Almost two months ago, Apple officially launched its newest MacBook Neo, and needless to say, it’s been such a huge hit, bringing the full macOS experience at a magical price. However, Apple underestimated demand for this laptop, and the resulting surge caused massive shipping delays. Not only that, but Apple will eventually run out of the binned A18 Pro chips to power the Neo.
To bring you up to speed, the A18 Pro chip powers the iPhone 16 Pro models introduced in September 2024, and Apple uses full-fledged chips with a 6-core GPU for those smartphones. However, due to imperfect production yields, Apple ended up with some “defective” chips, so rather than tossing them away, it reused those binned chips (with one GPU core disabled) for the MacBook Neo to save overall production costs.
With that said, this called for some drastic action for Apple, so Apple is now ordering a new batch of A18 Pro chips to meet demand for its popular laptop once and for all. According to analyst Tim Culpan, Apple planned to make approximately 10 million MacBook Neos in total, which would be twice the initial order. However, as this fresh batch could produce more full-fledged A18 Pro chips, that could raise the per-unit cost overall. This would be another problem for Apple, as Apple would want to avoid higher production costs in order to continue to make the MacBook Neo relatively affordable.
According to Culpan, what Apple could do is to drop the base $599 256GB configuration and keep the $699 512GB configuration (that’s the one with Touch ID) around as component costs continue to rise. We’ve seen this recently with the discontinuation of the M4 Mac mini’s 256GB storage tier last week. Alternatively, if Apple decides against dropping the base storage tier, Apple could offer even more color options for the current-generation Neo to alleviate the potential price hike. Believe it or not, Apple did offer colors that were exclusive to higher-priced configurations for the iMac G3 and the original iBook “Clamshell.” For example, the October 1999 revision for the iMac G3 had the base USB-only model only in Blueberry, while the higher-end DV model (Firewire) came in more colors: Blueberry, Lime, Tangerine, Strawberry, and Grape. The highest-end DV Special Edition model came in Graphite. So I’d love to see more colors for the MacBook Neo, potentially matching some of those of the M4 iMac (anyone can dream).
For now, there’s still light at the end of the tunnel for both Apple and the MacBook Neo, and I’m looking forward to how Apple will meet its supply/demand equilibrium for the Neo. In the meantime, make sure to check out our super in-depth review of the MacBook Neo.
