'We undercalled the level of enthusiasm': Apple's Tim Cook says supply is constrained for the MacBook Neo, but 'we could not be happier with how things are going at the moment'
The MacBook Neo is an impressive machine in many respects. Beyond the fact that it starts at $599 and makes for a very good productivity laptop (although not so much for gaming), the cheap-but-cheerful machine's popularity appears to have taken even Apple by surprise.
In the Q&A section of the company's recent Q2 2026 earnings call, in which the company reported 17% revenue growth year-over-year, CEO Tim Cook confirmed that the Neo is currently supply-constrained. "We were very bullish on the product before announcing it," said Cook. "But we undercalled the level of enthusiasm."
The outgoing Apple chief highlighted that the device's aim was "focused on getting the Mac to even more people than we were reaching before," which certainly explains the very competitive price tag. "We're very focused on customers new to the Mac and customers that have been holding on to their Mac of a very long period of time."
Beyond regular consumer uptake, Cook said the company was also "seeing school systems like the Kansas City Public Schools" switching from ageing Chromebooks and Windows PCs to the new Neo.
"I'm hearing anecdotally more and more of those kind of stories, both happening at the school system level and at the individual consumer level. And so we could not be happier with how things are going at the moment."
Still, supply constraints appear to be a fly in what is otherwise an excellent-looking ointment for the Cupertino-based giant.
Although reports say the company now aims to produce 10 million units of the affordably-priced machine, Cook's later comments suggest Apple is not entirely immune from the memory crisis affecting the rest of the industry—despite its Unified Memory Architecture tech making the most of smaller RAM amounts.
"In the December quarter, we really had a minimal impact due to memory, and you can kind of see that in the gross margin results," said Cook.
"We said it would be a bit more in the March quarter, and we did see higher memory costs... and they were partially offset by benefits from carry-in inventory that we had," he continued. "For the June quarter... we expect significantly higher memory costs. They are also partly offset by the benefit of carry-in inventory.
"I can tell you that beyond the June quarter, we believe memory costs will drive an increasing impact on our business. And we'll continue to evaluate this," the Apple CEO concluded.
So, despite the very strong financial figures overall and huge demand for its new budget laptop darling, Apple is still managing supply issues like the rest of its competitors. In the meantime, though, it's looking like a bit of a red letter day for the company.
And while it's too early to get the precise sales figures of the newly-launched Neo, they sound like they're going to be very impressive—providing supply can catch up with demand.