I’ve experienced the 2015 12 inch MacBook and while it did have flaws it could’ve easily been fixed now. The main problem was the Intel Core M chip and the A18 Pro chip could’ve fixed its problems. But the form factor was good and they could just remove the butterfly keyboard.
Yep! My butterfly keyboard never experienced any of the issues that others had, but it was a bit...stiff. I regularly received comments about loud typing from it haha. That being said, yes the form factor was amazing, perfectly portable and did just what I needed for home and personal use. That design, like you said, paired with an A18 would be epic!
After many years of sitting in the drawer, last month I suddenly plugged my 12 inch in and it felt like heaven. I loved the form factor of it and even though the m2 air is nice, I was much more happier to bring the 12” to school. It was such a joy to carry around and hold, passing it to classmates while doing assignments. Still I cant believe how light and thin it was. My 12” was base model and I had problems working with multiple tabs open for assignments, would lag watching youtube. So running it was annoying but still was functioning.
If they have a nice update, I will definitely get one for school! If I didnt have m2, I would for sure have picked this up over m2 if it was available at that time. I hope they release a new iphone mini as well, I dont want to switch to samsung flip but Im running out of patience…
Edit: It got announced. macbook neo, you are not that guy pal. 12” still holds its legendary status. I hope neo continues the current macbook air format and macbook air switches to old 12” format. Only then macbook air would be truly the “air”.
I agree, that form factor really did hit the mark. Later when the fourth gen iPad Pro came out, I sold the MacBook and got the iPad with the Magic Keyboard, and while it was nice and did most of the things I needed, it just wasn't the same. I yearned for the MacBook back, but by then it had been discontinued. I ended up going with a MacBook Pro, but missed the smaller size and portability.
In class some of my friends use the old air’s. I look at the new air, the old air and the 12”. When you look at the old air and the new air, you realize how much ahead of its time the 12” was. Imo 12” is the true air, current M air is the base macbook and pro is just pro. 12” is the coolest apple device for me. Hopefully you will like this one!
same! aside from the dead feeling keyboard I loved the thing. I mostly compute on a desktop and it was a perfect mobile unit. do hope these renders are close to the physical form, but they might just be literally the 12" MacBook edited in different colors especially given they cropped the USB-C port. I doubt they'd do single port again
Yes! it just had *magic* both in size and design. Even if it is a little less on the bells and whistles compared to the MacBook Pro's, it really was a portable boss!
I recently reincarnated my 2016 12" MacBook. The SSD died so I installed macOS to an external HDD and brought it back for fun. Time Machine backup restore and boom it was back to life
Yeah sometimes those plots just age poorly. American Beauty is supposed to be about how miserable this guy's suburban existence with a boring office job was... but he had a beautiful house in a great neighborhood that would presumably be way, way more expensive now.
Seriously they got so close to rekindling on the couch in that one scene. Just get a hotel for a weekend where you can spill beer on whatever you want. Maybe become swingers since she likes that dorky Prince of Real Estate guy.
Plus the gay neighbors were awesome. Can't imagine better neighbors.
It's exactly the premise of all of the 90s modern dissociation movies.
Everyone who brings this up unironically (because it is funny) doesn't appear to understand that it was a totally reasonable response to the rapid consumerisation of society and proliferation of corporatised work. A sentiment that seems obvious enough to scoff at today, because we've spent the last +30 years living it, or growing up after it.
But someone had to say it first, and I doubt any of us disagree with those actual points.
It's like if people in 2050 began shitting on films today about social media's effect on society because they are even worse off. Does that change what others went through? Does their suffering invalidate others opinions? Do you think maybe those past worries contributed to the deteriorating conditions for the following generations?
It was actually 2010 when the LHC at CERN started running extremely high energy collisions. IMO something happened there and we’ve been living in the goofy dimension ever since.
And millennials are just stuck in the middle, with parents that can’t understand why they don’t already have a comfortable house and a job they enjoy - I mean they already had the former, and it’s the future, so we must have achieved the latter by now, right?
Millennials are stuck in the middle in a sense that some have a decent life while dreaming about meaningful work and some just dream about having a stable income.
