The Apple Silicon Renaissance
For the past 10 days, an all-new $599 MacBook has captivated the tech press. A laptop grabbing so much attention in 2026 probably wasn’t on too many prediction lists. The situation may lead people to wonder if we are seeing something of a laptop renewal or even renaissance. Such an assertion doesn’t sit right with me. After spending some time with MacBook Neo, the takeaway isn’t that the laptop is being rethought or rejuvenated. Instead, we are still seeing ramifications associated with Apple’s original bet on custom silicon.
Many of the prognostications that have been made regarding laptops / desktops and their relationship to smartphones, tablets, and wearables have turned out to be mostly accurate. Smartphone and tablet sales exceed laptop / desktop sales a few times over. Within the Apple installed base, there are nearly 4x more iPhones than iPads out in the wild while iPads outnumber Macs by 2x.
At a very high level, MacBook Neo is Apple betting on
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