At 50, Apple is finally starting to Think Different

Birthdays are a good time for taking stock: thinking about what you’ve achieved and what you want to do in the future. On the 50th anniversary of Apple’s founding, which falls on the first day of next month, the company’s management will have many things to feel proud about. But the best of all may be the way that, even now, it keeps reinventing itself.

Apple has had lots of slogans over the years, but the one that best represents the company’s early mindset was used in an ad for the original Macintosh. “The computer for the rest of us,” it was called. Apple was never an elitist company; it always wanted to reach beyond the wealthy and the tech-savvy and grasp the mainstream. The problem was that the company’s lofty standards and obsessive attention to detail made it very difficult to deliver a product it could live with at a price most people could stomach.

That’s where the concept of the Apple Tax came from. Apple has simply never been interested in cutting corners in terms of design or user experience, and this gives its products a comparatively high pricing floor. There’s no Apple netbook; there’s no sub-$200 iPhone. The company won’t sacrifice quality, and this means it can’t make a truly cheap product.

I should say at this point, Apple will make some compromises to lower prices, as we saw last year with the iPhone 16e. That handset didn’t have terribly good cameras, it had a reduced-spec processor, and it didn’t get MagSafe, and I personally didn’t agree with the choices made during its development. But the 16e still met the overall standard of quality one would expect from an Apple product. It looked, felt, and behaved like a premium device.

With a big birthday approaching, however, Apple has learned a new trick: delivering affordable products without sacrificing quality. The iPhone 17e, about which I have certain reservations, nevertheless impresses by charging the same $599 as its predecessor while doubling the storage and adding MagSafe. I’d love for the price to drop somewhere closer to the iPhone SE 3, a phone that Apple managed to sell for $429, essentially, by recycling old hardware with only minor updates. The iPhone 17e, by contrast, appears to cram in most of what you’d want from a smartphone into a premium chassis at an affordable, albeit not truly cheap, price.

The new M5 MacBook Air, similarly, plays tricks with pricing in a way that could bring the quality option within reach of far more people. The previous model started at $999, and the new one starts at $1,099. That sounds like a price hike, and many customers will see it that way. But note that the entry-level storage has doubled from 256GB to 512GB. Previously, if you wanted a half-terabyte SSD (and we’ve been very clear that for most people, 256GB isn’t enough), you had to spend $1,199. This is one of those confusing situations where the price has simultaneously gone up and gone down, but the bottom line is that the best model for most people is more affordable now.

But the most obvious example of Apple’s newfound ability to deliver quality at a low price is the MacBook Neo. Like the iPhone 16e, it features a number of compromises, but unlike the 16e, it chooses those compromises wisely. Starting at an unprecedented and totally unexpected $599, yet offering a sturdy design, excellent performance where it matters, a great display, and that same premium feel I mentioned before, the Neo is the perfect gateway Mac and a bit of a miracle.

The MacBook Neo, then, is the computer for the rest of us, the product Apple would have made 50 years ago if it could. The sad thing is that it’s taken this long to get to this point.

“Life’s funny,” says Dominique Bretodeau, a minor character in the 2001 movie Amélie. “To a kid, time always drags. Suddenly, you’re 50. All that’s left of your childhood… fits in a rusty little box.” But for Apple, that box is made of Citrus-tinted aluminum filled with the prospect of something different.

Welcome to our weekly Apple Breakfast column, which includes all the Apple news you missed last week in a handy bite-sized roundup. We call it Apple Breakfast because we think it goes great with a Monday morning cup of coffee or tea, but it’s cool if you want to give it a read during lunch or dinner hours too.

Trending: Top stories

Has it really been 50 years? Tim Cook salutes ‘the crazy ones’ ahead of Apple‘s big anniversary.

Apple’s new MacBook Neo has generated a torrent of opinions, and many aren’t based on facts. Apple-hating tech bros are lying to you.

The Neo is so compelling and future-proof that Apple just created a billion more Mac users.

The Neo is shockingly affordable, but it doesn’t skimp on quality. Steve Jobs would have loved it.

The Neo is the cheapest ever Mac laptop, and it’s not a piece of junk! But don’t worry, says the Macalope. Apple isn’t going all practical.

The Neo has made a splash among manufacturers of Windows PCs too, but they think it’ll be fine. Uh-oh, PC makers are doubting Apple again!

Podcast of the week

We have the new MacBook Neo and we put it through its paces. Is Apple’s new laptop worth your money? Tune in to the latest episode of the Macworld Podcast and find out!

You can catch every episode of the Macworld Podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Soundcloud, the Podcasts app, or our own site.

Reviews corner

The rumor mill

Apple’s folding iPhone ‘Ultra’ could cost under $2,000.

‘Refreshed’ colors reportedly coming to the iMac this year.

Kuo: Touchscreens are coming to MacBook Pro, but not Neo.

HomePad reportedly delayed (again), and it’s all Siri’s fault (again).

Video of the week

Does Touch ID matter? We’ve managed to find something wrong with the MacBook Neo. Enjoy all our short-form video on TikTok or Instagram.