in my car circles the 968 was seen as a total pos that was really just sort of trying to compete with the RX-7 and Fairlady, do a worse job at being a good sports car than them, and push the brand into further cheapened territory towards the every-person for the sake of financial incentive while inflating the cost of their premium offering, the 911.
1:1 example, but i'm not sure those were the points being made here.
Porsche killed the 944S Turbo because it was accidentally faster than the Carrera and 930, and that was taboo. Its successor, the 968, was the awkward compromise.
I bought a Neo to "replace" an M3 MacBook Air "travel/out of the house/outside" laptop. Are there drawbacks? Most certainly, but it feels like something special, and I enjoy the slightly smaller form factor. The main drawback is perhaps the most surprising, the screen, which is really good at 500 nits, draws a disproportionate amount of energy compared to the rest of the system, so you get about 3.5 hours in bright sunlight / maximum brightness.
As the only IT person in an 80 person unit, I can say the Neo trounces Dell Latitudes in a lot of ways, those have awful 250 nit screens out of the box, and they are nearly $1,200!
Apple has been doing this for ages. The base tier one always gets the fun colors while the pro models get silver, grey, and maybe some muted blue.
Not sure why they make the cheaper models cooler than the top tier ones. Maybe it's just too expensive to stock multiple colors of every product. The Neo has minimal customization options for specs so making it colorful is cheaper.
not universally true for all of their products. the new iphone pro max to the apple watch ultra got the bright orange going for them compared the typical muted colours for the base one. the "red" edition, while for charity, used to be the exclusive (maybe more expensive?) version when there was fewer segmentation between the products.
It's a shame most companies don't do weird and interesting variants anymore. I suppose it's hard to do when you need mass market appeal.
Especially in regards to cars, often getting a bargain is about finding the cars with faults you personally don't care about but most people do, or versions not many are interested in.
Unfortunately the way speculators have inflated the used market means the rare (because no-one wanted it) versions are priced on their rarity not their utility.
I'm thinking about buying a Neo for two reasons: my laptop is only ever used to RDP into my home Windows workstation, which is where I do all my serious work; and because I need to have a Mac to test some software I'm writing (Tela, find it on my GitHub) that has to be multi-platform. The battery life is also a plus for remote work, but that's about it. I don't want to spend four digits where three will do.
> Cut back to Porsche in 1992, and you’ll see a similar story playing out in a very different industry. Back then, Porsche was not in the fantastic position it is in today. Its model lineup was aging.
Weighing up a Neo vs Framework 12 for my kids. The Neo is nicer, but I'll probably get the Framework even though it's more expensive. Apple products seem to have a fixed shelf life; a certain number of years of support and then the machine is slowly incompatible with apps that have since moved on to newer versions of macOS. Meanwhile Framework supports Linux and is still providing hardware/software upgrade paths for their old machines.
I excitedly bought a Framework 12 when it first came out, since I figured it'd be a nice thing to travel with (my typical laptop is the 11th-gen 13). However the 12 has just sat under my bed since it arrived. It's actually the same size and weight as the 13 so there's no real reason to use it when traveling, and everything about the 13 feels better in general. Overall I'm fairly disappointed by the 12.
I haven't held a Neo myself, but it seems like a solid device. Personally I would probably go for the Neo.
Interesting! I was not aware of the framework laptops. I was more familiar with System76 and and Tuxedo laptops, but I wouldn't call those kids laptops.
The thing that keeps me questioning is the "its using binned parts" dialogue. I'm sure _some_ parts might be discards from the iphone 16, but the volume they had at launch to me suggests that not the story. I've read somewhere that they made/budgeted for 5 million laptops shipped this quarter/half. but if they are made from binned CPUs, that suggests at least 4-7% yeild loss for the original iphone CPU.
Bear in mind thats this 4-7% loss only counts dies that have just one broken CPU unit. There are many other failure modes as well. That just seems very very high.
With my logic hat on, Apple contracts chip manufacturing, so I would have assumed that rejects and failed parts would be recycled at source. I would imagine that apple only pay for parts that pass QC. So I suspect that actually these chips are either leftovers (at best) or specifically manufactured using the old tooling.
I'm surprised "mobile phone specs with laptop form factor" isn't a larger product base. Modern smartphones seem capable enough to run a lot of "normal" software, obviously not super heavy ones like after effects or something, but for lighter tasks (web browsing etc), it seems like a good market
While I am back to my Surface Laptop 7 after a few weeks with the Neo because the latter wasn't good enough for my usage, I agree it's the coolest Mac right now, the colors are great! I don't really understand why Apple keeps its "more serious" devices mostly color-less, it's a shame.
