Take

You know, I wish I had a nickel for every time somebody asked me that. "Why doesn't Apple offer a stripped-down Mac that's more affordable?"

During the past 15 years, the world has been obsessed with two questions: Would Steve Jobs have done that? and Would Jony Ive have done that?

With MacBook Neo, I'm not even vaguely certain what the answer is. But refreshingly, I'm feeling that they are the least interesting questions to ask, and I am certain that it is a move in the right direction.

It is a machine that is full of compromises. The compromises that are necessary to take a design obsession bordering on high-falutin and taking it down to a machine that does bread and butter things well and doesn't break the bank.

Let's leave the software malaise aside for a moment, hard as that might be; the Neo is a scrappy assemblage of parts, that is trying to find a new route to what Apple considers acceptable, and that is a sign of health. If the A18 Pro SoC has to implement a USB 2.0 interface by, for all I can tell, bit-banging it using spare resources to be able to offer a second USB port, that's charming (in a first generation product).

Although Apple is not strangers to surprising compromises, these are all made with intention, and strike a balance of working for the customer's interest. Doing things that shave resources and complexity off of construction, not because people don't value haptic trackpads and keyboard backlights, but because there's simply a time and a place for everything, and some customers at some point in their life appreciate other tradeoffs than the ones Apple is apt to make for its more natural price points.

Things to look out for in the next-generation product, as further signs of health: a "lowercase" M chip or an "enlightened" A chip that has more functionality built into it, and maybe an additional few GBs of memory, to be a more direct fit for this type of product.

It is not a perfect product. That's what's good about it. It's a product borne of a mature and confident knowledge of the usual standards, and respectfully considering how a different set of circumstances could affect those standards. Without huffiness, belittling and drama, with humor, with heart, with empathy. More of that, please.