The MacBook Neo’s Unfair Advantage

Steven Sinofsky, who ran the Windows division at Microsoft, picked up a MacBook Neo on launch day and wrote a long, reflective piece about it on his Substack. He called it “a paradigm shifting computer”. Coming from the guy who shipped Windows 8 and Surface, that’s not faint praise.

MKBHD went further in his review, calling the Neo “potentially Apple’s most disruptive product in the last 10+ years.” He said it should make the entire Windows and Chromebook laptop industry nervous. I think he’s right, but maybe not for the reasons most people are talking about.

Everyone’s focused on the specs. The A18 Pro chip. The $599 price. The aluminum build. Those are all real, and they all matter. But I think the deeper story is structural, and it’s one that PC makers can’t fix with a better chip or a thinner bezel.

Think about what it takes to build and sell a $599 PC laptop. You’ve got Microsoft, who needs to get paid for Windows. You’ve got the chip maker, whether that’s Intel, AMD, or Qualcomm. You’ve got the hardware manufacturer, Dell or HP or Lenovo. And you’ve got the retail channel. Every one of those companies needs their cut. Every one of them has shareholders and quarterly targets and sales teams and marketing budgets. By the time the laptop reaches a customer at $599, the margins have been carved up so many times there’s barely anything left to put toward making the actual product better.

Apple doesn’t have that problem. They make the chip. They write the operating system. They design the hardware. They sell it through their own stores and website. One company, one margin, one set of decisions. When Apple prices the Neo at $599, they’re not splitting that revenue four ways. They’re keeping it, and they get to decide exactly how much of it goes back into making the product great.

Moreover, I’m not sure Apple even cares that much about the profit margin on the Neo itself. Every $599 MacBook Neo that lands in a college student’s backpack is a new Apple customer. That person is going to buy apps, subscribe to iCloud, maybe pick up AirPods. A few years later they’ll upgrade to a MacBook Air or a Pro. Apple has always been good at the long game, and the Neo might be the longest game they’ve ever played. Get people into the Apple world at $599 and let the lifetime value take care of itself.

Sinofsky’s piece was interesting to me for another reason. He spent a lot of it reflecting on Windows 8 and Surface RT, which tried to do something similar with ARM chips back in 2012. He’s honest about what went wrong. The hardware and software were ready, he says. What they couldn’t pull off was moving developers to a new, more efficient app model fast enough. People wanted the old Windows. Microsoft’s greatest strength, running everything forever, turned out to be the thing that held them back.

Apple took the opposite approach. They spent twenty years systematically moving developers to new frameworks, sunsetting old APIs, and refusing to let backward compatibility become a prison. When they switched to Apple Silicon, the apps were ready. When the Neo shipped with an A18 Pro, nobody complained that their software didn’t work. That’s not an accident.

So yes, there will be PC laptops at the same price as the Neo. There already are. But there won’t be comparable PC laptops at the same price. That’s the distinction. You can match the price or you can match the experience, but the economics of the PC industry make it nearly impossible to do both at once. Apple can, because they’re the only company that controls the entire stack from silicon to storefront.

There is also another question here. If Microsoft’s legacy support kept them from going to the next thing, what is in Apple’s DNA prohibiting it from going to the next thing?

MacBook Neo First Impressions

Apple announced the MacBook Neo today, and I think it’s a bigger deal than most people realize.

The headline is the price. $599. That’s it. And if you’re a student, $499. Yesterday, the cheapest way to get a Mac laptop was north of a thousand dollars. Today, it costs less than a lot of Chromebooks. That is a massive shift.

I’ve been teaching people how to use Macs for a long time. The number one barrier has always been cost. People want to try the Mac, but they can’t justify the price. That excuse just evaporated. A college kid working a summer job can afford this. The Mac is available to a lot of people today that it wasn’t available to yesterday.

It comes in four colors: blush, indigo, silver, and citrus. I love that Apple is having fun with this. They’re bright and playful, and that’s exactly right for a computer aimed at bringing new people into the Mac. I’m a little sad there’s no orange, though. I would have been first in line.

Stephen Hackett wrote a great breakdown of the technical differences between the Neo and the MacBook Air. The A18 Pro chip instead of an M-series. 8GB of RAM with no upgrade option. USB-C instead of Thunderbolt. No MagSafe. One of the two USB-C ports is only USB 2. You’re giving things up.

