macOS Post–MacBook Neo

"I am a little worried that a never-seen-before popularity for the Mac would encourage Apple to make MacOS look and behave more like iOS."

What does he think the last ten years of macOS degradation have been?

“ The people most against Liquid Glass are the people who are really afraid of macOS becoming more closely aligned with iOS and iPadOS, which is perhaps why they’re overindexing on the little things and silly, fixable bugs instead of talking about the larger picture — the Mac is evolving to serve a different audience makeup (wait for the Neo effect), and some people are simply going to be left behind.”

Or it could be that they are just people who don’t fall for that kind of patronizing BS and who would just like that their expensive computer just works, instead of being plagued by millions of bugs.

"Will the Neo help the Mac become a proper gaming platform?"

No.

If there is indeed a Neo effect, it will lead to Apple clamping down even harder on how people are allowed to install software on MacOS.

It's far more likely that steam is banned than MacOS becoming a serious gaming platform.

@Kristoffer I think Neo has the potential to finally make Apple take gaming seriously. There is oodles of money in gaming and Apple needs to look for the next thing that keeps juicing their financials. Might be a good synergy that finally works.

"It's far more likely that steam is banned than MacOS becoming a serious gaming platform."

100% this. Apple makes so much fucking money with gambling on iOS, much of which is packaged inside games. Ain't no way they won't eventually go for this money on Macs, too.

Stop trying to make "Gaming on The Mac" happen. It's not going to happen until the Mac has the GPU paradigm of windows gaming (high performance, and upgradable), or the price paradigm of consoles (relatively cheap, decade long supported lifespans).

What Apple has always offered is (sub)console performance, at PC Master-Race Battlestation prices. That paradigm is never going to work.

The Mac lacks the halo effect high power GPUs (no the M-whatever is not equivalent to an Nvidia xx80) that can crank 60 FPS at 4k or higher in a game engine. Without that high end to hit, and then scale back, there simply isn't a critical mass of GOOD customers for developers to put the effort in.

Here's a dirty secret of the games industry, gamedevs don't like making mobile games. Gamedevs don't like making games for low powered devices - it doesn't let them show off their full potential, it doesn't give them good portfolio pieces. The amount of work that goes into fitting performance into a smaller envelope is hideously expensive. Retaining staff (who make assets and program the engine) is a huge problem when all you can offer is constraints.

I could point you to one of the headline developers for Apple Arcade, whose game development was financed upfront by Apple, whose game was advertised on television by Apple with real human actors in costume from the game, and for whose development the only Mac in the company was a single Mac Mini build server in a cabinet that was used by Unreal on the PC workstations when doing a build-for-device... they've pivoted away from mobile/Apple to PC, Console and Switch, because that's where the sustainable business is.

It's also darkly funny that a midrange laptop for students is an Apple enthusiast idea of a gaming computer.

@Kristoffer

>It's also darkly funny that a midrange laptop for students is an Apple enthusiast idea of a gaming computer.

right? like all the text-editor-using bloggers who didn't understand why anyone would need a Mac Pro. Kids who game portably out of their home will want a Switch, not a "gaming" Mac.

The real joke is that the upgrade cost from a Mac that's a total nonstarter for gaming, to a Mac that's good *for a Mac* for gaming, is often more than the cost of a console that will play games better than the "good" Mac.

Good to see the other commenters already nailing that gaming remark. The mere suggestion that the Neo would have any effect on Mac gaming shows perfectly the misunderstanding at the core of the issue.

Apple already considers itself one of the top gaming companies in the world, and from the definition of gaming as gambling they are correct, they are in fact one of the most profitable casino owners in the world.

Apple’s attitude towards all developers who do not work for Apple (and apparently even some of those) is the real problem.

Apple does not care about gaming, at all. They approach it the same way they approach $500 Apple Watch bands and AirTag holders. They think trotting out Kojima to show off a bad port of an old game makes them somehow makes them look like they’re taking this seriously.

And after that hot take about the gaming remark and reading that final line about macOS being "iOS Developer Edition"...

That explains so much. No, they are not joking. Yes, Apple would get rid of macOS tomorrow in favor of iPadOS if they could. They would keep macOS only for themselves to develop iOS.

Apple has spent the last fifteen years trying to re-write history to make everyone forget that it's possible to use software that is not explicitly blessed by (and paying tribute to) the platform provider.

That's what makes Marco's letter to John Ternus the other day so sad. Even if Ternus does love computers, that's not the issue. Their fundamental philosphy has been to lock down their platform so completely that it is no longer a computer, just a client device to their services.

The target audience for the MacBook Neo is mostly people who literally have never seen a different world, who were young children or not alive at all when the iPhone was released. That's what the Neo effect will be, to further introduce the new generation to the concept of locked down client devices.

Everyone is pushing back on the gaming angle, but I think Plume could be onto something. I wonder if a theme of this year's WWDC will be a revitalization of Catalyst, MAS, IAP, etc. with a refocus on iOS game publishers. The people buying Neos aren't interested in AAA titles, they want quick and lightweight experiences like Monopoly Go.

My naive hope is that a massive influx of new macOS users on low-end hardware will force Apple to seriously invest in fixing all the small papercut-like bugs in macOS and spend engineering resources making optimizing their software to better run on more limited RAM.

One can dream.

"The people buying Neos aren't interested in AAA titles, they want quick and lightweight experiences like Monopoly Go."

