MacBook Neo First Impressions

Apple announced the MacBook Neo today, and I think it’s a bigger deal than most people realize.

The headline is the price. $599. That’s it. And if you’re a student, $499. Yesterday, the cheapest way to get a Mac laptop was north of a thousand dollars. Today, it costs less than a lot of Chromebooks. That is a massive shift.

I’ve been teaching people how to use Macs for a long time. The number one barrier has always been cost. People want to try the Mac, but they can’t justify the price. That excuse just evaporated. A college kid working a summer job can afford this. The Mac is available to a lot of people it wasn’t available to yesterday.

It comes in four colors: blush, indigo, silver, and citrus. I love that Apple is having fun with this. They’re bright and playful, and that’s exactly right for a computer aimed at bringing new people into the Mac. I’m a little sad there’s no orange, though. I would have been first in line.

Stephen Hackett wrote a great breakdown of the technical differences between the Neo and the MacBook Air. The A18 Pro chip instead of an M-series. 8GB of RAM with no upgrade option. USB-C instead of Thunderbolt. No MagSafe. One of the two USB-C ports is only USB 2. You’re giving things up.

But for the person this Mac is designed for, none of that matters. If you’re writing papers, browsing the web, managing email, taking video calls, and maybe editing a few photos, this machine does all of that. And it does it with 16 hours of battery life in a fanless design. Stephen Robles put together a good video walk-through the new machine if you want to see more.

I think part of the reason this computer exists is the continued payoff from Apple silicon. Apple’s chips are so good that a chip from the iPhone can drive a full Mac. That’s not a compromise. That tells you how far ahead Apple is in chip design. The A18 Pro handles Apple Intelligence, runs macOS, and does it all in a thin, silent chassis. The silicon advantage is what makes this price point possible. No other laptop maker could do this.

I understand why Apple went with a 13-inch form factor. It’s the sweet spot for most people, and it keeps costs down. But part of me would have liked to see this as a 12-inch machine.

I’m probably mixing my own signals, though. What I really want is an ultra-light MacBook built on Apple silicon. A spiritual successor to the 12-inch MacBook from 2015, but done right this time with chips that can actually handle the thermal constraints. That’s a different product for a different day. The Neo isn’t trying to be the lightest computer Apple makes. It’s trying to be the most accessible. And at $599, it nails that.

They are going to sell a lot of these.

SoundSource: Complete Audio Control for Your Mac (Sponsor)

My friends at Rogue Amoeba are back to sponsor MacSparky, and this time I want to spotlight SoundSource, their essential audio control app for Mac.

SoundSource provides audio control so useful, it ought to be built in to MacOS. Get instant access to your Mac’s audio settings right from the menu bar, along with powerful per-app volume and routing control, and the ability to apply effects to any app’s audio.

The newly released SoundSource 6 is a major upgrade, with dozens of enhancements. Highlights include:

  • Supercharged AirPlay support: Stream audio to HomePods, Apple TVs, and more.
  • Output Groups: Send audio to multiple devices at once.
  • Quick Configs: Save your entire audio configuration so you can switch setups with a click.
  • A powerful new Audio Devices window: Get deep control over settings for all your audio devices.

All of Rogue Amoeba’s apps offer fully functional free trials, so you can download SoundSource and be up and running in under a minute. And as a MacSparky reader, you can save 20% on SoundSource or any Rogue Amoeba purchase through the end of this month. Just use discount code SPARKYMARCH26 in their online store.

My thanks to Rogue Amoeba for supporting MacSparky and making Mac audio better for everyone.

M5 MacBook Pros: Fine Computers With an Asterisk

Apple announced the M5 Pro and M5 Max MacBook Pros today, and they look like fine computers. The new chips bring an 18-core CPU with six “super cores”, GPU-level neural accelerators, and memory bandwidth topping out at 614 GB/s on the M5 Max. If you’ve been waiting for a Mac that can handle local AI models without breaking a sweat, this is it. I’m looking forward to the benchmarks rolling in over the next week.

That said, there’s an asterisk here. The M6 MacBook Pro is expected before the end of this year, and it’s rumored to be a substantial redesign with OLED displays, a touchscreen, the notch replaced by a Dynamic Island, and chips built on TSMC’s 2nm process. If even half of those rumors pan out, it will be the biggest MacBook Pro refresh in years. If you’re thinking about buying an M5, go into it with open eyes.

The biggest story for me, though, isn’t the chips. It’s the memory pricing.

DRAM prices have gone haywire. Memory manufacturers have pivoted their production capacity toward HBM chips for AI data centers. The result is a global shortage that has driven DRAM prices up 80 to 90 percent in recent months. PCs are going up in price as a result.

So I wondered if Apple would also bump their memory upgrade pricing on these new Macs. They didn’t. The upgrade from 48 GB to 64 GB is still $200. The jump to 128 GB is still $1,000. Those are the same numbers as last generation.

I have to eat some crow here. For years, I lampooned Apple for their inflated memory prices. The component costs have gone up substantially, and Apple has held the line. Maybe they locked in long-term contracts with their suppliers at lower rates. Maybe they just don’t want to raise prices.

