Apple just dropped a budget MacBook because Windows is recruiting kids

Apple is launching a “MacBook Neo” at a “breakthrough price point,” which is corporate for: we saw Windows AI laptops sniffing around students like a sketchy youth pastor.

This isn’t Apple discovering empathy. This is Apple doing threat assessment.

The pitch is simple. Everyone’s shoving “AI PCs” into the market like it’s vape juice in 2018, and the target is the most predictable demographic on Earth: broke students and price-sensitive buyers who will absolutely marry the first laptop that doesn’t crash during a Google Doc.

Apple’s move is to get you addicted early. If they can hook you on macOS in college, you’ll spend the next decade paying the Apple Tax like it’s tithing. New iPhone. New AirPods. New “you need a dongle to breathe” adapter. The ecosystem isn’t a product line—it’s a gated community with HOA fees.

Apple will say this is about “bringing Apple silicon to more people.”

And Microsoft’s whole thing right now is “AI PC,” which sounds futuristic until you realize it mostly means: your laptop comes preloaded with features you didn’t ask for, running in the background like a Roomba that learned how to read your emails.

Meanwhile, the real win is whoever convinces an 18-year-old that their identity is a keyboard and a logo.