[ PRIVACY Forum ] Script of my national radio report yesterday on the impact of Apple's new "Neo" laptop on the PC industry

[Lauren Weinstein]

This is the script of my national radio report yesterday regarding the
impact on the PC industry of Apple's newly announced MacBook Neo
laptop, that Apple has priced uncharacteristically below their typical
premium pricing model. As always there may have been minor wording
variations from this script as I presented this report live on air.

- - -

Yeah so this is a very unusual situation. Regular listeners know that
I don't routinely do product reviews or announcements here, but when
something pops up that could have significant impacts to the tech
industry and broader society I'll explore those. And that's what we've
got now with Apple and it really is quite stunning because it pretty
much goes directly against the pattern we've come to expect from Apple
over the many years.

I've never been an Apple fanboy, in fact I've generally avoided using
Apple gear at all for a number of reasons. One is that their products
have been widely viewed as overpriced for the value provided compared
with products from other manufacturers. Even their accessories to
their main products often seemed way too expensive. Remember Apple's
thousand dollar monitor stand? Another reason I've avoided Apple
products is that they are single sourced. That is, if you want to buy
a Windows PC or an Android phone or a Google Chromebook, you can get
one from a wide variety of manufacturers with different feature sets
and pricing. If you want a Mac computer or iOS iPhone, or an iPad, you
get what Apple manufactures and that's the whole enchilada.

So, what has Apple just now done to shake up the entire PC industry
and trigger a flood of positive reactions across the world, even from
usually critical reviewers? Very recently they released a new Mac
laptop at a price point utterly uncharacteristic of Apple, so low that
it's caused a tsunami of interest from existing Windows and Chromebook
users, among others. Apple calls this the MacBook Neo and priced the
base model with 256 gig of storage at 599 dollars, and an upgraded
version with 512 gig of storage and touch id capability for $100 more.
For buyers with a qualified educational discount, both versions are
reduced by $100.

By normal Apple standards pricing this low seems nuts. So what's going
on? The first reactions were that this must be a really stripped down
laptop with quality corners cut here, there, and everywhere. But this
appears not to be the case. People who got their hands on these -- and
they're sold out at some suppliers -- are praising the quality
throughout. A completely aluminum case, with an excellent display,
keyboard, trackpad and so on.

Two specs that caught a lot of attention were that the Neo doesn't use
the class of Apple CPU chip you'd normally expect in a Mac, but
actually uses the Apple chip from a recent iPhone. And the Neo (both
models) has a fixed and unexpandable RAM memory of 8 gig, seemingly
small for a Mac.

So the assumption was that performance would be on par with sluggish,
cheap Windows PCs or low end Chromebooks. But apparently not. Users
have been throwing all sorts of tasks at the Neo, all the way up to 4K
video editing and the like, and while they're not getting the ultra
performance you'd expect from a much more expensive computer model,
there's surprise and amazement at how capably the Neo is handling
these tasks, far better than would be expected from a computer at this
price point with these listed specs.

This appears to be a situation where Apple's control of the entire
manufacturing pipeline has really paid off for them, especially given
RAM unavailability problems and sky high RAM prices triggered by AI
data centers.

Apple's strategy with the Neo seems both clear and unexpected. By
releasing a highly capable Mac laptop at a price point significantly
lower than Apple's typical pricing model, they're making the bet that
they can bring many new users into the broader Apple ecosystem, both
from the education sector where Chromebooks currently dominate, and
from the broader universe of Windows and other non-Apple computer
users. And judging from the enormously positive reaction to the Neo so
far, this could very well be a bet that's going to pay off enormously
well for Apple, while creating serious headaches for Google and
Microsoft, and for others in the PC industry as well. We shall see.

- - -

L

- - -
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lau...@vortex.com (https://www.vortex.com/lauren)
Lauren's Blog: https://lauren.vortex.com
Mastodon: https://mastodon.laurenweinstein.org/@lauren
Signal: By request on need to know basis
Founder: Network Neutrality Squad: https://www.nnsquad.org
PRIVACY Forum: https://www.vortex.com/privacy-info
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility
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