alt Hacker News> Until now Apple hasn't addressed the mass market in nearly two decades.
Going back to 2008:
> But the most fun on the conference call came when he parried analysts’ questions about new product areas that Apple might or might not enter. A recurring question among Apple watchers for decades has been, “When is Apple going to introduce a low-cost computer?
> Mr. Jobs answered that decades-old complaint by stating, “We don’t know how to build a sub-$500 computer that is not a piece of junk.” He argued instead that the company’s mission was to add more value for customers at current price points.
* https://archive.nytimes.com/bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/2...
USD(2008) 500 = USD(2026) 760:
* https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm
which is about what the Neo costs.
There is more to it than just accounting for inflation. Apple has done a number of other things in the meantime, including designing and manufacturing their own chips, that have changed the economies of this. Until the very recent RAM price explosion, a sub $500 computer in 2008 was probably more like a sub $350 computer today.