Apple Taps TSMC For Fresh A18 Pro Silicon To Double MacBook Neo Production

It’s no secret that Apple’s $599 MacBook Neo has been a hit for general productivity workflows and as a Chromebook replacement, but in a recent financial results report, Tim Cook touched on just how unexpectedly high the Neo’s demand was. The outgoing CEO on April 30 confirmed that Apple was supply-constrained on the MacBook Neo, explaining that “we under-called the level of enthusiasm that would be with it.” In a recent report, industry analyst, Tim Culpan claimed that insider sources report that Apple has ordered a fresh production run on the A18 Pro SoC that powers the MacBook Neo from TSMC.

Crucially, getting TSMC to spin up a new production run of the A18 Pro may affect the pricing of the Neo, since its initial production run used rejected A18 Pro SoCs—with a defective GPU core—from the original iPhone 16 Pro smartphones, and a new run of SoCs would mean that Apple would be subject to the same memory supply constraints as the rest of the industry instead of using up old inventory that had already been paid for at a lower price. This news also comes after wild rumors of a potentially incoming MacBook Neo with an A19 Pro from the newer iPhone 17 Pro, replete with a potential 12 GB RAM upgrade. The fresh SoCs from TSMC, however, would allow Apple to reach its new 10 million unit production goal without changing anything about the hardware itself.