- All variants of the MacBook Neo are delayed by 2-3 weeks in the Apple online store
- You’ll also be lucky to pick one up at a brick-and-mortar Apple store in the US, although some stores have stock
- The popularity of the laptop seems to have caught Apple by surprise, and rumors say that supply issues could be a real problem going forward
The MacBook Neo is a victim of its own popularity, it seems, and if you order the notebook online it won’t be delivered for a while – and there are rumblings that Apple will struggle to meet demand going forward.
First, 9 to 5 Mac said that no matter which MacBook Neo configuration (model or color) you choose in Apple’s US online store, there is a 2-3 week wait for the laptop to ship.
Even if you’re headed to a brick-and-mortar Apple store, you most likely won’t be able to buy a MacBook Neo there and then. While availability varies, as you might imagine, you’ll typically wait 3-4 weeks for an in-store pickup to be ready. That said, some stores have available on the day for Neo, if you’re lucky.
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Checking in the UK, I see it’s a similar situation for online orders via the Apple website, although you can pick up a MacBook Neo straight away at most Apple stores in the country. And in Australia, the official Apple store also lists a 3-4 week wait, although some other third-party retailers with brick-and-mortar stores still appear to have some models in stock.
This is where it gets really interesting — in a very tricky way for Apple — because as MacRumors discovered, we’re hearing from a tech writer in Taiwan (a former Bloomberg reporter, Tim Culpan) that the Neo has been much more popular than expected. It has apparently “exceeded expectations” in terms of how quickly the laptop has moved devices, posing a “massive dilemma” for Apple, the writer believes (based on the usual anonymous sources).
The theory is that Apple made A18 Pro chips that could not be used in the iPhone 16 Pro due to a faulty GPU core. Instead of a 6-core GPU as required in the iPhone, these chips only had 5 cores, but were otherwise good – so with the faulty core disabled, they were put into the MacBook Neo.
This is a common strategy for chips that don’t have a specific character, as it avoids wasting silicon. However, this means that Apple only had a certain amount of CPUs based on the shortage of these iPhone chips. That won’t be enough, Culpan informs us, now that sales of the Neo have taken off so strongly, and therefore Apple could be in some hot water here, or so the rumor goes – of course add lots of spice to this claim.
MacRumors also discovered that Culpan expects Apple to have an updated MacBook Neo next year, built around the A19 Pro CPU (the chip in the current iPhone 17 Pro) and equipped with 12GB of system RAM. It will be a useful upgrade from the current 8GB loadout, which while enough for day-to-day use on the Neo, doesn’t look so good in terms of future proofing.
It’s also worth noting that the Mac mini and Mac Studio are now suffering severe delays (months in some cases) when ordered from Apple’s online store – although these delays are reportedly due to the ongoing RAM crisis, rather than demand outstripping supply.
Analysis: Should Apple Get Creative Here?
While these rumors fit together quite nicely, we have to be careful about making too many assumptions. Although there’s clearly a problem with supply not meeting demand for the MacBook Neo, as the laptop’s already long delivery times show.
The question is whether this is more of a shot in the flow of stock to retail, or whether the rumor that the moorings are loosening in the form of a shortage of CPUs for the Neo is actually true. We’ll only know by keeping an eye on MacBook Neo availability and seeing if the current situation continues (or actually gets even worse).
If Apple faces a supply problem with its A18 Pro chips as suggested, the company will either have to live with disappointing its customers – not a good idea, especially given how well the Neo has gone down – or ramp up production of the CPUs (also with the sixth GPU core disabled, because Apple would have to keep the integrated graphics the same as with existing models).
But as Culpan points out, the latter is easier said than done, given how much it will cost to secure manufacturing capacity with TSMC close at hand. It won’t be easy to look at Apple’s bank balance when you consider that margins on Neo are already thin.
There could be creative ways to solve that problem, such as a decision to just produce the more expensive (512GB) model of the Neo, which arguably has a bit more headroom with profit margins. But what Apple doesn’t want to do is lose the momentum it quickly picked up with the Neo, a threat Microsoft seems to recognize in terms of making macOS a more meaningful force in the Windows-dominated world of portable computing.
Again, it all comes back to the MacBook Neo being somewhat of a victim of its own success; and while we can’t jump to conclusions, the theories behind what might unfold here seem plausible enough. Maybe the second generation 12GB model of Neo will be rushed out as soon as possible…
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