But for the person this Mac is designed for, none of that matters. If you’re writing papers, browsing the web, managing email, taking video calls, and maybe editing a few photos, this machine does all of that. And it does it with 16 hours of battery life in a fanless design.

Stephen Robles put together a good video walk-through of the new machine if you want to see more.

I think part of the reason this computer exists is the continued payoff from Apple silicon. Apple’s chips are so good that a chip from the iPhone can drive a full Mac. That’s not a compromise. That tells you how far ahead Apple is in chip design.

The A18 Pro handles Apple Intelligence, runs macOS, and does it all in a thin, silent chassis. The silicon advantage is what makes this price point possible. No other laptop maker could do this.

I understand why Apple went with a 13-inch form factor. It’s the sweet spot for most people, and it keeps costs down. But part of me would have liked to see this as a 12-inch machine.

I’m probably mixing my own signals, though. What I really want is an ultra-light MacBook built on Apple silicon. A spiritual successor to the 12-inch MacBook from 2015, but done right this time with chips that can actually handle the thermal constraints. That’s a different product for a different day.

The Neo isn’t trying to be the lightest computer Apple makes. It’s trying to be the most accessible. And at $599, it nails that.

They are going to sell a lot of these.

Apple’s Big Hardware Week

Apple kicked things off today with the iPhone 17e and a refreshed iPad Air powered by M4. Both look like solid updates. The iPhone 17e brings the A19 chip and doubles the base storage to 256GB while keeping the same $599 starting price. The iPad Air gets the M4 with more memory and a faster Neural Engine. Pre-orders for both start Wednesday.

But the announcement I’m most excited about is the new budget MacBook, expected later this week. A low-cost Mac laptop could open the platform to a whole new group of users. People who’ve been priced out of the Mac or stuck on Chromebooks will finally have an on-ramp. That’s good for them and good for the platform. I’ll have more to say once Apple makes it official.

The Rumored $599 MacBook

There’s a lot of chatter lately about Apple working on a new entry-level MacBook. The latest report from DigiTimes claims it could feature a 12.9-inch display and, more importantly, a $599 price tag. That’s right, six hundred bucks for a MacBook.

If true, this could mark the return of the plain old “MacBook” branding. Apple retired that line back in 2019, but it has always carried a certain charm. The old 12-inch MacBook was ahead of its time and had the right ideas: ultra-portable, fanless, and light. It was, however, during the Intel era and it was also underpowered, got too hot, and was overpriced. A modern spin with Apple Silicon under the hood could be the redemption story for the name.

The real story here is the price. At $599, this would dramatically undercut the current MacBook Air, which starts at $999. It would also make Apple competitive with Chromebooks, low-end PCs, and even iPads with keyboards. This isn’t just another MacBook, it’s the gateway Mac for first-time buyers, students, and maybe even Windows switchers who’ve hesitated at the $1,000+ threshold.

Think of it as a Mac mini with a screen.

Of course, to get down to $599, something has to give. The screen would be a little smaller than the Air’s, and the processor could be a repurposed A18 mobile chip rather than an M-series. RAM will almost certainly be at the bare minimum. Storage could start at 128 GB. And don’t expect a rainbow of color options; Apple will likely keep this simple to keep costs down.

A $599 MacBook will eat some into Air sales, but Apple may not care if the net effect is pulling in more users. It could also make some would-be iPad + keyboard buyers think twice. For years, the Air has been the entry-level Mac. If this rumor pans out, the Air suddenly has company on the lower shelf.

I’ve long wished Apple would bring back the ultralight 12-inch MacBook. I don’t think this is that machine. This one feels like it’s going to be all about minimal specs at a low price point. But Apple Silicon is that good. Even a “budget” version will likely feel fast and capable for most people. If Apple really does launch a $599 MacBook, I expect they’ll sell a lot of them and their owners will be happy.

Cotypist: AI Autocompletion Everywhere on Your Mac (Sponsor)

There are a lot of angles to AI and productivity emerging right now. One I’ve come to appreciate is AI-based smarter autocomplete. My tool of choice for this is Cotypist. It’s made by a trusted Mac developer, it’s fast, and it takes privacy seriously.

Unlike many AI writing tools that require you to work within their specific interface, Cotypist works in virtually any text field across your Mac. Whether you’re drafting an email, writing in your favorite text editor, or filling out a form, Cotypist is there to help speed up your writing.

