Apple Has a Mac Problem… and It’s About to Get Worse

Apple has a big problem with their Mac

lineup. And it kind of started last year

with the introduction of the $600 Mac

Mini, which delivered an unprecedented

value in the world of desktop computing.

Then 2 months ago, Apple released their

most accessible Mac ever, the MacBook

Neo. A full MacBook experience at the

price of just, you guessed it, $600.

Finally, Apple had an answer to the

lowcost desktop and laptop market, and

customers are taking notice. There's

only one problem. It's a big problem.

You can't buy them. And the problem

isn't going to be fixed anytime soon,

and the whole situation could get a lot

worse. So, let me break down exactly

what's happening, why you can't buy

these computers, and what you can do

about it going forward. Now, if you're

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Money for sponsoring this video. So,

let's start with talking about the

problems of the MacBook Neo and why

Apple can't make enough of them. Because

this lowcost MacBook, I think everyone

knew that this was going to lead to a

pretty big increase in sales for the

Mac. Even Apple knew this product would

sell well, but they just didn't know

how. Well, take it from here, Tim.

>> Right now, we're supply constrained on

the MacBook Neo. The response has been

we we were uh very bullish on the

product before announcing it and uh but

we undercall the the level of enthusiasm

that would be with it.

>> Yes, the MacBook Neo, as I pointed out

in my own videos on it so far, has overd

delivered on its promise. Despite its

low price, it feels just as premium as

any other MacBook with its build

quality. and the sacrifices it makes

aren't enough to deter buyers and have

them pick a more expensive MacBook like

the MacBook Air. And even the A18 Pro

chip, the thing powering this device,

the iPhone chip, the thing that everyone

said would turn out to be a problem and

this would be an underpowered device

that wasn't powerful enough to give you

the full Mac OS experience. Well, they

were wrong. The A18 Pro delivered. It

gave you the full Mac OS experience. But

there is a problem with the A18 Pro. And

it's the big problem for Apple with the

MacBook Neo, not necessarily for you.

Because one of the reasons why the

MacBook Neo can achieve such a low cost

is because Apple already manufactured

these chips, but they don't plan on

making any more of them. You see, the

A18 Pro in the MacBook Neo is

technically a defective chip, just not a

fully defective chip. You see, when a

company manufactures or fabs a chip,

some of these chips come off the line

with minor defects, like maybe a GPU

core or a CPU core isn't fully working.

Instead of throwing these chips away,

Apple and other companies save these to

use in other products. So, while the

iPhone 16 Pro received the fully enabled

A18 Pro with six GPU cores active, while

the MacBook Neo basically gets all the

leftover chips that Apple deemed were

not good enough for the iPhone 16 Pro,

basically ones with one of the GPU cores

not working. And then Apple just

disables that core, puts that chip into

the MacBook Neo, and now you have the

A18 Pro MacBook Neo with the only

difference being instead of six GPU

cores, it now has five GPU cores, which

means that in Apple's case, these

leftover chips that they're using for

the MacBook Neo are basically free to

use, which is why they can toss them

into the MacBook Neo and then deliver

this at a lower price point. The problem

is Apple only has a limited supply of

these A18 Pro chips available. To make

matters worse, Apple has stopped primary

production of the A18 Pro and has moved

on to producing the A19 Pro chip that is

in the iPhone 17 Pro. Now, you would be

right to conclude that maybe Apple can

just put some A19 Pro chips into the

MacBook Neo, give it a spec bump, and

release it. Well, the problem is Apple

also has a supply constraint on A19 Pro

chip productions as well with the iPhone

17 series selling better than expected

and the bend A19 Pro chips are also

being used for the iPhone Air as well.

Surely though, Apple is also getting

ready for a MacBook Neo 2. So, they were

aware of this, right? and they are kind

of following the same strategy,

stockpiling those BIN A19 Pro chips, at

least the ones that aren't used for the

iPhone Air for the eventual refresh of a

MacBook Neo2. So, Apple really has two

choices here if they want to make more

MacBook Neos. they can somehow spin up

production on the A18 Pro chip again and

make more for the Neo. But that is

highly unlikely, probably close to

impossible given the supply shortage of

computer chips overall and the fact that

they are already producing the A19 Pro

chip. So, it's probably just cheaper to

keep making those. The second choice,

and I think this is more likely, is that

the Neo is just going to be supply

constrained for a while. It is likely

that Apple is already artificially

holding back ship dates for the Neo to

currently meet the demand and kind of

like putting out the supply little by

little so they don't have this product

like actually sold out on their web

page. So, what Apple could do to kind of

offset this is to strategically decide

to release the MacBook Neo2 earlier than

expected and then use the supply of Bend

A19 Pro chips that they have surely

built up by now to fulfill uh this

increased demand that they weren't

expecting. But that's not even the worst

of it because while the Neo is supply

constrained, you can at least still

order it on Apple's website. However,

that wasn't true of the base model Mac

Mini, which a few days ago was

completely sold out on Apple's website.

Like, you couldn't even add it to your

cart. And I have never seen that happen

with an Apple product before. Sure, you

could see the ship dates get pushed

back, but the fact that they wouldn't

even let you add the product to the

cart, never have I seen that before. And

that lasted for about a week until um

the other day. Not because Apple got

more Mac Minis, but uh because Apple has

officially discontinued the 256 GB

version of the M4 Mac Mini, effectively

raising the starting price for this

machine to $799

for the 512 GB version. Still, even with

that discontinuation, supply for the Mac

Mini is even less than the Neo. With

order delays of up to six weeks,