MacBook Neo Outsold Every Other Mac in Its Debut Quarter

[Fallforward]

No -- it's using one of their slightly older mobile phone chips in a laptop. Since Apple is already mass producing those chips and has that process pretty well established, they simply took advantage of those efficiencies to produce a lower cost laptop.

No - the chips that would otherwise have been trashed due to the failure of a single Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) core cluster. Hence, the chips are available at no additional cost, essentially free, for Apple.

There was a previous story in MacRumors about how they accumulated large numbers of such failed chips before production and are facing a supply challenge now due to the lack of sufficient new failed chips. Their conundrum is whether to keep producing the Neo with good chips.

 

[jlc1978]

There was a previous story in MacRumors about how they accumulated large numbers of such failed chips before production and are facing a supply challenge now due to the lack of sufficient new failed chips. Their conundrum is whether to keep producing the Neo with good chips.

As long as they can make enough to meet iPhone demand there is no reason to use some good chips and simply disable one GPU. Capacity will likely be limited by whatever excess production capacity is available after iPhone demand is meet. Apple can allocate chips to devices and expected demand to balance supply with expected demand.

 

[triumvirate]

I don’t actively check whether the computer is swapping or not, I follow if I get acceptable performance or not. If I get ok performance with swapping, it’s fine by me. With the situation I mentioned, the performance was getting too bad to be acceptable.

Yeah I can understand the process behind that. And it works for the current situation, but each new OS/app update tends to eat more RAM and if you ever decide to do more with the device, it can become a problem.

For my Pro 8gb M1 I fell into the Apple RAM efficiency trap and was hitting RAM alerts within a few years. Myself I just no longer view swap, especially gigs of it, as an acceptable bandaid for stingy RAM from a company. Swap is clever and relatively fast, but it reflects an underlying problem imo.

Whether it matters to the Neo market or not, who knows. But if in 1-3 years their Neo begins crawling, their opinion of their first Mac might not be that great

 

[Fallforward]

It said Apple sells M1, M2, and other older Macs in places like India at sale prices. They sell enough that it accounts for 2%.

"They" is not Apple because Apple does not hold old model inventory. Apple always sells all its production to retailers/distributors and books the sale immediately. They prefer to minimize end-of-life inventory, but can't eliminate it. So, when a model is being discontinued, Apple sells to end-of-life channels to whom they offer bulk purchase incentives as well as "sell‑through marketing funds" to support advertising, in‑store displays, promotions, etc.

 

[seek3r]

8gb of ram lol, good luck in 3 years with it… damn

For the target market it’s fine, also have you looked at the broader RAM market? 8gb is going to be standard across the industry for these kinds of machines for quite a while. Like FFS we’re talking about a machine that’s $499 for students, 16GB DDR5 RAM kits are more than half that price by themselves right now.

 

[Dirk Pieters]

No - the chips that would otherwise have been trashed due to the failure of a single Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) core cluster. Hence, the chips are available at no additional cost, essentially free, for Apple.

Those chips aren't "free". I'm sure there is some sort of pricing agreement between Apple and TMSC about the cost of a chip. In simple terms I would assume full price for a fully working chip and a price deduction for a chip that is missing a core but is still usable. Like this one.

A missing core means that Apple can reuse it for something else but that does not make it "free".

There was a previous story in MacRumors about how they accumulated large numbers of such failed chips before production and are facing a supply challenge now due to the lack of sufficient new failed chips. Their conundrum is whether to keep producing the Neo with good chips.

A rumour on a rumour site. The truth is that no one here knows what goes on behind the scenes at Apple. I'm sure Apple became a 4 trillion company because it knows what it's doing.

 

[Fallforward]

Just think how many Apple Silicon desktops Apple could sell if they were priced around $2000-$2500 and had a couple PCIe slots, with *big maybe* swap in GPU cards, upgradeable RAM and upgradeable SSDs.

Icing on the cake would be Apple Silicon CPU modules so you could upgrade the core system from the base to a Pro/Max/Ultra. If Apple could keep with a ultra fast interconnect for 5-10 years, this idea would be a no brainer.

Let's make airplanes better with modular addon wings - because more wings adds more lift.

