This week on the Cult of Mac podcast: The MacBook Neo is the obvious star that emerged from this week’s tsunami of Apple product announcements. Its potent combo of good looks, surprisingly good performance and an extremely appealing price tag makes it a powerful lure for bringing new people into the Apple world.

We discuss the new laptop’s strong points — as well as some definite drawbacks.

Also on the Cult of Mac podcast:

• The brawny M5 Pro and M5 Max chips in the latest MacBook Pros sound absolutely mind-blowing.
• The iPhone 17e looks like a great upgrade to Apple’s budget handset.
• The new Airs (iPad and MacBook) also seem great, if not that surprising.
• And we wrap up the show with the results from last week’s predictions game.

Listen to this week’s episode of the Cult of Mac podcast in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!) Or watch the video live stream, embedded below.

The Mag 3 Ultra 3-in-1 foldable charger from Adam Elements can power your iPhone, AirPods and Apple Watch at the same time. It’s perfect for travel — or anywhere, really — and it’s on sale for just $87 (regular price $109).

March 7, 1989: Apple introduces the Macintosh Portrait Display, a 15-inch vertical grayscale monitor designed to show full pages on a single screen. Intended for word processing and desktop publishing, the $1,099 monitor (plus $599 for an additional video card to run it) works with any Macintosh.

Something of a rarity today, the Macintosh Portrait Display is an early example of the supersized displays Apple would release years later.

The recently introduced high-end M5 MacBook Pro may be a spec bump update before the M6 models bring radical new changes. But before you commit to sitting this generation out, you should know the M6 models will likely come with some caveats.

An all-new design with new features (like a slimmer chassis and touch screen) usually brings with it an all-new price that’s higher than before. If you’re holding out for the M6 Pro or Max models, you may be waiting for longer than you expect. And if you’re just getting the base model, well, the rumored changes may not come at all. 

This isn’t pure speculation; Apple has a proven track record of pulling all these tricks. Here are three reasons why the M5 MacBook Pro may actually be the better choice for you.

You can stop worrying whether the new entry-level MacBook Neo is too slow to be useful. The first benchmark scores are out, and they confirm that Apple’s low-cost notebook offers all the performance needed by average computer users, even though it is powered by an A18 Pro chip with 8GB of RAM.

The computer is actually faster than a MacBook Pro model still widely in use. Here’s the proof.

The standout feature of the new MacBook Neo is its $599 price, but it seems a great many buyers are willing to pay more than that. Apple is already running out of pre-launch stock of the variant that comes with additional storage capacity, even though it adds 17% to the price.

Plus, there’s a standout color option. Only one of the four is popular enough that both the 256GB and 512GB version is already sold out.

Coach Lasso’s right-hand man Coach Beard returns in upcoming season four of fan-favorite soccer comedy Ted Lasso, and Apple TV dropped a quick clip Friday seemingly confirming a main plot line. They will coach a Richmond women’s soccer team this season. 

“Same Beard. New book,” said the short video’s caption. The book’s title? Soccer Women.

The bold, unconventional name of Apple’s new entry-level laptop — MacBook Neo — surprised just about everyone, including many folks who expected the simple moniker “MacBook.” And it turns out the reasoning behind “Neo” is just as vivid as the laptop’s color palette, according to a new report.

Adam Elements’ Vionta Q10 is an ultra-slim, 10,000mAh magnetic power bank that can keep your iPhone topped off all day long. But it’s more than just a Qi2 battery pack. It can deliver 30W to a second device via its USB-C port.

It comes in three colors (gray, titanium and gold), is airline-approved, and comes with some cool extras. And it’s on sale now for just $62.99 (MSRP $79).

Since Apple introduced Mac Studio in spring 2022, the powerful and compact desktop machine has become a favorite centerpiece for ambitious computer workstations. It’s not hard to see why, considering its amazing design and computing chops. But it is pretty hard to choose the best Mac Studio Studio setups we’ve seen. Yet we’ve done so below, with the top 10 Mac Studio setups. 

March 6, 2008: Apple releases the iPhone software development kit, finally allowing coders to start creating native mobile apps for the new smartphone. The iPhone SDK gives developers the tools they need to unlock the new smartphone’s potential.

When the App Store eventually opens a few months later, a new industry springs up overnight. Third-party devs rush to take advantage of Apple’s lucrative app distribution network.

The first M5 Max benchmarks surfaced online, again showing Apple silicon’s superiority. Early results show the new chip outperforms every other CPU currently on the market.

The Geekbench listing reportedly comes from a 16-inch MacBook Pro powered by the M5 Max.

