According to Cailian Press, Apple is considering discontinuing the entry-level MacBook Neo priced at $599. The move is driven by a critical shortage of A18 Pro chips and a sharp rise in manufacturing costs. The MacBook Neo’s low-price strategy relied on using surplus high-quality A18 Pro chips left over from iPhone 16 Pro production, which significantly cut down material expenses. Now that this inventory has run out, Apple must place new orders directly with TSMC; however, the foundry’s advanced-node production capacity is nearing its limits, forcing Apple to pay a substantial premium for extra chips. Further supply-chain reports indicate that TSMC plans to raise prices for all 3-nanometer chips by roughly 15% later this year, followed by another 10% hike next year. Since the A18 Pro chip is manufactured via TSMC’s 3-nanometer process, these price hikes are putting additional pressure on the already slim profit margins of the MacBook Neo. At present, monthly output at TSMC’s primary 3-nanometer plant, Fab 18, has climbed from around 130,000 wafers at the start of the year to between 160,000 and 175,000 units in Q2. Yet demand for 3-nanometer chips remains far ahead of this expansion, given that major cloud-service firms such as NVIDIA, AMD, and Google have all heavily invested in this technology.
Should Apple decide to halt production of the entry-level model, the MacBook Neo’s starting price would effectively jump from $599 to $699—an increase exceeding 16%. This shift would deal a significant blow to a product long marketed as Apple’s budget-friendly option. Additional reports suggest Apple is also weighing the possibility of having Intel manufacture part of the upcoming A27 chipsets for future MacBook Neo models. Such a move would lessen Apple’s reliance on TSMC and ease current supply constraints; should it materialize, this would mark Apple’s most concrete step yet toward reducing its dependence on TSMC for chip fabrication.