Last week, Apple refreshed several of their products, as had been rumored. We saw:

  • iPad Air (M4)
  • iPhone 17e
  • Studio Display (yes, I bought) & Studio Display XDR
  • MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max
  • MacBoor Air with M5
  • MacBook Neo

Wait, what?

MacBook Neo?

I think that was my first thought seeing the leak before the announcement, but then I assumed it was an internal codename for the product instead. Placeholder text that accidentally made it’s way to Apple’s site before the product was officially announced. I always assumed that if a new Mac laptop make its way into the lineup, it would be the return of the “MacBook”. No Air, no Pro, just MacBook.

So seeing “MacBook Neo” was a genuine surprise, as was the font in the advertisement released shortly after. How bold.

But the most surprising part of the MacBook Neo announcement was the price-point. At $599 ($499 for education) the MacBook Neo has entered a price-range I never thought I’d see a Mac laptop. And judging from all of the hands-on reporting, it looks to be every bit the product people come to expect from Apple. Excellent build quality, great display and speakers, a polished device through and through.

Time will tell how impactful the MacBook Neo will be. At that price-point, and the lack of Touch ID for the entry-level model, it seems like plenty of schools using Chromebooks today might look to make the switch. And I’d be curious what impact this could have in business. While I don’t know how confident I’d be to deploy these to a standard knowledge-worker, I’m sure there are some use-cases where this could work well: interns, shareable devices at some retail stores, anywhere power isn’t the main need, but cost and value are. Doesn’t get better at those than the MacBook Neo.

Increased Mac sales with no impact on iPad sales would be the determining factor at how successful this product is. Carving out a new revenue line while not cannibalizing sales on iPad would be huge. Curious to see what the reviews end up saying about the performance. It’s long been suspected that the Apple A series processors weren’t truly tested by iOS, and later iPadOS. No better test than macOS.