 

[Fallforward]

Those chips aren't "free". I'm sure there is some sort of pricing agreement between Apple and TMSC about the cost of a chip. In simple terms I would assume full price for a fully working chip and a price deduction for a chip that is missing a core but is still usable. Like this one.

A missing core means that Apple can reuse it for something else but that does not make it "free".

Yes, you're probably right, but there are nuances. Foundries typically sell per wafer, not per die, and customers can have yield risk. Customers can also have yield guarantees or pricing adjustments during ramp.

Bottom line, they have a long term joint development and production agreements and it feels logical that the value of such chips is part of the equation, as you state.

 

[kagharaht]

So much denial...lol

"These so-called "binned" chips with a 5-core GPU are effectively "free" to Apple, given that they otherwise would have been discarded."

This part is just sad.
"Apple would have to disable a GPU core on these chips to ensure that they have only a 5-core GPU, like all other MacBook Neo units sold to date."

Apple is Reportedly Facing a 'Massive Dilemma' With the MacBook Neo

The all-new MacBook Neo has been such a hit that Apple is facing a "massive dilemma," according to Taiwan-based tech columnist and former Bloomberg reporter Tim Culpan. In the iPhone 16 Pro models, the A18 Pro chip has a 6-core GPU. During the chip manufacturing process, however, sometimes a CPU...

www.macrumors.com

 

[Dirk Pieters]

Yes, you're probably right, but there are nuances. Foundries typically sell per wafer, not per die, and customers can have yield risk. Customers can also have yield guarantees or pricing adjustments during ramp.

Bottom line, they have a long term joint development and production agreements and it feels logical that the value of such chips is part of the equation, as you state.

👍🏼

To be fair, I had never heard of the term "binned chips" before I read about it here. I've been in software for 30 years and I never knew that was a thing. We learn every day.

 

[Dirk Pieters]

So much denial...lol

Not denial. More like "realism".

You can come and spout your self-invented truth here and claim that it is the truth. But it isn't.

It's just something you tell yourself, then share online. So it's basically nothing but your opinion.

If someone doesn't agree with your self-invented truth/opinion, it isn't denial. It's just a different opinion.

"These so-called "binned" chips with a 5-core GPU are effectively "free" to Apple, given that they otherwise would have been discarded."

This part is just sad.
"Apple would have to disable a GPU core on these chips to ensure that they have only a 5-core GPU, like all other MacBook Neo units sold to date."

Apple is Reportedly Facing a 'Massive Dilemma' With the MacBook Neo

The all-new MacBook Neo has been such a hit that Apple is facing a "massive dilemma," according to Taiwan-based tech columnist and former Bloomberg reporter Tim Culpan. In the iPhone 16 Pro models, the A18 Pro chip has a 6-core GPU. During the chip manufacturing process, however, sometimes a CPU...

www.macrumors.com

Rumours from a rumour site, written by someone who has a quota of articles to reach in order to serve ads which hopefully keep the lights on.

 

[zarmanto]

No - the chips that would otherwise have been trashed due to the failure of a single Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) core cluster. Hence, the chips are available at no additional cost, essentially free, for Apple.

There was a previous story in MacRumors about how they accumulated large numbers of such failed chips before production and are facing a supply challenge now due to the lack of sufficient new failed chips. Their conundrum is whether to keep producing the Neo with good chips.

I realize that reading nine pages of a thread may be a bit of a slog... but just so you know, I've already been corrected and I acknowledged that in an earlier post.

That said: I just read the article that you're referencing. What I think you're missing in your argument here is the question of what would they be making those older A18 Pro chips for, if not for this? I just did a quick check via Google; the answer is simple: since the iPhone 16 Pro series was discontinued when the 17 series was announced, the only device that Apple currently makes which uses the A18 Pro... is the Neo.

Thus, while the high demand for the Neo has clearly caused them to churn through their existing stockpile of A18 Pro silicon more quickly than anticipated -- arguably a good problem to have -- the "supply issue" has nothing to do with a lack of "new failed" chips coming out of the supply chain. I suspect that the conundrum -- if there is one at all -- would likely revolve around determining whether or not to order more A18 Pro chips from their fab partner, in order to fill the demand, or to instead accelerate the release schedule of the A19 Neo.

