhaps do you need to sign in?

Fantastical Meets AI: Your Calendar Just Got Smarter (Sponsor)

This post is sponsored by Flexibits.

I’m delighted to welcome back Flexibits as a MacSparky sponsor. Their premier calendar application, Fantastical, has been my daily driver for years, and they just shipped something that genuinely changes how I manage my schedule.

Fantastical now has a connector for Claude and Claude Cowork using the Model Context Protocol (MCP). If you’ve been following my work with AI assistants, you know I’ve been building workflows where AI tools interact directly with the apps on my Mac. Fantastical’s MCP server lets Claude read your calendar, check your availability, and create events using Fantastical’s natural language parsing — all from within a conversation.

To get started, go to the Claude Desktop App settings on your Mac and install Fantastical under the Connectors. One thing I appreciate is the granular permission controls. You can set it to always allow calendar reading but require approval before writing, updating, or deleting events. You stay in control of exactly what the AI can do.

I’ve been using this in my own workflow and it’s a real improvement. Every morning I have Claude generate a daily brief that pulls my calendar events straight from Fantastical. Having my AI assistant understand my availability before suggesting meeting times eliminates the back-and-forth of scheduling.

This matters because your calendar is one of the most important data sources in your productivity system. When your AI assistant can see your schedule and act on it, the friction of calendar management drops dramatically. Here’s a short video from yours truly.

But Fantastical isn’t just about AI. The app continues to excel at the fundamentals: best-in-class natural language event creation, Calendar Sets that let you switch between work and personal views with a click, and seamless integration with Zoom, Google Meet, and other conferencing tools. Fantastical works across Mac, iPad, iPhone, Apple Watch, and Windows.

If you’re looking for a calendar app that keeps pushing the boundaries, especially if you’re curious about how AI fits into your productivity workflow, give Fantastical a try.

David Pogue’s Book on Apple’s First 50 Years

David Pogue has a new book out called Apple: The First 50 Years. We interviewed David about it on Mac Power Users, and I got an early copy.

I’ve read the whole thing, and I really enjoyed it.

There are a lot of Apple books that focus on the personalities. The backstabbing, the drama, the Steve Jobs mythology.

Those books have their place, but Pogue took a different angle. This one focuses on the products. The Apple II, the Mac, the iPod, the iPhone, and everything in between. It traces the full arc of the company through the things it actually made.

That framing works. It gives you a nice, clean overview of Apple’s entire run without getting lost in boardroom politics. You come away with a better understanding of why certain products mattered and how they connected to what came next.

The photography is beautiful too. It’s a big, full-color book with images that do justice to the hardware. If you’ve ever been the kind of person who appreciated the design of an Apple product (and if you’re reading this blog, you probably are), you’ll enjoy just flipping through it.