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Apple on MacBook Neo Design: 'We're Certainly Not Making Any Compromises'

Naraxus said:
As Gruber explains here https://daringfireball.net/2013/02/the_c_word design is all about compromises. It just boils down to what Apple was willing to compromise with the MacBook Neo.
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Indeed. People (and Apple, apparently) act like pointing out compromises is a put-down. If there weren’t any compromises, then there would be no reason for the other MacBooks to cost so much more. But they can’t be both cheap and full-featured, so one needs to compromise. “Compromise” here is a synonym of “trade-off”.
 
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Does the A18 have hardware encoding? We know it decodes fast but when users export videos will they see a slowdown? 💻🤔
 
Abazigal said:
You are a student using the MacBook Neo purchased by the school in class. A backlit keyboard is something which will never come into use. If there is a blackout or power outrage, finishing that activity on Kahoot or that google slide presentation is the least of your concerns. Same with Touch ID or even ports.

You don’t miss what you don’t need. This is the ideal laptop for schools looking to supply their classrooms with affordable macbooks and I feel that instead of complaining how the Macbook is gimped in this way or that, why not try to analyse and explain just why Apple has chosen to do what they did?
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But they’re not selling them just to schools. They’re selling them for home/dorm use too ya know.
 
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Mac Fly (film) said:
“The lamp” iMac G4, sometimes referred to as “the sunflower” is many Mac users favourite Mac design of all time.

For good reason: it was height-adjustable, and friendly and approachable in appearance while also being attractive to many. It walked that line of looking fun and yet also appearing handsome and still it was additionally useful, in that the display both floated and was adjustable to any angle, height and position. In a word its design was inspired.

It was sold in three displays sizes: 15-inch, 17-inch and 20-inch (24 years ago). It’s great to have options, right?

The biggest issue: overheating. Since Apple Silicon this is a solved problem. Mac mini answers that question: tiny. There’s no‬ question, Apple should do this and it would sell very well. It would instantly upgrade any home office, hotel lobby, clinic or visitor center simply by its presence. If I had one it would put a smile on my face each time I saw it.

Even at 30 inches, a thin OLED panel with an aluminium casing would be 1/3 or less the weight of those chonky displays way back when—they were two inches thick. And thanks to Apple silicon and modern technological miniaturisation, and the lack of a big DVD drive in there, the foot that houses the Mac could not only have some awesome speakers in there, firing in many directions, but the whole base could be stealth made to look like just a speaker, potentially making the device even more beautiful and sophisticated.

Such a device in a modern incarnation would be useful, beautiful—magical.

View attachment 2610836

Note: scale of mockup is off, display should be larger.
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Best Mac ever was the 12” PowerBook 😍
 
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JPack said:
Neo isn't for people who already have a MacBook Air. If you need to ask, "is 8GB RAM enough," it's not for you.

"Planned scarcity"? If there was such a thing, we'd have seen it with iPhone Air, Vision Pro, iPhone mini. Those shipping dates never slipped after launch and it was clear nobody wanted to buy them.
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Right, which is why we don’t like it.

Still, I’m glad that that it looks like it’s going to be a hit. Good for Apple.
 
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jz0309 said:
So those who study literature or social science need more than 8GB, gotcha ...
It is such nonsense to put everyone in a single category, the world isn't black and white...
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?? Did you read the posts you were responding to? A poster recommended the Neo for uni students and I responded that I think that any student entering uni deserves computing competence with more than 8 GB of RAM on board.

My observation was not meant to "put everyone in a single category" as you suggest. It is exactly the opposite. You seem to think that frosh uni students can be placed in categories, with "those who study literature or social science" never doing anything that might challenge 8 GB RAM.

My point was that all frosh uni students should start with a stronger Mac than the MBN, because IMO uni students should not have their primary tool limit where they might go, what they might do. Certainly not limited because they start out studying "literature or social science."
 
dlopan said:
I like it despite the fact that it's terrible. Usb-2? Common man. Just an excuse to clean out the left over trash. I would probably buy one if it was just a little better like including some off the shelf current parts. Better than a cheap ipad but not better? Should be. Reminds me of the time Apple made super computer but not so much. Like the one I bought for 300
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I probably would have bought one if the base model had Touch ID. But in Canada the Touch ID one is $849 in the EDU store ($999 list 🫨) vs $679 for the base model.

