^{Pic is randomly found on the internet of some lucky students opening their new MacBook Neo.}^

For the last several months, reps from Apple Education have been courting our district to make a transition from Windows PCs and Chromebooks to MacBooks and iPads.

The plan has been floated as being done in phases, starting with moving our teachers from their current Dell Latitude 3520 to MacBook Air in the fall of 2027 (one year from now). Then, the following year, we would begin to get students off of Chromebooks and moving to iPads (with MacBook Neo at the high school level).

We already have the infrastructure and MDM in place (we have a few hundred Macs in the district already), and have been in discussions about offering professional learning/training to teachers so they may learn how to best use these devices in the classroom. There is a lot of excitement and energy around using Apple technology for teaching and learning in ways that haven't been possible with our current Windows PCs or Chromebooks.

But the price changes of the last six months have significantly weakened our ability to pursue this model.

Six months ago, Apple quoted us ~$850 per base model of MacBook Air (purchased in bulk, with educational pricing). Today, they're quoting us $1,160 each. This does not include the cost for four years of AppleCare+ (now $245 per device).

We have been trying to approach this from the perspective of total cost of ownership and discussions about financing, but the sticker shock is significant enough that it has scared the school board. Making this move to Apple devices now puts us more than $1M over budget. We cannot justify such a change; taxpayers will not go for it (and for good reason).

The entire project could be scrapped for lower cost Windows laptops. Teachers are currently using Dell Latitude 3520, and we are being pressed to consider Dell Pro Essential 14 with 16GB RAM (which come in at about $850, about what Apple was quoting us previously for MacBook Air).

I understand the pricing situation is not limited to Apple, but if our district's intention to move to Apple is to come to fruition, we will have to change our plan for a proposed teacher device.

Our Apple Education rep is suggesting we pivot to providing MacBook Neo for teachers. We aren't against this, but I have concerns about the limitation of only 8GB of RAM. Whichever device that is chosen needs to remain sufficient for teachers for the next four years. Further, the limitations of connecting to only one external display presents additional challenges.

Apple has provided us a quote for MacBook Neo at $640/ea., with four years of AppleCare+ at $175 per device.

Would the MacBook Neo really be sufficient for our needs? I would feel much more comfortable if it had 16GB of RAM, but I anticipate if that change ever happens, it'll carry yet another price increase and retain the one external monitor limitation.

We are preparing to conduct a pilot of the MacBook Neo against the Dell Pro Essential 14 (16GB RAM, built-in HDMI) as a device for teachers. If the MacBook Neo, its 8GB of RAM and other limitations are too much, we will unfortunately have to abandon our plan to use Apple devices at our district.

Given the price increases, is there not a Mac configuration that could fit between the Neo and the Air? Would the Neo still be a sufficient tool for classroom teachers four years from now? Or would the Dell Pro Essential 14 with 16GB of RAM be the best choice?

I’m not necessarily looking for a solution; I’m mainly just frustrated with the situation.

tl;dr: We have been priced out of issuing MacBook Air to teachers; our Apple rep is suggesting MacBook Neo for teachers to use for the next four years. Will that be sufficient? How will it compare to a Dell Pro Essential 14 with 16GB of RAM?

I have a matte hard protector on my laptop, along with two palm rest protectors, a touchpad protector, and a keyboard cover. This is my first MacBook, and honestly, I love it so far! For the price, the MacBook Neo is a really great laptop. It runs smoothly, looks great, and does everything I need it to. Definitely worth the money, especially for someone getting their first MacBook!

IMO, we’ll get an iPad Pro M6 instead. Maybe Apple will allow some macOS features to be used on it, or maybe they won’t do anything at all.

A regular MacBook with a touchscreen is a nightmare. On Windows laptops, it’s a useless feature unless they’re 360-degree convertibles. On a Mac, at least you’ll be able to run iPad and iPhone apps, but how are you supposed to use them when the display is just like a traditional MacBook’s? Turn it upside down and buy a stand to hold the bottom case in place? What kind of cringe is that? Although, knowing Apple and its mouse design, I wouldn’t put it past them.

