After a week of product announcements—starting with the iPhone 17e, a refreshed iPad Air, and more powerful MacBook Pro models—Apple has unveiled a new category in its laptop lineup for the first time in a while: the “MacBook Neo.”

Positioned below the MacBook Air as an entry-level machine, this new MacBook is the most affordable laptop the company has ever made, with a starting price of $599. While it’s been possible to buy a new MacBook Air at lower prices—like the 2020 M1 MacBook Air Apple sold for several years for $699 exclusively through Walmart—this is officially the cheapest MacBook out the gate.

Aside from the price, its approach to color also makes it unique among the other MacBooks in Apple’s lineup. You have several color options, including Silver, Indigo, Blush, and Citrus. The colors harken back a bit to the iBook G3 of yesteryear and are akin to the current iMac design. In person, the colors aren’t a bright and bold as expected, still exhibiting a more subtle hue. Apple says the aluminum device weighs 2.7 pounds, which is the same as the 13-inch MacBook Air. We’re still waiting on official measurements on the thickness.

Despite its price, Apple doesn’t appear to be cutting corners on the quality of the screen. With a resolution of 2408 by 1506 and up to 500 nits of brightness, Apple boasts that it is “both brighter and higher in resolution than most PC laptops in this price range.” The display doesn’t use a notch for the webcam like the MacBook Air or MacBook Pro. There’s a 1080p camera, a Touch ID sensor, and side-firing speakers with Dolby Atmos. Unfortunately, the Touch ID sensor is only available on the $699 model, which comes with 512 GB of storage.

The MacBook Neo does make plenty of other concessions to hit its aggressive price though. It’s powered by the A18 Pro chip—the same processor inside the iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max. Yup—you read that right. iPads have used Mac chips for years, but now a MacBook is using an iPhone chip. Still, this processor should deliver more power than the original M1 chip in the MacBook Air. Apple claims the chip gives the MacBook Neo up to 16 hours of battery life. That’s less than the MacBook Air or MacBook Pro. Apple also says the chip is up to 50 percent faster in daily tasks like web browsing than “the bestselling PC with the latest chipping Intel Core Ultra 5.” According to the liner notes, this was based on a Speedometer test, a popular browser-based benchmark.

Other compromises to the device are the use of a mechanical multi-touch trackpad (rather than one that uses haptic feedback), a non-backlit keyboard, and the more limited port selection. The use of the iPhone chip means this MacBook only supports one external monitor through one if its two USB-C ports. Either port can be used for charging. There’s also a headphone jack, located in an odd position next to the side-firing speakers near the front of the device. While technically this is the same amount of USB-C ports as the MacBook Air, it’s missing the magnetic MagSafe 3 charging port, which frees up one of the USB-C ports.

Initially, Gorham used his brain-computer interface for single clicks, Oxley says. Then he moved on to multi-clicks and eventually sliding control, which is akin to turning up a volume knob. Now he can move a computer cursor, an example of 2D control—horizontal and vertical movements within a two-dimensional plane.

Over the years, Gorham has gotten to try out different devices using his implant. Zafar Faraz, a field clinical engineer for Synchron, says Gorham directly contributed to the development of Switch Control, a new accessibility feature Apple announced last year that allows brain-computer interface users the ability to control iPhones, iPads, and the Vision Pro with their thoughts.

In a video demonstration shown at an Nvidia conference last year in San Jose, California, Gorham demonstrates using his implant to play music from a smart speaker, turn on a fan, adjust his lights, activate an automatic pet feeder, and run a robotic vacuum in his home in Melbourne, Australia.

“Rodney has been pushing the boundaries of what is possible,” Faraz says.

As a field clinical engineer, Faraz visits Gorham in his home twice a week to lead sessions on his brain-computer interface. It’s Faraz’s job to monitor the performance of the device, troubleshoot problems, and also learn the range of things that Gorham can and can’t do with it. Synchron relies on this data to improve the reliability and user-friendliness of its system.

In the years he’s been working with Gorham, the two have done a lot of experimenting to see what’s possible with the implant. Once, Faraz says, he had Gorham using two iPads side by side, switching between playing a game on one and listening to music on the other. Another time, Gorham played a computer game in which he had to grab blocks on a shelf. The game was tied to an actual robotic arm at the University of Melbourne, about six miles from Gorham’s home, that remotely moved real blocks in a lab.

Gorham, who was an IBM software salesman before he was diagnosed with ALS in 2016, has relished being such a key part of the development of the technology, his wife Caroline says.

“It fits Rodney’s set of life skills,” she says. “He spent 30 years in IT, talking to customers, finding out what they needed from their software, and then going back to the techos to actually develop what the customer needed. Now it’s sort of flipped around the other way.” After a session with Faraz, Gorham will often be smiling ear to ear.

Through field visits, the Synchron team realized it needed to change the setup of its system. Currently, a wire cable with a paddle on one end needs to sit on top of the user’s chest. The paddle collects the brain signals that are beamed through the chest and transmits them via the wire to an external unit that translates those signals into commands. In its second generation system, Synchron is removing that wire.

“If you have a wearable component where there’s a delicate communication layer, we learned that that’s a problem,” Oxley says. “With a paralyzed population, you have to depend on someone to come and modify the wearable components and make sure the link is working. That was a huge learning piece for us.”

A judicial review against the Home Office’s electronic visa (eVisa) system will argue that the department’s refusal to issue alternative proof of immigration status in the face of persistent data quality and integrity issues is unlawful.

On 31 December 2024, the immigration documents of millions of people living in the UK expired after being replaced by the Home Office with a real-time, online-only immigration status.

While the department has been issuing eVisas for several years – including to European Union (EU) citizens who applied to the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) after Brexit, those applying for Skilled Worker visas, and people from Hong Kong applying for the British National (Overseas) visa – paper documents have now been completely phased out.

Instead, people are now expected to use a UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) digital account to generate “share codes”, which they must use to prove their immigration status when dealing with a range of third parties, including employers, letting agencies and landlords.

Despite persistent data quality and integrity issues plaguing the system since its inception, current Home Office policy means the eVisa system is the only way people can prove their lawful residence in the UK and evidence their associated rights and entitlements.

Two unnamed individuals affected by the system – a recognised refugee and survivor of trafficking, and a vulnerable adult – were previously granted permission to proceed with a judicial review against the Home Office in October 2025, with the Cardiff Administrative Court noting it is in the public interest for the legality of the Home Office’s policy to be determined.