this is just an ad
this post was submitted on 03 May 2026
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I just now noticed that the wallpaper in that image says MAC.
I can't figure out why the M and the A share a line, but the A and the C don't...?
I preffered not knowing this
Less expensive: yep
Actually fun colors: yep
Windows is worse than ever: yep
It would have been surprising if this thing wasn’t a hit.
windows went all in on AI, and neglected thier other stuff.
In turn Apple went ‘oh fuck what’s an AI now’ and turned out to be the winners. Who would’ve guessed huh.
Their AI ended up being straight ass like Siri so they pivoted to this instead.
I work in IT and ~1/3 of our fleet are MacBooks and several ppl on my team are Apple fanboys, but I've literally never heard anyone talk about using "Apple Intelligence" even once
What a strange game. The only winning move is not to play.
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Says MacRumors.... Who consistently try to pump Apple even when they release trash products...
Apple likely wasn't thrown off guard at all. And, there are often shortages when new products are released
I used to sell Apple gear....
This isn't fresh news anymore and they are not lying
https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/30/apple-was-surprised-by-ai-driven-demand-for-macs/
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Well yeah, if you sell a “budget” product that is cheaper than your usual premium-priced products, more people tend to buy them.
apple probably wants people to buy the more expensive one eventually.
IMO most of the the demand is due to Windows 11, not Apple. People are done with Microslop's crap.
Both Apple and Linux are winning big with the double wamy of Win 11 being complete garbage and Win 10 being murdered.
Win 10 being murdered is the important distinction. It's not the first time Microslop released a shitty and unpopular Windows version, but previously you always had the option to stay on an older still supported version.
"Previously?" *looks at XP and 7*
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The average person frankly doesn't really care as much as you think probably. Anecdotal but people I spoke to who also got it mainly got it for the price. They'd still prefer Windows since it's what they're used to but the lower price makes trying something new a lot more palatable.
IMO the average person (and multiple people I know) no longer likes using their computers since W11 was forced down. They've heard good things about Apple and are ready for a change.
Most of the stuff "regular people" do on computers these days is either web-based or cross-platform, too. A lot of them are getting the Neo because it's better than practically every other $600 new laptop in terms of build quality.
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It's hilarious how Apple was caught off guard to begin with.
Just going off of the triangle of "cheap-fast-good", the Neo literally hits all three categories really well.
The majority of standard users only need a web browser nowadays. I'm not sure if it can view/sign PDFs and send print jobs, but I'm sure it can, and all of this covers the 99% use case for a household device.
I'm the tech guy of the family. Linux nerd, GrapheneOS on my phone, blah blah blah. If my mom needed a new laptop I would 100% recommend the Neo and be done with it. No frills, no bullshit. Shit I want to pick one up just to play around with it because it's CHEAP, even though I dont like Apple's ecosystem.
I'm not sure how it would fare as a college device(test taking, remote screen sharing, proprietary programs, etc) but even for middle schoolers and high schoolers this should cover most, if not all, bases.
To be fair I would say the vast majority of Mac users are using their machines purely for browsing, note taking, etc regardless of what model they're on. Most buy a Mac so they can prop open the lid and show off the Apple logo to everyone else. It's a status symbol, it's a flag of conformity.
So the Neo fills that niche without spending an arm and a leg to do so AND you can actually easily repair some things on it. As a netbook it's perfect.
Mac users are using their machines purely for browsing, note taking, etc
That and battery life. Apple’s chips are amazingly power efficient. If I’m going to a long meeting for work and don’t expect to have easy access to a power outlet, I’m going to grab an iPad or Mac instead of my work laptop. I prefer Windows’ desktop environment, (Apple seems to design for “different” instead of “better” UI), but the battery life on Windows laptops tends to be like half of what a comparable Mac (or an iPad) will achieve.
Basically, there’s a reason Macs tend to be propped open for long periods of time. It’s because a Windows laptop would have already run out of battery 45 minutes ago.
We got one for my sister in law, and she likes it for college.
She wanted to just use an iPad, but she had to have macOS for the proprietary test tool spyware. It runs on the neo
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I walked into a Best Buy last fall just to kind of browse the computers on offer. The sales rep recommended a laptop (Asus, I think) with 16gb of RAM, saying he actually even got his aunt one of the same model he was recommending to me.
That's insane. What the fuck is going on in these big tech companies that people are recommending 16gb of RAM for aunties and normies?
spoiler
Rhetorical question, the answers are: mega-reliance on webviews, every mid-level PM having to ship "features" to justify their position and to climb the corporate ladder, and every UI designer getting the brain-sickness that's rounded-corners and animations everywhere, while some VP of product insisting on more ads and user-tracking. Add "agentic" aka slop coding to cap a decade of learn-2-code bootcamp 2nd-rate programmers who vigorously studied Cracking the Coding Interview without properly understanding the fundamentals... and voila!
That's the splendid thing about the Neo. Apple is saying ok, we know it's only 8GB of RAM, but through the service life of the laptop we can ensure that that will give you a good desktop experience.
What the fuck is going on in these big tech companies that people are recommending 16gb of RAM for aunties and normies?
Uhhhh 16GB RAM should be the bare minimum, what are you on about?
Why? Were we incapable of using computers 10-14 years ago when 2-8gb were standard? 16 gigabyte computer to log into email, instagram, and facebook. Give me a break.
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8GB RAM
I knew it!
What a bunch of cheap bastards. It's windows 1GB RAM all over again (it's so you can't use the pc to do important things).
Apple has been optimizing macOS for underpowered machines for a long time.
Testing a bunch of linux distros on old intel macbooks has shown me that apple is really good with resource management on their vertically integrated hardware, even with greedy daemons like identityserverd or whatever it is, trolling through your drive cataloguing faces in your photos all the time, and the relentless indexing system, and telemetry.
Most models work smoothly most of the time, even the little 11" Air with 4GB, doing standard basic user stuff, and the 2020 1.1 GHz i3 Air is somehow usable on macOS 15, basically current.
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