Yes, the battery life was way worse than the Surface, I missed the 120 hz screen more than I thought I would, and the 1 external monitor limit was too annoying. It's still a great device for the price.
When I think of companies that make cheapness cool I think of IKEA, Primark, Ryanair and Fiat, not Apple and Porsche. The Macbook Neo and the Porsche 968 are cheap only compared to other products by the same brand and they are designed not to cannibalize those other products.
Not sure how a company like Primark that is known for using slave labour is "cool" or who would see it that way. Everyone I've ever heard talk about Primark went there solely for the price.
Zara might be a better example (though not much better in practices).
I see a buncha folks complaining about how the high end macbook laptops don't have color -- for what it's worth there's plenty of fun colors to be had from buying case covers and skins, but yeah they add bulk or interfere with heat dissipation...
(Have a MBP with fun case covers that I take off when I do a work presentation.)
but while we are speaking about a decent device, sometimes it feels like we are giving its maker too much credit. tim's apple has been about the supply chain, with many past "parts bin" offerings, some arguably more appropriate than the neo.
for instance, the "se" edition devices. while for the neo, they had to create a new chasis and trackpad from scratch, the se phones were literally a mash up of the older parts.
to me, they had several other approaches to hit the price point unlike the carmaker, also with lower capex required. while they show some courage with the liquid glass and the change in ux, combined with the same core architecture powering all their devices, just empowering the ipad would have been good enough.
in car terms, they have showed a capable sports car internals inside a tricycle and pat themselves in the back. for me, neo resembles more like a mass-market brand overbuilding the car chassis while using an old powertrain from a capable platform. the same brand use the same capable vtec engine across hatchbacks, sedans and a crossover.
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[ 2.3 ms ] story [ 50.5 ms ] threadKinda hard to take this article seriously...
https://newsroom.porsche.com/en/2026/company/porsche-deliver...
1:1 example, but i'm not sure those were the points being made here.
As the only IT person in an 80 person unit, I can say the Neo trounces Dell Latitudes in a lot of ways, those have awful 250 nit screens out of the box, and they are nearly $1,200!
I like colors!
So it's nice to see apple finally bringing a bit of color back.
Not sure why they make the cheaper models cooler than the top tier ones. Maybe it's just too expensive to stock multiple colors of every product. The Neo has minimal customization options for specs so making it colorful is cheaper.
not universally true for all of their products. the new iphone pro max to the apple watch ultra got the bright orange going for them compared the typical muted colours for the base one. the "red" edition, while for charity, used to be the exclusive (maybe more expensive?) version when there was fewer segmentation between the products.
Especially in regards to cars, often getting a bargain is about finding the cars with faults you personally don't care about but most people do, or versions not many are interested in.
Unfortunately the way speculators have inflated the used market means the rare (because no-one wanted it) versions are priced on their rarity not their utility.
Perhaps picking Porsche for this analogy wasn't necessarily the best choice: https://investorrelations.porsche.com/en/financial-informati...
So much for "fantastic position it is in today"...
I haven't held a Neo myself, but it seems like a solid device. Personally I would probably go for the Neo.
Bear in mind thats this 4-7% loss only counts dies that have just one broken CPU unit. There are many other failure modes as well. That just seems very very high.
I've also not really seen any official channels that support this assertion, even apple insider seems sceptical that this is true: https://appleinsider.com/articles/26/04/07/incredible-macboo...
With my logic hat on, Apple contracts chip manufacturing, so I would have assumed that rejects and failed parts would be recycled at source. I would imagine that apple only pay for parts that pass QC. So I suspect that actually these chips are either leftovers (at best) or specifically manufactured using the old tooling.
Please say more. Specs?
Zara might be a better example (though not much better in practices).
(Have a MBP with fun case covers that I take off when I do a work presentation.)
but while we are speaking about a decent device, sometimes it feels like we are giving its maker too much credit. tim's apple has been about the supply chain, with many past "parts bin" offerings, some arguably more appropriate than the neo.
for instance, the "se" edition devices. while for the neo, they had to create a new chasis and trackpad from scratch, the se phones were literally a mash up of the older parts.
to me, they had several other approaches to hit the price point unlike the carmaker, also with lower capex required. while they show some courage with the liquid glass and the change in ux, combined with the same core architecture powering all their devices, just empowering the ipad would have been good enough.
in car terms, they have showed a capable sports car internals inside a tricycle and pat themselves in the back. for me, neo resembles more like a mass-market brand overbuilding the car chassis while using an old powertrain from a capable platform. the same brand use the same capable vtec engine across hatchbacks, sedans and a crossover.