Hell, I’ll probably just get one for the helluva it anyway as I never have really bonded with my MBA ( like I did with my 11@ MBAs). Will probably trade that in for a MBP.
 
tennisproha said:
My MacBook Pro uses 26 GB of RAM just when web browsing on Safari lol
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No it doesnt, it maintains as much cached data in RAM, purgeable as needed, as possible because empty RAM is wasted RAM, so if you dont have a use for it keeping caches live is a good use. You dont have 26GB wired just browsing the web unless you have some ungodly amount of things running in your browser
 
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liorzzz said:
My son is turning 10 this summer and I want to buy him a new computer to replace my crumbling PC he has been using. Considering we already have a monitor, keyboard and mouse, I don't see a reason to buy the Neo over a Mac-Mini.
Mac-Mini is the same price and would last him a very long time without a hiccup, and portability is not an issue at this age.
Now the question is whether to wait for the M5 mac-mini or try to find a deal for the M4.
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Portability is not an issue in this age? Wut? Your son doesn’t travel with you or hangs out at his friends? I would not spend money on a mini and rather buy the Neo, you can keep using all the things you have and ON TOP it is portable.
 
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I think a lot of people in the thread are confusing design and hardware. The Apple spokesperson was clearly talking about the design of the Neo not the hardware like the keyboard etc. I think Apple made a quality product. Granted, it doesn’t have the bells and whistles some of the other Macs have. If that weren’t the case, the Neo price would have been a lot higher and people here would be complaining about the price. Some of you expect Apple to not skimp on the features and at the same time offer a low price. That is not how reality works much less Apple. You can’t have both if you are expecting a quality build at an affordable price.
 
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Out of curiosity I just pulled up activity monitor on my M4 Mac mini. I have 512GB and 24GB of RAM

I am running three Acer 24" monitors at 1920x1080 100 HZ. Safari is running on two monitors, one with 17 tabs open and the other with 3 tabs open. I have Solitaire open not he third monitor with a few apps running in the background.

Screenshot 2026-03-06 at 21.06.01.png


I know that isn't much of a load compared to what other people run.

I don't plan on connecting a second monitor to the Neo nor do I plan on having multiple instances of Safari open with 20 tabs going. I do know that Facebook and Gmail webpages use quite a bit of memory compared to other websites.
 
MN7119 said:
I think from all the compromises, having only 8gb RAM is a huge one for me. Everything else is not ideal but understandable. I wonder how much more would cost for Apple to get the Neo with 16gb RAM. That would make it a real killer. Now, Apple is known to make huge margins on all its products so maybe they could have their entry level Mac with a tint bit of lower margins but deliver something robust with decent RAM for 2026. That would really attract a new crowd to Apple which would then spend more money on the more high end models as they felt in love with the brand.
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16GB would make it encroach on the Air too much, plus would add to the cost to produce. Perhaps Apple could have used an A19 Pro with 12GB, but even that would likely eat into Air sales. Yes, 8GB in 2026 is pushing it perhaps, but given the RAM shortage I wouldn’t be surprised if we see more 8GB Windows machines return, particularly since PC sales are projected to fall and manufacturers will be tempted to do whatever they can to lower prices.
 
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Apple_Robert said:
I think a lot of people in the thread are confusing design and hardware. The Apple spokesperson was clearly talking about the design of the Neo not the hardware like the keyboard etc. I think Apple made a quality product. Granted, it doesn’t have the bells and whistles some of the other Macs have. If that weren’t the case, the Neo price would have been a lot higher and people here would be complaining about the price. Some of you expect Apple to not skimp on the features and at the same time offer a low price. That is not how reality works much less Apple. You can’t have both if you are expecting a quality build at an affordable price.
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Agreed. Remember some people, including “experts” like Gruber were predicting this would be $799, especially after the MacBook Air increased to $1099 (albeit with higher SSD capacity). Instead it comes in at $599, with a full $100 education discount which means that we will see it for $499 in Black Friday sales, etc. for all those saying “but the Air was just on sale for $899 last week.”
 
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Apple_Robert said:
I think a lot of people in the thread are confusing design and hardware. The Apple spokesperson was clearly talking about the design of the Neo not the hardware like the keyboard etc. I think Apple made a quality product. Granted, it doesn’t have the bells and whistles some of the other Macs have. If that weren’t the case, the Neo price would have been a lot higher and people here would be complaining about the price. Some of you expect Apple to not skimp on the features and at the same time offer a low price. That is not how reality works much less Apple. You can’t have both if you are expecting a quality build at an affordable price.
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The person being interviewed is Molly Anderson, VP of Industrial Design. She is in the same role Jony Ive was in and is the successor.

Industrial design is about look/feel/appearance/form. The people complaining about RAM, Touch ID, MagSafe don't seem to get this.
 
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