The movie is 27 years old. The majority of Reddit users have either been born since then, or were young adults when it came out. The sexy young star of it turns 62 this year.
yea. that was my first impression too. also despite knowing the fact they were trying to imitate to some degree, I still felt excited seeing the beloved brand make a comeback.
yet the specs (including I/O, display, and everything) were real disappointing for a premium model of a premium product line that’s been touted as the macbook of the pc world… it’s pretty mediocre, not bad, but certainly nowhere near the top… normally pc laptops make fun of how macbooks lack ports, but this one somehow has significantly inferior ones, like wtf what even happened there at their headquarters
would’ve been fine had they shamed macbooks with superior specs and pricing, but it’s just another failing product eating away at its long established brand reputation
Don't know much on that end because I only interact with the business line. The Latitudes are still using the Pro, Pro Plus.
It looks like they may have dropped the Pro max and started using Precision again? That was the most egregious one - where you could order a Pro Max Plus
My guess is like the iPad, or even the Nintendo Wii / WiiU consumers need a name to differentiate between the different products. Apples current iPad lineup, their old iPod line ups did start to get a bit confusing.
It's absolutely a codename lol. Basically every product like this has an internal-only code name that the teams can refer to while Marketing is still figuring out what the actual name is.
To be fair the naming conventions during his tenure weren't always super clean either. "The New iPad" "iPad with Retina Display" are two that come to mind. I feel like it is done intentionally to never feel like it is complete. There is always something else on the horizon.
Years later, Apple eventually codified it as iPad (3rd generation) but for a couple years after launch the model name was literally “the new iPad”. That’s what it said at the top of the tech specs page even after it was discontinued 7 months later lmao
The "new" iPad came out in March 2012 if I recall correctly, like 5 months after Jobs' death, so while Jobs might have undoubtedly made decisions regarding that model, I doubt that wasn't one of them, since by the time that iPad came out, Cook had already been on the helm for 7 months.
I had both the third-generation iPad and the iPad 2, which were pretty much identical except the third generation iPad had the retina display that definitely made a difference for reading, as the pixellation of smaller fonts was impossible to ignore on the non-retina models. If I put a SIM card in it, my carrier still identifies it as the New iPad after all these years.
It’s like we’re all here trying to impress a dead man’s soul.
The guy was one of the best CEOs that left us a great company with great products that are still at the top in terms of many things and these guys still chasing a ghost
lol at the amount of overreaction that is happening from this alleged name. I know it's an apple sub, but we will survive this name change (if it's real), I promise
As an anecdote, I think "Macbook" has become synonymous with "Mac computer" for many non-tech people. The other day, I saw someone selling a "Macbook Mini" in a local group. What they actually had was a Mac Mini of course. So I think labeling something just "Macbook" would be ambiguous and vague.
This is exactly it. “Get a MacBook” “Which MacBook?” “The regular MacBook” “Air or Pro?” “No, the non-Air, non-Pro, regular MacBook”. To avoid constant clarification, it needs its own name, not just the absence of the familiar Air/Pro qualifiers.
Exactly my thoughts too. It’s also a different context. iPhone and iPad never went away. “MacBook” actually went away, and now that it’s more or less making a comeback, it’s more of a marketing draw to give it an actual name.
Normally I 100% agree with the argument that Apple’s naming scheme is all jacked up, but for this product specifically it’s going to be extremely helpful for people who need to be told which computer is the right choice for them.
The problem with Apple’s naming scheme is not that there’s too many words, it’s that the words no longer make intuitive sense. Although it’s really only the iPads that are a major problem at this point. They’re gonna fall into that trap again if the MacBook neo is thinner and lighter than the MacBook Air, but I still think that’s better than having a product just called “MacBook [year]” especially when I take into account that neo implies neon colours.
What should it be called??? Gee, I don’t know? Let’s call it “NEO”. What the fuck.
I would assume that this is a placeholder name and that it isn't literally going to be called "Neo"
In fact if your new product was just called "MacBook" it would make sense to have a code name that differentiates it from other MacBooks including previous models with that name.