The app’s latest version (.9) brings notable improvements to both performance and completion qualityand new AI models that give even better completions. It even respects your Mac’s Smart Quotes preferences – a small but meaningful touch that shows attention to detail.

With Cotypist turned on, it offers inline completions that appear in real time. Then you’ve got a few options:

You could just ignore the suggestion and keep typing like you’ve always done.
If you want to accept the full multi-word suggestion, you press a user-defined key. (I use the backtick – just above the Tab key on a US keyboard.)
If you just want to accept the next suggest word, you hit another user-defined key (I use Tab)
If you want to dismiss the suggestion entirely, press escape. (This is handy when doing online forms, for instance.)

At first, the constant suggestions may feel distracting, but once I adapted to it, I can’t imagine going back.

Cotypist generates all completions locally on your Mac. No cloud services, no data sharing – just your Mac’s processing power working to speed up your writing.

Like I said, Cotypist represents an interesting take on AI and is worth checking out.

Cotypist: AI Autocompletion Everywhere on Your Mac

The app’s latest version (0.7.2) brings notable improvements to both performance and completion quality. It even respects your Mac’s Smart Quotes preferences – a small but meaningful touch that shows attention to detail.

With Cotypist turned on, it offers inline completions that appear in real time. Then you’ve got a few options:

You could just ignore the suggestion and keep typing like you’ve always done.
If you want to accept the full multi-word suggestion, you press a user-defined key. (I use the backtick – just above the Tab key on a US keyboard.)
If you just want to accept the next suggest word, you hit another user-defined key (I use Tab)
If you want to dismiss the suggestion entirely, press escape. (This is handy when doing online forms, for instance.)

At first, the constant suggestions may feel distracting, but once I adapted to it, I can’t imagine going back.

Cotypist generates all completions locally on your Mac. No cloud services, no data sharing – just your Mac’s processing power working to speed up your writing.

Like I said, Cotypist represents an interesting take on AI and is worth checking out.

The Case For Having “Recall” on the Mac

A few weeks ago, Filipe Espósito, at 9to5Mac, argued that Apple should build their own version of the Microsoft Recall feature.

I agree.

If you’re unfamiliar with it, Recall traces your history on your computer, allowing you to find just about anything: Recover deleted files, replay a meeting or even find a now-unpublished web page. With Recall, if it’s been on your screen, you can later find it with the use of some clever AI.

Microsoft’s initial launch was delayed due to security problems, but now they have a revised version in beta. The utility of this feature can’t be argued. While us nerds can do a pretty good job of finding old data, most users are clueless. If you could throw a query at a local AI that could find anything in the computer’s past, it would solve a lot of problems for a lot of people.

The problem, of course, is privacy, but there’s no company better to address that problem than Apple. Through some concoction of encryption and perhaps even the Secure Enclave, Apple should be able to pull this off in a way that is entirely local and entirely private to the user. Of course, you’d be able to turn it off, and of course, there would be a lot of privacy controls. But for most of us, I think it would just be damn useful.

I’m not saying it’s easy, but I firmly believe it’s possible. I’d be shocked if Apple doesn’t have a team looking into this already.

New Macs Coming Next Week

Apple is teasing an “exciting week of announcements” starting Monday. If you’ve been holding off on buying a new Mac, next week might be an expensive one. We’re expecting the M4 iterations of the MacBook Pro, Mac Mini, and iMac, which have been anticipated for a while now.

It looks like Apple won’t be holding a formal event but will instead roll out the new products over the course of the week. Rumor has it that we’ll also see USB-C versions of Apple’s Magic keyboard, trackpad, and mouse. So if that one remaining Lightning cable has been driving you nuts, relief is on the way.

The Hypothetical Cellular Mac

Ryan Christoffel, over at 9to5Mac, wrote an excellent article about how we are at an interesting crossroads over Macs with cellular chips. Specifically, Apple seems closer to releasing their own cellular chip and a lot of folks, myself included, have used that event as the hypothetical tipping point where Apple starts putting cellular chips in Macs.

If they don’t have to pay a fee to some other manufacturer, why not? Right?

If Apple doesn’t start putting cellular chips in Macs after they start shipping their own cellular chip, I have to wonder if they’ll ever do it.

Unread for Mac

I’ve always considered Unread one of the most attractive RSS reader apps. However, there has never been a Mac version. Today marks the release of Unread for Mac. It’s an RSS reader made with taste. It has great typography, themes, search, and compatibility with the usual suspects. I love having this app on my Mac.