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.
@xgranade @glyph my first thought about the Neo was that Apple is using an iPhone chip and amount of RAM/storage it can squeeze into an iPhone for a laptop: there’s no reason other than siphoning money out of its users not to make the iPhone a primary computing device.
Instead of the Neo they could just let the iPhone do double-duty as a desktop. Sell a USB-C Dock to connect to a monitor, keyboard and mouse, let the phone run full applications.
The Neo is just proof that the iPhone is artificially hobbled as a device.
@jzb @xgranade @glyph the relevant iPhone has just 8GB of RAM: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_A19
adding more ram would increase cost by adding another sku etc etc
Cassandra is only carbon now
Joe Brockmeier
kouhai, of the health issues