The all-new MacBook Neo has been such a hit that Apple is facing a "massive dilemma," according to Taiwan-based tech columnist and former Bloomberg reporter Tim Culpan. In the iPhone 16 Pro models, the A18 Pro chip has a 6-core GPU. During the chip manufacturing process, however, sometimes a CPU or GPU core can turn out to be faulty.

In the iPhone 16 Pro models, the A18 Pro chip has a 6-core GPU. During the chip manufacturing process, however, sometimes a CPU or GPU core can turn out to be faulty. Rather than discarding the leftover A18 Pro chips with only a 5-core GPU, Apple opted to use them in the MacBook Neo, as a way of optimizing its supply chain and costs.

These so-called “binned” chips with a 5-core GPU are effectively “free” to Apple, given that they otherwise would have been discarded.

Herein lies the dilemma.

In the latest edition of his Culpium newsletter today, Culpan said the MacBook Neo is selling so well that Apple’s supply of the binned A18 Pro chips with a 5-core GPU will “run out” before the company is able to fully satisfy demand for the laptop.

  • Kiki Buber@mas.to
    2·
    4 days ago

    @circuitfarmer It’s also a good time to go back to selling Macs with only 8 gb of ram, given supply constraints. Can’t really walk back the minimum amount of ram in an existing line (although they have reduced the maximum at least in the case of the Studio, which is bad enough)

    • circuitfarmer@lemmy.world
      1·
      3 days ago

      The RAM is probably the biggest issue with the Neo, and Apple might be banking on that as the thing that keeps people paying more for other systems. I can’t imagine using 8GB RAM in 2026, tbh, but again, it all comes down to workflows.