According to the latest revelation by Apple industry chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, previous predictions that the second-generation MacBook Neo will be equipped with a touch screen have been overturned. This Apple notebook, which focuses on the low-price entry market, will still not be equipped with a touch screen in the next generation of products. MacBook Neo is designed to compete with low-priced notebooks such as Chromebooks. Apple has tried its best to reduce material costs on this model, including using A-series chips instead of M-series chips. Therefore, the industry generally believes that adding a touch screen to it is not realistic from the beginning.
Ming-Chi Kuo said at the end of 2025 that the second-generation MacBook Neo is expected to implement touch functionality by integrating the touch layer directly into the IPS panel, similar to the solution used by entry-level iPads for many years. However, a new message he posted on social platform He pointed out that the second-generation MacBook Neo was originally considered to add a touch panel during the planning stage to bring it into line with Chromebooks in terms of specifications, because at least half of the Chromebooks currently on the market support touch operations. However, Ming-Chi Kuo also bluntly said that the touch screen quality of many Chromebooks is not ideal.
In fact, as early as September 2025, Ming-Chi Kuo said that the first-generation MacBook Neo would not be equipped with a touch screen, saying that the specifications of the second-generation model were still being discussed at the time and that it was "possible" to include touch support. At the time, he expected the second-generation model to be released in 2027, and he did not update that timeline in this latest information.
From the perspective of product positioning, introducing touch functionality to MacBook Neo is considered a low-probability event. The product is designed to keep bill of materials costs as low as possible, such as using A-series chips to compress the overall budget, which makes a more expensive touch screen "almost excluded from the beginning." Apple does not technically lack the ability to add a touch screen to the Mac, but on such a product that is extremely sensitive to price, touch is obviously not a priority. In addition, in the entire product line, giving priority to the launch of touch functions that are “higher than the traditional Mac experience” on the lowest-end models also has potential conflicts with Apple’s product gradient strategy.
In terms of high-end products, Apple is preparing to advance the touch experience through the OLED version of MacBook Pro. The report cited previous news that Apple plans to launch a new generation of MacBook Pro equipped with an OLED screen and touch functionality by the end of 2026, introducing a more "high-end" interactive form to the Mac product line.
In addition to the revision of the specification trend, Ming-Chi Kuo also talked about the current production and shipment status of the first-generation MacBook Neo in his latest post. He revealed that the mass production of this model was later than originally expected, and it officially entered mass production in December. However, judging from Apple's past rhythm between mass production and launch, this time point is not particularly abnormal. Affected by the adjustment of mass production time, the shipment volume in 2026 is expected to be lower than the previous forecast, but it can still reach about 4.5 million to 5 million units, which in his view is still a "strong performance" number.
Looking forward to the rest of 2026, Kuo Ming-Chi believes that MacBook Neo shipments will show a quarter-to-quarter growth trend, mainly driven by consumer demand during the back-to-school season and the year-end holidays, and also benefiting from the tight supply of memory chips that the entire PC industry is experiencing. He expects competitors to gradually exhaust their existing memory inventories around the middle of this year and be forced to face overall cost increases, thereby pushing up product prices. After price pressure is transmitted to the market, MacBook Neo, which focuses on high cost performance, will usher in a relatively more favorable sales environment during the back-to-school season.
Overall, the news that the second-generation MacBook Neo will abandon the touch screen has established the long-term positioning of the product line as a "low-price entry" to a certain extent. Innovative experiences with features such as touch and OLED will still be first implemented on high-end models such as MacBook Pro.