With the new MacBook Neo now launched, a question arises: Does Apple intend on repeating the story with a desktop Mac? If it did, what might a sub-$500 Mac be like and what might it cost? You could easily argue that Apple doesn’t need to do this. It already offers three desktop Macs: the Mac Studio, iMac, and Mac mini. With prices starting at $599, the latter can be seen as roughly equivalent to a $599 MacBook Neo, albeit one that runs an M-series Mac processor. At the same time, with the introduction of the MacBook Neo, it is now clear that Apple could accomplish that low-cost Mac everyone in the industry has always dreamed of with a Mac Neo. What would a Mac Neo be? You can easily imagine what a this kind of Mac would look like: A silver box, smaller and lower in height than a Mac mini ,equipped with a pair of USB-C ports, a headphone jack, and A-series chip. 8GB RAM (less than the Mac mini) and likely an initial 256GB of storage. Twin stereo speakers, likely situated to right and left at the front underside of the box. No fan, meaning completely silent operation. Possibly an HDMI port (though I think not, to cut costs) with USB-C interconnects and bridges capable of linking this Mac desktop to most widely available displays — particularly those popular with Windows users. All of this could be made available in a variety of colors, and – in a futile exercise of pulling an imaginary number from thin air on the basis of no component cost insights at all – could cost, say, $399. For that money you get everything in MacBook Neo, without the mouse or the display. That would make it a fine Mac for lots of people, a gateway Mac for others, and a stepping stone to go more deeply into the rest of Apple’s ecosystem for millions of bereft Windows 10 users currently looking for life after Windows 11 . (Plus of course it would run Windows , too.) What could it do? There is no doubt in my mind that an M4 (hopefully soon M5) Mac mini at $599 remains one of the best systems in Apple’s fleet. That, after all, is why they’re selling out across China as next-generation of tech hobbyists grab those Macs to run at-home AI projects. A Mac Neo isn’t for that. But what a Mac Neo would be is something that’s as good at being a Mac as the MacBook Neo has already proved itself to be . If all you need a computer for is writing, reading, and arithmetic, it would be fine. Also, just like the MacBook Neo, such a system would be perfectly able to accomplish more complex tasks, although not as swiftly as Apple’s more advanced configurations. If you wanted a machine for on-site AI, video rendering, or any other more demanding task you’d want to choose another of Apple’s Macs. Along with the rest of Apple’s range and accompanied by MacBook Neo, a Mac Neo would give Apple a one-two punch at the switcher’s market. Enterprise users would also want to consider using systems of this kind – you can imagine these Macs being built inside intelligent signage, conference rooms, and building concierge systems, for example. These things would be affordable enough to use in highly experimental edge use situations, while also delivering enough get-up-and-go to handle everyday computing tasks. Ed Hardy, who has considered the same Mac Neo dream, has a good account of how such a device might be used . Would these devices cannibalize sales of other Macs? It’s possible a Mac new might eat into sales of other Apple hardware, but that’s a small price to pay for the kind of market dominance Apple could unleash. Even if it were cannibalizing sales of some Apple desktops, a Mac Neo would represent a perfect stop-gap for Windows switchers eager to experiment with macOS while they decide on their next operating system upgrade. Like the Mac mini, you’d use your own existing mouse, display, and keyboard, and if you found you liked macOS, you might even be able to trade in a Mac Neo for credit toward the cost of a more powerful M-series Mac. It’s also easy to imagine business users deploying these to support on-site office and admin functions as part of a wider Windows replacement scheme. Ultimately, it’s a move that would grow Apple’s share of the desktop OS market, which would in its own way bring more people into Apple’s wider ecosystem and the services it provides. That’s not to say it’s necessarily going to happen. But if it did, it’s easy to paint a story like this, and it is important to recognize the extent to which Apple’s move to widen its addressable market this way would owe everything to Apple Silicon . It means that the cost of entering the Apple ecosystem continues its dramatic decline , making computers for the rest of us available to all of us. Please follow me on Twitter, or join me in the AppleHolic’s bar & grill and Apple Discussions groups on MeWe. Also, now on Mastodon .