I don’t think this lasts forever. If memory prices keep climbing at this rate, something has to give. But right now, Apple deserves credit for keeping their pricing reasonable when they had every excuse not to.

If you need a pro laptop today, the M5 MacBook Pro is a solid choice, especially for local AI work. Just know that a much bigger update is likely around the corner.

Stephen Millard’s Stream Deck Plugin

I’ve been using Stream Deck for years, and like many of you, I’ve cobbled together various plugins to make it work with my Mac automation setup. KMLink for Keyboard Maestro and separate plugins for shortcuts. It was messy. My friend Stephen Millard fixed all of that… This is a post for MacSparky Labs Pathfinder and Insider Members only. Care to join? Or perhaps do you need to sign in?

Apple’s Big Hardware Week

Apple kicked things off today with the iPhone 17e and a refreshed iPad Air powered by M4. Both look like solid updates. The iPhone 17e brings the A19 chip and doubles the base storage to 256GB while keeping the same $599 starting price. The iPad Air gets the M4 with more memory and a faster Neural Engine. Pre-orders for both start Wednesday.

But the announcement I’m most excited about is the new budget MacBook, expected later this week. A low-cost Mac laptop could open the platform to a whole new group of users. People who’ve been priced out of the Mac or stuck on Chromebooks will finally have an on-ramp. That’s good for them and good for the platform. I’ll have more to say once Apple makes it official.

Nobody Can Make Fun of Phone Cameras Anymore

I was sitting in the dark of my backyard last night, admiring the planets, as you do, when I noticed a blob of something in the tree looking down at me. My distance vision is 20/20, yet I still could not make it out. I pulled out my iPhone and used the 5x lens in dark mode. It kept the shutter open for a few seconds and returned this image.

February in the MacSparky Labs

MacSparky Labs members get to participate in member events and receive a number of exclusive videos and podcasts each month. Here’s a summary of offerings this past month:

February 2026

  • 2026-02-27 – February in the MacSparky Labs (M,I,P) (Post)
  • 2026-02-27 – The Lab Report for February 27, 2026 (M,I,P) (Podcast)
  • 2026-02-26 – Book Club: Intentional (Event) (M,I,P) (Event)
  • 2026-02-26 – Exploring iPhone Capture Techniques (M,I,P) (Video)
  • 2026-02-24 – Do Everything on Your Mac with the Keyboard, Easily (I,P) (Video)
  • 2026-02-20 – The Lab Report for February 20, 2026 (M,I,P) (Podcast)
  • 2026-02-19 – Deep Dive – Home Screen Lab (Feb 2026) (P) (Video)
  • 2026-02-17 – DEVONthink AI-Assisted Naming and Filing (M,I,P) (Video)
  • 2026-02-15 – The Keyboard Tomb (M,I,P) (Post)
  • 2026-02-14 – Labs February Meetup Summary (I,P) (Post)
  • 2026-02-13 – Supercharge Updates (M,I,P) (Video)
  • 2026-02-13 – Lab Report 2026-02-13 (M,I,P) (Podcast)
  • 2026-02-12 – February Deep Dive – Building Useful Home Screens (Event) (P)
  • 2026-02-10 – Deep Dive – Using Claude Cowork (Media Release) (P) (Video)
  • 2026-02-06 – My OpenClaw Experience (Video) (M,I,P)
  • 2026-02-06 – Lab Report 2026-02-06 (M,I,P) (Podcast)
  • 2026-02-05 – Fixing Text with Keyboard Maestro (I,P) (Video)
  • 2026-02-03 – Introducing Stephen Robles (M,I,P)

Labs content and its membership level: P – Pathfinder; I – Insider; M – Member

If you’d like to be a part of the MacSparky Labs, you can get more information and join right here.

The Feedback Loop Between Teaching and Learning

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about teaching.

I’ve taught the Productivity Field Guide workshop three times now. Each year it gets better. Not because I’m a better teacher, though hopefully I am.

The workshop gets better because my students make it better.

The act of teaching it live sparks magic. Participants ask questions I didn’t anticipate. People get stuck on concepts I thought were obvious. They have breakthroughs on exercises I almost cut from the program. Every single one of these moments changes the content (and me).

This year we spent a lot of time on role statement exercises. I’ve used role statements for years, but watching a room full of smart people work through them, watching the moment it clicks, watching them rewrite their own statements forced me to think deeper about why this actually works.

Teaching forces clarity. When I’m writing alone, I can let things slide. I can tell myself the idea is there, even if the explanation is fuzzy.

But in a workshop, there’s nowhere to hide. If my explanation doesn’t land, I see it immediately. So I try a different angle. I find a better example. I cut the stuff that doesn’t matter and expand the stuff that does.

The questions also help me. Someone asks why a particular workflow matters. I try to answer but I can see it didn’t really land. I have to dig deeper, articulate what I actually mean. Often, my answer ends up better than anything I would’ve written at a desk.

The struggles matter too. When someone can’t make a technique work in their own life, that’s information. It tells me where the gap is between theory and practice.

This is why I’ll keep teaching workshops even though it’s more work. The content gets better. My understanding gets better. And the people in the room get something more useful than they would if I’d just written a book and mailed it to them.

Teaching forces you to question your thinking and assumptions. If you want to get better at something, teach it.