According to Taiwanese technology columnist and former Bloomberg reporter Tim Culpan, Apple is considering canceling the current $599 basic MacBook Neo to cope with the pressure of rapidly rising production costs for this popular notebook. Currently, the MacBook Neo is available in two storage configurations: a 256GB version priced at $599 and a 512GB version priced at $699.
Culpan said in his latest Culpium column that cutting out the 256GB entry model is one of the options Apple is evaluating. Once implemented, the "effective starting price" of this product line will rise directly from US$599 to US$699, while the list price of each specific configuration will remain unchanged, which is equivalent to achieving an overall price increase through a streamlined configuration structure.
Similar operations have been practiced by Apple on other Mac products recently. In March of this year, Apple stopped providing a 512GB memory upgrade option for the Mac Studio; last week, Apple canceled the 256GB starting storage of the Mac mini and raised its starting price in the US market from $599 to $799. The common background behind these adjustments is higher-than-expected market demand coupled with a global shortage of memory chips. The large-scale construction of AI data centers has further squeezed storage supply and pushed up prices.
Culpan pointed out that the pricing pressure surrounding MacBook Neo is closely related to Apple’s plan to significantly increase production. Driven by demand far exceeding expectations, Apple's official website currently gives a delivery time of two to three weeks for all Neo models. The company is said to have asked suppliers to increase production capacity to about 10 million units, almost double the original forecast of 5 million to 6 million units.
To meet new production targets, Apple will need a new batch of A18 Pro chips from TSMC. The MacBook Neo is powered by the same A18 Pro processor as the iPhone 16 Pro, and existing inventory for the Neo is said to have been exhausted by early strong demand. At the same time, TSMC has limited spare capacity in the 3nm process, and a large number of AI-related orders occupy its production line output, which further intensifies Apple's cost and production scheduling pressure on chip supply.
What’s more complicated is that the first batch of MacBook Neos use a “downgraded” version of the A18 Pro chip. These chips have one GPU core turned off when they leave the factory to absorb some of the chips that have defects during the production process and are not up to iPhone standards, thus reducing the overall cost. However, if a new round of A18 Pro production is launched, it is expected to produce more complete "genuine" chips with all GPU cores available, which will once again raise the cost of stand-alone chips on top of any expedited production premiums.
Against this backdrop, if Apple ultimately decides to keep the $599 MacBook Neo entry-level configuration, Culpan said the company is also considering another way to respond: introducing new color options for the current generation of Neo to "buffer" possible price increases. This idea may mean that Apple increases perceived value through appearance updates at the product level, paving the way for possible future price adjustments.