Everyone has a MacBook Neo take, so here's mine.
Apple has, in my opinion, been a net negative for computing, and to a stunning degree. They've normalized DRM for software so completely that it will possibly take decades to get back the rights that we lost. They've used that power to make life worse for queer folks and to cozy up to the Trump administration.
But. There's something fascinating about the Neo.
@glyph made the point that the Neo is an implicit promise from Apple that macOS will run just fine on 8 GB of memory for the next 8 years.
But I think it goes farther than that: Apple made a reference device for application developers. They've never been shy about enforcing requirements on developers, and this is an interesting positive side to that: developers now have a huge incentive to make applications that fit within modest memory limits.
Put differently: this is the Electron killer, for better or worse, and not in the way that Apple killed Flash.
When PCs ship with 8 GB or less of RAM, application companies don't give a fuck, and so we get a proliferation of Electron and Electron-like platforms that consume gigantic amounts of RAM. That won't fly on something like the Neo.
@xgranade I agree in principle, but in my head the dialogue at Apple goes more along the lines of "_our_ apps and the services they consume will run fine in 8 GB, but Spotify? _that's_ gonna run like a dog, heehee".
But it's been so long since I've been in the orchard I don't even know if that's the case... But I would expect Apple Music to be a native app relative to the competition as an example.
I think most will simply suffer..given social and tech inertia and barriers to switching.
@scott I don't even entirely disagree, but I have complex feelings on that. I don't think Apple for one moment is doing any of this out of users' best interests — if this makes it harder for 3P services like Spotify, so much the better for Apple, as you say.
At the same time, I have zero sympathy for Spotify and others in a similar spot — they made the problem for themselves by making an incredibly inefficient app in the first place.
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