What do you guys think?

It's not if, but when a market correction happens. Hope when datacenter fever ends Apple will reflect this by rebalancing Mac line prices, especially as unupgradeable machines.

In my collection of Macs I have two G3 Pismo PowerBooks, a Titanium G4 PowerBook, a 15-in G4 PowerBook, a 12-in G4 PowerBook, a 2008 15-in MacBook Pro, All of these are working machines. I also have a couple of more modern ones.

They are a 2024 15-in M3 MacBook Air with 512 GB storage and 16 GB memory plus a base model MacBook Neo.

Outside of the likely OLED and touchscreen additions, the other mentioned changes via sources is a redesign of the chassis to be a “lighter and slightly thinner design”

It is generally well documented that the Max chip specifically runs hot and throttles significantly in the current 14” chassis and the 16” isn’t immune either to overdrawing more power than the charger can provide at times.

So it’s very possible Apple will have some kind of improved cooling but considering we’re less than 24 hours out and there’s been zero rumor or talk of any kind of improved cooling, is a redesigned chassis to be slimmer on a laptop already pushing a lot of power not a red flag to anyone? Especially at the rumored increased prices?

October 26, 2026 security release addressed 329 unique security vulnerabilities across its operating systems, resulting in a staggering 1,265 combined CVE listings due to cross-platform bugs. The latest update, macOS Golden Gate 27.2, patches a substantial portion of these flaws alongside sister updates like iOS 27.2. [1, 2, 3, 4]

With so much rain why nobody did get wet?

I checked all my money still there..

In the age of AI nothing is real.

It may have been the result of an unrealised pull but even if it was I’m sure it was a very light pull. It is still charging but kinda wobbly at the intersection of the cable and cable housing. My biggest concern is if it will eventually get very loose and may pull out though I don’t think it’s gonna cause short circuit or anything, I do have a spare Samsung original c to c so should I switch to that or see how long this lasts?

Any outstanding orders have basically got early access to pre orders it looks like! Was originally M5 so that’s good they’ve done that. Would’ve been brutal if they didn’t. I’ll take the extra few days wait 👨🏼‍💻

I'm trying to find ways to save money and after this weird update from microsoft (it wouldn't let me login to use word, excel, etc. with the right credentials, then a couple days later I tried and it worked)... This made me consider why I'm paying >$100/year to a service that I don't use often enough. Am curious if other people have ditched this and if you used any other app (e.g text edit, etc.) or even google drive that was worthwhile. Also if you made the switch, were you still able to access your previous documents and edit them on drive for example? Or how did you transition any docs if you had to?

As the title states, I just installed Office 2024 on my Mac, and I have no use for the aforementioned applications. I was under the assumption that Office 2024 included only Excel, PowerPoint, and Word.

Regardless, is there a safe way to remove them without causing annoying errors, especially with Microsoft AutoUpdate? It’s not necessarily ruining my life, but if there’s a way to remove them without making my Mac implode, I’d love to do so (especially Teams and OneDrive).

I bought my MacBook m4 air in March this year and my battery health was at a 100% at the start of the month. Now, at the end of it, it shows it to be 96%

I use this laptop for about 7-9 hours every day, mostly plugged in to my desk. I am super concerned yet but I was surprised to see that 100% drop to 96% under 2 weeks.

Is this normal? I know it's too early, but do you think I'll have to get my battery replaced in a year?

...even though it’s a big download, it doesn’t seem to use any more space once it’s installed.

These screenshots are from my M1 MacBook Pro taken right before downloading/installing 27.2 and after. macOS storage itself is actually ~1 GB less.

The interesting thing here is the ~11 GB drop in my System Data. It seems like a win, but it’s actually cosmetic. For whatever reason, macOS 27.0.1 was counting purgeable storage as System Data (disk utility said I had 11.3 GB). This is something I don’t remember seeing in Tahoe.

When I installed 27.2 GB, my purgeable storage actually went up (to 31.3 GB) but doesn’t seem to count as System Data any more.

I am not sure because I know apple capped their fps at 120, but if they capped the gpu’s fps or the macbook’s monitor