alt Hacker NewsMacBook Neo
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No idea why anybody still thinks of this company as making premium devices or catering to the premium market. Tim Cook's Apple makes cheap shit for the mass market, and has for years. It's not surprising when something like this comes out for cheap, because in general Apple has been price competitive for the past decade.
And in that vein of making cheap shit for the mass market, their software quality has suffered incredibly. They no longer serve the consumer tier they used to, but their branding halo from those days is so effective that it helps them sell to this new, lower tier consumer.
This machine has me asking why much older hardware can't run newer versions of macOS. The answer of course is Apple needs to sell new machines, but the Neo may be proof that decade old Macs could run Tahoe as well as or better than the Neo.
8GB of ram places it in competition with cheap chromebooks but nothing more
For someone who wants a secondary (travel) laptop I don't like how needlessly thick and heavy this is.
This is pitched as entry-level, but it works as N+1, as in: people have beaucoup computers, but they avoid carrying them around (risk loss/destroy). The computer absolutely needs to be a mac for keychain-linked services, etc. For those users, not having TouchID on the base model is a bummer.
I was really hoping for 11inch version, but I am just that weird.
No magsafe seems like a bad idea given the target demographic.
It wouldn’t surprise me if this ends up being really popular with families. Parents with iPhones are (I’d imagine) far more likely to get their kids iPhones, and with Messages and FindMy I bet it’ll be the same here. Apple also has screen time and parental controls, so for parents wanting to get their kid a computer but worried about unrestricted Internet access, the MacBook Neo may be the most seamless option.
Looks super nice, but I don't regret getting the M1 Air for $599 at Walmart. No Touch ID in the base version is a bummer... otherwise it'd be perfect.
So I guess they must have fully depreciated the gigantic fleet of CNC routers they use to cut the aluminum cases. Making a cheap laptop seems better than throwing them away.
This would be a great Asahi Linux target, but I know that group has a lot on their plate with the MacBooks pros already
I wonder if this can develop iOS apps.
For me an iPad with the Magic Keyboard case is already my personal laptop, and this device would be a downgrade in almost every way (ergonomics and specs).
The one thing I can’t do with my iPad that interests me, that’s got me thinking of buying a personal Mac, is develop software for iOS.
Still can't compete with a used ThinkPad from ebay.
Just yesterday, we were discussing starting to retire our fleet of 8GB Macbook Airs, because 8GB just isn't enough to run Tahoe and a few apps. Luckily, most of our Macbook Airs are 16GB to avoid this kind of obsolescence.
It looks like this MacBook Neo doesn't even have an option for 16GB, unfortunately.
I wonder if this is a way for them to take a situation like the RAM shortage and spin it into a way to sell more products with little memory to mask the expensive price of memory by bundling it with the outer shell of the laptop rather than try to sell a few PRO laptops whose price is now very jacked up because of the expensive memory.
First thing I did was search the page for "touch" as in touch screen. Still no touch screen. I've gotten so used to a touch screen with my X1 yoga that every time I use my Mac for work I get pissed off at it because I can't touch it. Just simple things like scrolling or multiple check boxes etc
I got my mom an Asus Chromebook and she loves it. This would have been a nice contender at the time.
I can't believe how fast the chip is. It is comparable to my top of the line gaming laptop from 6 years ago.
All I want is a MacBook Pro with a funky color like citrus.
I always buy the new color option from Apple when getting a phone, it helps me keep my device generations apart. But Macs have been sadly boring in recent years. "Starlight" is barely different from silver... I loved the rose gold they had for the M1 Air, that was a great computer.
This is an excellent addition to the lineup and changes the list of reasons for why the average person would go for a Windows laptop from “cost” to practically nothing, but from a consumer perspective, is there any reason to buy this over M1 MBA which can be purchased new for less than the education discounted version of the MB Neo?
Is the screen supposed to read MAC? The C is misshapen if it's supposed to be 3 bars per letter.
(Looks like a decent option, technology and price-wise, for parental and sibling light-browsing and email usage patterns but they normally get my seconds when I upgrade.)
8GB of unified memory, the fine print says. Hardly enough to multitask with today's bloated software. Maybe products like this, and the ram price hike, may finally push developers to care more about their memory budget.
a bit disturbed to see this upvoted as much on HN as I thought techy people shunned Apple products (like Stallman calling their ecosystem a "jail") but...
