Apple’s Budget MacBook May Have a Suffix After All
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It’s already been a fun-filled week of Apple announcements, but if all the reports are true, Apple is saving its most interesting product for last. By now, there’s almost no doubt at all that Apple is about to unveil a lower-cost MacBook, and, thanks to the rumor mill, none of the bookies are giving any real odds on what to expect from it.
Still, there’s always room for Apple to throw us a curveball. Even after all the specs have come out via the supply chain and other leaky sources, there’s at least one card the company always holds close to its vest: the name for its new products.
Perhaps the biggest surprise was when Apple came out with the iPhone X in 2017, but it also pulled a similar trick with the Apple Vision Pro, which even the most reputable sources had expected to be dubbed the “Reality Pro.”
That said, sometimes even Apple can’t keep things completely under wraps. The iPhone 16e name leaked out a few weeks ahead of its launch, and while the iPhone Air was more a matter of educated speculation, Apple still managed to give it a slight twist by omitting the number.
The same logic that telegraphed the iPhone Air name led to the assumption that the new budget laptop would simply be the ‘MacBook’ — sans suffix.
After all, there’s plenty of precedent for that. Even though Apple has blurred the lines before with the 12-inch MacBook and original 2008 MacBook Air, the fact that the iPad family fits into three neat tiers of iPad, iPad Air, and iPad Pro gave us lots of reason to believe the MacBook family would go the same route. However, it seems Apple has something more whimsical in mind.
Enter the ‘MacBook Neo’
In an ironic twist, the name of this week’s MacBook leaked not from the usual supply chain or other insider sources, but from a gaffe by Apple itself.
Earlier today, the folks at MacRumors spotted a regulatory document on Apple’s website for a “MacBook Neo” with a model number of A3404. The document itself has naturally vanished, but not before MacRumors grabbed it and shared a copy.
While the name doesn’t appear in the actual document, the link from Apple’s website labelled it as “MacBook Neo (Model A3404),” sandwiched between the 13-inch MacBook Air and 14-inch M5 Pro MacBook Pro, both of which were announced earlier today.
There’s a very slight possibility that this is simply a placeholder for an internal Apple codename, but it would be a much bigger slip-up for it to appear on the public-facing website. It’s more likely that someone simply jumped the gun and published an otherwise final link a day too soon.
If accurate — and it seems odd that this would have appeared on Apple’s own website otherwise — this would be the first time Apple has used a new suffix for a MacBook or iPad since 2008, when Steve Jobs famously introduced the “Air” moniker by pulling the company’s ultra-slim executive laptop out of a manila envelope at Macworld San Francisco.
The MacBook Air began its life as a very pricey luxury laptop, but by 2011 it had replaced the standard “MacBook” in the lineup, leaving only two tiers. Apple experimented with bringing back the suffixless name in 2015 with a new 12-inch MacBook that felt more like a return to the 2008 strategy than a lower tier. The “Air” designation also meant a couple of different things for the iPad family over the years, and it wasn’t until 2019 that Apple settled into a three-tier lineup for its tablets.
Still, for the better part of the past 15 years, there have been two MacBook families: the MacBook Air as the entry level, and the MacBook Pro on the higher end. That could all change tomorrow, but it looks like the new laptop won’t be a return to Apple’s roots, but the start of a whole new era.
[The information provided in this article has NOT been confirmed by Apple and may be speculation. Provided details may not be factual. Take all rumors, tech or otherwise, with a grain of salt.]
