‘The case for an Ultralight Mac’
David Sparks, aka MacSparky, published a blog post in which he contends Apple should make an ultralight Mac laptop fitted with Apple silicon inside. Mac fans like him rightly proclaim such a computer would be the long-awaited successor to the beleaguered but beloved 12” MacBook, introduced in 2015 alongside the OG iPad Pro.
Sparks longs not for “the MacBook [Neo] for everyone,” but the esoteric Mac for few.
“The MacBook Neo is here, and it’s already obvious it will be a massive hit for Apple. People are going to buy so many of these. It will be transformative and bring lots of new users into the Apple ecosystem,” he said. “But I want to talk about what the Neo isn’t. If you’ve been waiting for Apple to make a truly ultralight Mac, something more premium, smaller, and yes, more expensive, the Neo isn’t that machine. The Neo is about accessibility and volume. It’s the MacBook for everyone… I want the other thing.”
Famously, the MacBook Air in 2008 was positioned as a premium, ultralight laptop.
Although I’d love to get my hands on a MacBook Neo, count me in with Sparks’ feelings here on wanting a true MacBook successor. In the five years of its life (2015–2019), I lusted hard after that thing; each and every time I’d visit an Apple Store, I’d make a beeline for the MacBook table and gawk at its diminutive figure. For a time in college working towards my (unfinished) degree in Early Childhood Studies, I toted around the 11.6” MacBook Air, first introduced in late 2010. I have a vivid memory of sitting down at my group’s table one night in English class and pulling the MacBook out of my backpack and the girl across from me asking incredulously “That’s your computer?!”
The 12” MacBook refined that form to its Platonic ideal. The MacBook Neo refines nothing in this regard, rather astonishing sheerly for price and value proposition.
The original MacBook Air cost $1799. The 12” MacBook cost $1299. It’s not unusual for smaller and denser things to carry premium price tags because it’s actually harder to engineer things to fit nicely and correctly within smaller spaces (yay, physics). In contemporary times, look no further for evidence than the 9-month-old iPhone Air. I have one as my everyday phone this year, choosing it precisely for its thin-and-light profile. As a smartphone, it’s no slouch, but remains objectively worse than the iPhone 17 and 17 Pro; most meaningfully worse is economical—the Air is, at $999, $200 more expensive than the base iPhone 17 ($799). Ah, but therein lies the rub: you, like I did, paid the price because you prioritized thinness and lightness. Maybe $999 is beyond your wallet’s ken, and that’s okay, but it doesn’t detract from the core of my contention.
Consider the object lesson here. I love the Air despite knowing it’s a technologically inferior product compared to its brethren on a spec sheet. I accept that trade-off because I so adore the size. Likewise, I’d relish an opportunity to get my hands on the 12” MacBook’s progeny primarily because of its svelteness. Indeed, from an accessibility perspective, the benefits (for me, anyway) would be similar to those of my iPhone Air: a “good enough” computer whose greatest attribute is how I accessibly carry it to and fro. However splendid the MacBook Air and Neo are in their own rights, their dimensions—pointedly its 2.7lb weight—makes them heifers by comparison.
The salient point? A revived 12” MacBook (and iPhone Air) are in classes all their own.
Apple watchers can, and undoubtedly do, engage in spirited, nerdy debates over whether Apple should, or would, expand the MacBook lineup once more to accommodate an ultralight. That’s valid. In an accessibility context, though, equally valid is the conclusion a new 12” MacBook would redefine the Mac’s accessibility story.