 

[Fallforward]

They sold an M1 Macbook at Walmart until very recently.

Apple sold the M1 to Walmart in 2024 at a bulk end-of-life discount.

 

[Howard2k]

I didn’t say these chips are going to fail. The buyers has every right to know that Apple is using “slightly defective” components.

The buyer needs to educate themselves as to the realties of chip manufacturing if that's the concern. It's not Apple's role to protect consumers against ignorance.

 

[Fallforward]

I didn’t say these chips are going to fail. The buyers has every right to know that Apple is using “slightly defective” components. Take it up to the reporter if you think they are using incorrect description for these components. The buyer should be aware of this and no sugar coating can hide this fact. If it’s wrong then the reporter from 9to5 needs to issue a retraction about that statement.

“The MacBook Neo uses A18 Pros that were essentially discarded during their intended production run for iPhone 16 Pro. Chips that have slightly defective GPU were put aside and reused inside the Neo; this is why the Neo chips only have five working GPU cores, when the iPhone 16 Pro’s A18 Pro chip boasted six.”

By your way of thinking, millions of Macs going at least back to the M1 are "defective" not limited to the Neo. For example, there are three Mac Pro M5 chip designs, the M5, M5 Pro and M5 Max. Each of those three are made on one wafer. However, the M5 Pro chip has two versions with different CPU and GPU counts based on binning and the M5 Max has a model with fewer GPU based on binning.

BTW, the numbers are always exact. If the number of failures causes the number of good to fall between, Apple disables some of the good to make it exact.

 

[seek3r]

Apple sold the M1 to Walmart in 2024 at a bulk end-of-life discount.

Maybe, but they were new machines manufactured for that purpose, not NOS, so I'd argue it wasnt a EOL thing, in that case it would likely have been NOS Apple was trying to dump.

I'd argue it was a deliberate test of the price point as a collaboration with Walmart, not a discounting situation

 

[huge_apple_fangirl]

That's 1.1 M units in the *three weeks* following it's introduction in mid-March. The 900,000 units for the MBA were shipped over the entire 3 months of the quarter. That's not to say that the MBA sold poorly, just that the Neo really had a meteoric rise.

I think the MBA numbers are for the M5 MBA, not the whole quarter's MBA sales?

 

[zarmanto]

I think the MBA numbers are for the M5 MBA, not the whole quarter's MBA sales?

The author is actually doing a good job of comparing (ahem) Apples to Apples; the 900K M5 MBAs sold and the 550K M5 MBPs sold were both during a three week period in their first quarter of availability. So the Neo's numbers may not be quite "meteoric"... but they are still pretty impressive.

 

[seek3r]

So much denial...lol

"These so-called "binned" chips with a 5-core GPU are effectively "free" to Apple, given that they otherwise would have been discarded."

This part is just sad.
"Apple would have to disable a GPU core on these chips to ensure that they have only a 5-core GPU, like all other MacBook Neo units sold to date."

Apple is Reportedly Facing a 'Massive Dilemma' With the MacBook Neo

The all-new MacBook Neo has been such a hit that Apple is facing a "massive dilemma," according to Taiwan-based tech columnist and former Bloomberg reporter Tim Culpan. In the iPhone 16 Pro models, the A18 Pro chip has a 6-core GPU. During the chip manufacturing process, however, sometimes a CPU...

www.macrumors.com

This is how a lot of the industry has worked for a long time, Intel, AMD, NV, etc all do this to supplement binned parts when they run out to maintain market segmentation

 

[DBRK95B]

Do you really think that Apple has separated chip fabrication lines for the M5 and M5 Pro? Not even close.

The M5 are chips that fail to meet the M5 Pro specifications. Either a non-operational core or GPU. Rather than toss the "M5 Pro" chip the chip is relegated to use in a different model. It also extends to iPhone and iPad products.

All chip vendors that support multiple levels of a particular chip do this "grading", binning it is called. A standard industry practice that is nothing nefarious on the part of Apple.

For Apple to find a use for chips that don't meet the specifications for one product is just good business practice. Such a common practice that it does not need to be mentioned in any article about Apple products.

Wow, I learned something today! Thanks for your clear explanation of "binning" and how it relates to the differences between chip variants like the M5, M5 Pro, etc.