Link: https://www.techspot.com/news/112127-if-apple-built-299-neo-desktop-pc-windows.html

Crystal ball: Let's be clear upfront: there is no Mac Neo desktop. No leak, no supply chain [rumour], no analyst note. What follows is conjecture – but conjecture worth taking seriously, because the pieces are sitting right there on Apple's workbench.

An interesting thought experiment, but the $300 price is not realistic for any company other than SBCs makers (let alone Apple).

I also feel desktop computing is fundamentally a different sort of experience where there is a bigger emphasis on flexibility (both in terms of hardware and the software platform).

Eh, the $300 Mac Mini Neo already exists since a decade. It was called a NUC before Intel stopped producing them. Now its Mini-PCs made predominantly by chinese companies like Minisforum and the like. I built my father a NUC barebone for under 300€ like 8 years ago. It has a shitty celeron with 4 cores which boosts to like 2ghz, 8gb of ram and a 256gb sata ssd. When i visit him and do a bit of support on the system i'm surprised again and again how snappy this old ass shitbox feels.

Apple is big enough they could definitely do a $300 box if they wanted to

They wouldn't get their usual margin perhaps, but remember the neo macbooks are primarily a way of them using up a large number of processors that otherwise don't have a product to go in, created as a side effect of their main product line.

Mac desktop users (and frankly, many average consumers) don't seem to care about flexibility, because they already have the fairly successful mini and studio desktop lines which have very little flexibility out of the factory compared to a regular desktop.

I can definitely see schools and offices wanting to take them up on a cheap desktop, so it's not like the volume of sales isn't there. I think the main thing stopping it, based on some of the reports following the MacBook neo launch, is they might not have enough of the dud iPhone chips to meet demand. Of course, spinning up a whole manufacturing run to make chips for Neo machines defeats the entire purpose of them existing in the first place, so maybe they wouldn't want to stretch the resource by asking more SKUs that use it.

Apple is already rumored to be running out of the binned iPhone chips they’re using for the Neo due to high demand.

If they can make entire laptop and sell it for $500, they can absolutely remove the screen, keyboard, trackpad and battery and sell it for $300.

That's not correct.

1. The purpose of the Neo device is to create an entry level option and get people into Apple's ecosystem. Same as the iPhone 16e.
2. They can just...make more chips. They are already working on the Neo successor. It wasn't just a "one and done" product.

That would be interesting. An ARM mini PC would benefit from being both small and running cool/quiet, both something that mini PCs need. Imagine how small it'd be with an external power supply? You could make it the size of a thick iPhone, but a bunch of ports and a passive cooler. That'd be sweet actually.

MS only cares about the consumer market enough to get people used to using Windows.

They've captured the business market, full stop.

This will have zero impact on Windows, especially since mini pc's have been ubiquitous in the enterprise for years now

They already made it - called the Apple TV. They should make a $200-$400 mini PC with no fans. You can choose tvOS or macOS, and either way it makes an awesome gaming console with 4 forward usb-c ports. They’ve done alright with mobile gaming and they could really make a dent in the console market if they tried. Aside from that it would be a great home server or even a desktop PC.

this article is slop

You can choose tvOS or macOS

That will never happen, because then they couldn't sell you a TV box and a desktop machine.

I’m still waiting for a MacBook/iPad hybrid.

Exactly.