You can no longer buy an M3 Ultra Mac Studio with 512GB of unified memory from Apple. Instead, the machine can now be configured with a maximum of 256GB of memory.

Apple also raised the price for upgrading the memory from 96GB to 256GB by $400.

Apple just did something that was, until very recently, almost unthinkable: It put a Mac laptop on sale for $599. And, no big surprise, the new MacBook Neo announced Wednesday already sparks concerns among PC mavens about hordes of users rushing to Apple. A new report from Windows land shows it.

“Windows OEMs are going to feel the heat, too,” the commentator wrote. “For years, OEMs have gotten away with shipping what can essentially be described as e-waste in this price bracket.”

To make the new MacBook Neo — Apple’s most affordable laptop yet at just $599 — the company obviously needed to make some compromises. To keep costs down, Apple removed or scaled back several features that come standard on the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro.

Every wise shopper should consider the limitations of the MacBook Neo before jumping on Apple’s fun-looking new laptop.

The new MacBook Neo costs only $499 with Apple’s education discount, which makes a lot of parents excited. They could get a MacBook for their child for under $500!

Problem is, Apple’s educational discount isn’t available for every student. Here’s who can save $100 on a new MacBook… and who can’t. And what you can do to qualify.

March 5, 2012: Apple reaches a staggering milestone, with 25 billion apps downloaded from the iOS App Store. The company celebrates with a giveaway titled the “25 Billion App Countdown.”

The lucky 25 billionth app downloader wins an iTunes gift card worth $10,000.

This weekend Apple TV’s Formula 1 racing content gets into gear, as practice, qualifying and Sprint sessions for the season’s first major Grand Prix race get underway starting Saturday (March 7), Apple said Thursday. Multiview programming, with a handful of live feeds onscreen at the same time, looks like a notable feature for fans in the United States.

“This weekend marks the start of a new era for Formula 1 fans in the U.S.,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Services. “We’re excited to bring every moment of the season to Apple TV, delivering an immersive experience designed entirely around fans.”

If you’re a Mac gamer — or curious about where gaming hardware is heading — Logitech G just launched something genuinely new. Logitech G Pro X2 Superstrike Lightspeed Wireless Gaming Mouse, released in February and now getting positive reviews, replaces the traditional physical click with a sophisticated haptic system that could give serious players a measurable edge.

At $179.99, it’s a premium proposition — but the technology underneath is unlike anything currently on the market.

Oceanhorn 3: Legend of the Shadow Sea just hit Apple Arcade. It’s the sequel to Knights of the Lost Realm, the absolute best role-playing game on Apple’s subscription gaming service.

Seriously, it’s worth it for RPG fans to subscribe the Apple Arcade for a couple of months just to play these two.

Working with multiple apps can make a laptop display feel cramped, but you can add a second screen with this deal on the Mobile Pixels Duex Float 2 Pro. The 16-inch portable display lets you add a snazzy second screen to your setup, wherever you decide to go.

And right now, this well-reviewed second display is on sale for just $279.99 (MSRP $389.99).

Apple’s decision to put an A-series chip in the new MacBook Neo raised more than a few eyebrows. And doubts about its performance.

But comparing the MacBook Neo’s A18 Pro — which debuted a year and a half ago in the iPhone 16 Pro — with previous Mac processors shows that the A-series chip is surprisingly powerful.

The MacBook Neo is Apple’s newest low-end MacBook. Does that mean there’s no reason to buy a MacBook Air anymore? Would power users go straight for the MacBook Pro? I don’t think so. There are still plenty of reasons to buy Apple’s midrange MacBook Air vs. the MacBook Neo.

Apple did a good job differentiating the two computers — there’s no configuration of the Neo that overlaps with the Air. Picking between the two should be straightforward. If you want more than 512GB storage, 8GB of memory or support for multiple external displays, you should opt for the MacBook Air. If you don’t need that much power or high specs, the Neo will do just great for you.

Here are all the differences between the two laptops. 

iOS 26.3.1 is ready to be installed on your iPhone starting Wednesday. Mac users got macOS Tahoe 26.3.1 at the same time. The new versions include bug fixes — which are always welcome. And iPad users can install iPadOS 26.3.1, too.

In addition, all three system software updates bring support for the Apple Studio Display monitors that just launched.

Apple unveiled the affordable MacBook Neo Wednesday — and on the same day Basic Apple Guy made a nifty set of wallpapers available for download. So if you’re not ready to buy the laptop or even wait a week or so for the wallpapers, you can still enjoy the related wallpapers — colorful and highly attainable — on your Mac and iPhone.