I can see there are a lot of Apple users here apparently. I have some old hardware I still make use of but couldn't see a case for anyone buying new stuff (overpriced, locked down, etc.)
that's it boys. apple will take over the ENTIRE market with this. they will be at schools everywhere. only reason to not get a macbook before was the price.
what a move by apple! these are going to sell like hotcakes. i can imagine this putting apple even further ahead if local llms really do take off sooner rather than later. a cheap mac like this brings a lot more people into the mac ecosystem, and once you’re in it’s pretty hard to leave given how seamless everything is. over time that likely pushes people to upgrade to more powerful macs when they want to run ai locally. yet another reminder of why hardware ends up being the real moat ;)
Anyone know how this would compare to an original M1 Air? Both in terms of performance and also capability. My primary use case for my air is web browsing and similar. But I do use other things at times. I know they're both arm processors, but are there things that ne can do an M1 that won't work on this?
So Apple is finally "admitting" an iPad is not the right device for certain users/situations.
This thing loaded up with Parsec could maybe be a great small, cheap coding machine, for accessing a more powerful computer beyond.
iPads with neither an ability to run VSCode nor Parsec have been frustratingly useless for this category.
Why do all the low-end Apple laptops not have USB-C ports on the right?
That's one of the main reasons I had to get a MacBook Pro.
Ugh. Why is is so much more expensive in Denmark? Here it's DKK5499 for the 256 GB version. That's USD857.
This seems like a great price to have an actual MacBook with you anywhere for things that don't require a lot of resources, like if you're running some tmux/Tailscale solution at home and just need to SSH into it to do work with [whatever terminal agent you're using].
My wife was just telling me she wanted an updated iBook...
The Macbook 12 inch was a relatively better laptop than this. An "re"-launch of equivalent for today, really would have been something. This is half-baked compared to the innovation that was there.
Interesting how it runs on the A18. I wonder if this means they will try to unify macOS and iOS within this decade.
This is going to be a huge success and to me makes so much sense as a product. I’m always amazed at the range of opinions people have on these topics. Might even pick one up for myself to use on the go, I had been thinking about an Air but I don’t need much by the way of power in all honesty
When I saw this I thought it was just similar to an iPad with a built-in keyboard. Anyway this is better. finally a mac that can compete with other lower-cost laptops while still offering high performance.
Built for Apple Intelligence. 8GB of RAM. It will be a struggle but I have no doubt it will sell really well.
So the biggest difference I see with the new Air is that you get sRGB only in the display, with less brightness. Also it is has 8GiB of RAM, which shouldn’t be an issue for the intended use.
Same weight. You lose a bit on the speakers, microphone, and webcam. Not sure how noticeable this will be.
This laptop is almost perfect for me, nix the 8GB to be a little cheapskate in 2026, but given the RAMageddon and SSDageddon artifically caused by the solid state cartels lately from Micron, Samsung, SK Hynix, WD, all of you pieces of shit who is part of this cartel...we have had to accept 8GB for the moment, but for future? At least 12G, because a lot of slop software are using electron to run.
I just want a small laptop or handheld device where I can use ssh and kubectl, maybe sometimes running VSCode to have remote access. The 13 inch form factor is a godsent. I missed my 11-inch MBA 10 years ago so much.
I want one for all my kids. I love it. I just wish it had more ram. Personally though this direction is good. I wish now apple would add some sort of AI to it's icloud offering that these computers could use that wasn't necessarily 'local'
Anyone think you'll actually be able to do anything on a Mac with only 8gb of RAM? I had a Macbook Pro before with 16gb of RAM and it was constantly running out of RAM and showing me the Force Quit Applications dialog. Constantly...
Well, why can’t my 17 Pro run macOS apps when connecting it to an external screen etc?
They're finally laying the silly "Macs cost too much" complaint to bed.
Anyone else find the naming odd? What’s the relevance of “Neo”?
It feels like one of the only Apple products where the name is completely divorced from its intended usage (or defining feature)
- Phone
- Watch
- Pro
- Studio
- Mini
- Vision
- Air
- Neo???
I wouldn't want a MacBook that can't run a free operating system, but if Asahi gets there, I may buy one to replace an aging XPS.
8 GB is not enough...even the $699 model has only 8 GB.
yesterday I wrote in a group slack that today I would get to decide whether:
* i'm not buying any machine at all, or waiting for omarchy to support the new dell xps (32GB & 1TB = $1899)
* i'm buying the macbook neo at the top specs
* i'm buying the macbook air at the bottom specs
* i'm buying the macbook air with 32GB RAM & 1TB SSD (also $1899)
EDIT:
* adding an M5 Macbook (not Pro) with 24GB RAM & 1TB SSD also $1899
as someone who lives in claude code / opencode these days, the 8gb hurts but.. maybe, i dunno. they made this decision very painful. for me it could basically be a coffee shop opencode terminal that lets me access my apple iphone reminders, notes, etc.
but 8gb?