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Apple faces ‘massive dilemma’ with hot-selling hit MacBook Neo

MacDailyNews

Apr 7

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Apple is in discussions with its suppliers over a welcome dilemma: surging demand for the MacBook Neo has far exceeded expectations, according to Tim Culpan in his latest Culpium newsletter.

The company now faces a pressing decision — whether to ramp up production of the popular laptop or allow its stock of A18 Pro chips to run out, sources familiar with the matter told Culpan.

Tim Culpan for Culpium:
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MacBook Neo comes in four colors and two configurations, but each model runs on the same processor: the A18 Pro. That’s the chip used in the previous generation’s iPhone 16 Pro, whereas the latest device uses the A19 Pro chip.

But as Ben Thompson at Stratechery astutely observed, the MacBook Neo doesn’t use fresh batches of A18 Pro chips, they’re leftovers from the original production run.

The MacBook Neo actually only promised 5 GPUs — the A18 Pro in the iPhone 16 Pro had 6 GPUs — which is to say that Apple is binning those chips as well: some number of A18 Pros with defects on just one of the GPUs are going into the Neo — You could make the case that some number of these chips are effectively free for Apple! — Ben Thompson, Stratechery, 9 March 2026

MacBook Neo was designed around useable but leftover chips which would otherwise have been scrapped — remember, Apple are the masters at recycling! But with MacBook Neo being insanely popular, the stock of those binned chips will run out before demand gets satisfied.

Prior to the dilemma posed by this runaway success, Apple was only planning to have suppliers build a new Neo next year, powered by the current generation of binned A19 Pro chips, I am told…

Leaving all that demand on the table is a painful prospect for Apple executives, but going back for another round would risk killing the sweet profit margins it enjoyed on making a device with “effectively free” chips.

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MacDailyNews Take: Take the margin hit (there’s certainly enough headroom built-in to absorb more expensive chips) and keep selling Macs like hotcakes, Apple! The company would be smart to play the long game in which more Mac users not only benefits Apple services in recurring fashion, but also creates halo sales of high-margin iPhones, iPads, AirPods, HomePods, Apple TVs, etc.

With Apple’s new run of A18 Pro chips from TSMC, they could create a “MacBook Neo Plus” in an exclusive new color (space black) for 6-GPU A18 Pros, only offer a 512GB config, and sell it at a higher price ($799). Use any binned 5 GPU chips produced from the new run (and disable the 6th GPU core of the others as needed) to satisfy demand for the regular MacBook Neo.

Resorting to just saying “sold out” of MacBook Neo units until the next model would be a huge mistake.

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