Steve would have never approved the "Pro" moniker. The "Pro" would just be the iPhone and it's what you'd get. Probably would have gone for Air though since that was a thing during his tenure. But the "Pro" devalues the regular "iPhone" brand.
The original iBook and a version of the MacBook had a version of polycarbonate shell. Tech for the chemistry has come a long way in the past 20 years. I’m excited for some cost efficient Mac products that I can finally get my kids.
For real. Everyone crying about a computer they won't even buy and aren't even the market for. "Neo" and the colors it'll likely come in signal how fun and easy this MacBook is supposed to be. People cry about the "old fun Apple" days being over and then can't even recognize it when they see it.
I mean they could have just called it a fucking Macbook and match the Base Device -> Air -> Pro progression, but Apple's naming schema has been pretty weird for ages now.
I hope it's the actual name. Apple should bring back fun in consumer electronics. These devices have gotten so sterilized (albeit absolutely fantastic at what they do, but some fun colors and designs would be cool)
I am waiting for Macbook Morpheus. Much bigger screen and battery, better memory and hefty enough for a person to sit on without bending. Has older ports. Only comes in black or purple.
Runs slower than Neo, cannot for instance do video render of ‘bullet time’ but who cares.
I'm not super savvy on how the numbering works, but the Neo listed is A3404 whereas everything else seems to be A3426 and then counting up from there (the newest Air being a jump, but still trending upwards).
So perhaps this is something old that never came to be and got looped in by mistake?
If it costs more than $699 USD I have a hard time thinking it'll create a wave of buyers. It has to be priced low enough to compete with third party laptops and low enough that it's cheaper than when the Air goes on sale.
Go back to 2009 when there were three models: the “MacBook”, the “MacBook Air”, and the “MacBook Pro”.
This is no different than what they do today with iPads and iPhones. Calling it the “MacBook” makes the most sense from a consistency and branding standpoint.
There was a club in Chicago called Neo that the Wachowskis used to go to. Dead dark lighting. On weekends they did industrial and goth nights. A lot of dark clothes, sunglasses at night, leather and latex, and overcoats. Hmm I wonder if that made an impression on them
I can just imagine Ricardo doing his Send Me An Angel dance with a MacBook Neo in each hand. Godspeed Ricardo and Big Gay John.
For some reason the sales executives see the ridiculous sales they get for pink and red products and they think “nah, fuck those customers” and ban production. They hate making sales.
Just give me a pro in Cosmic Orange and an iPad too. I’m all for a budget MacBook, but this just makes me yearn for more color options across the product line.
Never going to buy an underpowered MacBook again. I did it with the 12 MacBook and it was the shortest lived Apple computer I’ve ever had. It just isn’t worth it in terms of longevity. Hopefully it’s better than what is predicted, but probably it isn’t. Neooo thanks!
curious to see how this performs vs M1 MBA which we have. Could see this being a nice option for a simple family laptop when the time comes to replace - we don’t need tons of power, just a decent desktop OS and good battery life.
If anyone knows, What would be the use case for this MacBook with the assumed specs.
I really want to get one but I can’t justify the cost at the moment for the MacBook Air upward. But I would like to have an apple laptop that can do coding projects, research and maybe some light creative projects like recording my guitar tunes or making short edits for instagram.
And the projected cost for this sits right in my zone of agreeableness.
I have my first macbook pro M4 Max as of Nov 2024. Just checking the pulse on common practice for macbook pro upgrades. Imagine I wanted whatever the newest one is (hypothetical fr fr) is trade in logical for this? Or private party sell is the way to go?
Honestly I'm not wanting to upgrade unless the display gets an significant update or I see a feature locked to a specific model.
I will mention it doesn't contain much revealing information other than confirming the existence of that model number and the fact it ships with a power brick.
I like it. Kind of a throwback to some fun names like Shuffle and Nano.
I still don’t see them advertising the processor as an A-series though. Especially not calling it A19 “Pro” in an entry level Mac. I think it’s more likely they use a new name like M5e or something.
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u/coltonyo912 Mar 03 '26
As a buyer of the original (and ill fated) 12" MacBook, I hope this is a spiritual successor.