No, the people buying Neos are the people who previously would have bought a Macbook for twice as much money but would have preferred to pay less if the option were available. Some of them are people who would have bought a Macbook but couldn't afford one.

That's all. Games won't be a factor in the decision.

I'll weigh in on the gaming topic:

I think many of you are forgetting that people will play games on whatever device they happen to have. Serious gamers will get something like a gaming console or build a gaming PC, but everyone else just uses whatever is convenient.

It's not like the iPhone (and then Android after it) became a huge gaming platform because it had the best graphics hardware. It happened because everyone had one in their pocket and it was easy and convenient. So *if* the MacBook Neo brings a ton of new people into the mac world that's significant enough to make the platform really grow, then we'll see an influx of more games to it, because people will naturally want to play some games on their device. Whether that's significant though depends on the factors I'm going to describe below.

Also, regarding graphics hardware, let's not forget that you don't need the best graphics to make a gaming platform successful. Nintendo proved that with the original Switch, which was notably under-powered compared to its competitors, and it's *still* a popular gaming platform today, even with the Switch 2 already out. Yes, top-of-the-line graphics hardware can do some really interesting stuff, but a lot of games now simply don't require it. And from some very cursory research, it seems like the MacBook Neo's graphics is comparable to a Nintendo Switch 2 or various modern iPhones. That's not going to draw in the crowd that demands the best graphics, but they're not going to game on a MacBook Neo or their phone anyway.

However, with all that said...

It's unclear if the sort of people that buy a MacBook Neo would bother to game on it when they have their phone in their pocket. I get the impression that for a lot of more casual gamers, they just go with their phone or maybe a game console, and don't bother with their computer, regardless of what operating system it's running. The Mac App store might remove some of the friction of installing a game, but their finger or a game controller is a much more intuitive input device for playing a game compared to a trackpad and keyboard.

Also, let's also note that at every stage of the Mac's life going back to the 90s, Apple has completely fumbled every attempt at making the Mac a relevant gaming platform. Given how incredibly developer hostile they are now, that's likely going to continue. A successful gaming platform requires conceding *something* to game developers, especially for platforms that aren't already massively popular like iPhone, and there's no way Apple is going to do that. The iPhone became big for games in spite of all of the obstacles Apple put in the way, just based on its sheer momentum. Obviously the Mac doesn't have that.

Putting that all together... it doesn't seem like the MacBook Neo is going to change much. I suspect that if it makes the Mac platform more popular then there will be an increase of people playing games on the Mac, but not enough to really make a big difference. And Apple's maliciousness towards developers and all of the obstacles they put in the way of making any app at all will continue to dissuade a lot of game devs from bothering to target the Mac. The only way I see it making a difference is if the MacBook Neo is so massively popular that the Mac becomes a huge platform, comparable to iPhone, but that strikes me as unlikely. Only time will tell, though.

A different take on the introduction of a low low end Mac. Apple had to decide if to let go thousands of workers following the lead other US corporations. Or keep them busy by addressing needs of a much increased volume of new customers with very limited disposable income. I would expect driving increased revenues for Apple Watch SE as well. iPhone being too expensive. For the OSs I concur with other commenters. iPad should return to run iOS cum Slide Over. macOS being finally replaced by iPadOS.

@Bri I think you’re right but Apple sends mixed messages.

Why trot out Kojima if they’re satisfied being the Switch? And the Switch works because of a hard core of real gamers/programmers paid and motivated to make great games ON THAT HARDWARE. Sorry for caps but italics isn’t an option.

Apple is incentivizing neither the AAA gaming studios nor the true artists that would make real gaming work.

@Bri I'm hopeful that more users, and possibly more AI agents, will give exposure to accessibility bugs that want fixing. I expect it will ultimately come at a loss of functionality, though, as the great utilitarianisation of macOS continues a pace.

In general, and tangentially gaming-related, but Apple's refusal to do openness is the key reason they can't compete with Windows on price alone with the Neo. Maybe if the platform were a more joyful place for hardware accessory vendors (and their device drivers), and developers could just do whatever the fuck they wanted, and if Apple acknowledged the places where its dogmatic parochialism has failed to win hearts and minds (yes, not supporting open APIs like Vulkan, or even just not doing traditional maximising windows, are arguably roadblocks) then the Neo could represent the start of something big that I would be supportive of. But I just don't see how Apple keeps its self-image while doing those things, because they are Conservative control freaks. So I don't think it'll happen, sadly.

Disclosure: I own a Neo (citrus with Touch ID, since you ask). I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it as a round-the-house laptop, in much the same way that I adored the iPod Touch line. It's cheap, and it's cheerful, and it runs a usable OS.

Why do people keep listening to what Steve Troughton-Smith has to say? His takes are consistently some of the worst possible ones anybody could have.

"Why trot out Kojima if they’re satisfied being the Switch?"

I think that only showed how out of touch they are when it comes to gaming. Yes, Kojima is a big name, but also the game MacOS got was available for free on Epic Game Store.

Yes RE4 is an amazing and important game, but also 19 years old at the time Mac got it. (Plus there's the whole Capcom five thing that shows what a clued in gaming company does when they want clout)

I think apples message is a clear "We do not give a shit about gaming"

> I think apples message is a clear "We do not give a shit about gaming"

I wonder why they even make the half-hearted and half-assed attempts at making it look like they care about gaming on the mac. No one's buying it, and what does it get them?