Apple faces a huge dilemma over the ‘MacBook Neo’ success
The budget "Mac" has proven so popular that supplies of the chips it uses will soon be completely depleted.
According to former Bloomberg journalist Tim Culpan, the base MacBook Neo uses A18 Pro processors from the iPhone 16 Pro that had a damaged graphics processing unit (GPU) core during manufacturing. Since these chips would otherwise have been thrown away, they were essentially “free” to Apple.
The original plan was to produce around 5-6 million of these laptops. However, due to high demand, the “rejected” chips will run out of stock before the next generation, based on the A19 Pro, which is released next year.
To continue assembling current models, Apple will have to re-order chips from TSMC at an inflated price (due to overloaded production lines) and programmatically disable one of their cores or reallocate capacity from other devices.
Apple is expected to keep the price at $599 and accept lower profits. The laptop is actively attracting users to the macOS ecosystem – according to Tim Cook, the company recorded the “best shipping week” in Mac history among new customers. Currently, the MacBook Neo shipping time in the US and some other countries is 2-3 weeks.
Credits:
Image:
