Attitudes to the hugely delayed launch of the new Siri seemed to be split between frustration and resignation. Apple promoted the more intelligent voice assistant in a deleted video ad for the iPhone 16, but it appears it may officially launch alongside the iPhone 18.

Amazon’s Alexa+ service initially looked to be well ahead of Apple, but it too was delayed – and also appears to be failing to deliver on its promises …

Apple hardware design lead Molly Anderson said that the company started from scratch when it came to the process for manufacturing the new MacBook Neo, resulting in far more efficient use of materials.

The company is also reportedly looking to adopt an extremely challenging manufacturing technique for the aluminum chassis of future iPhones and Apple Watch models …

Apple said that it wanted the new MacBook Neo to be seen as a fun new addition to the Mac lineup, and this was reflected in the colors as well as the name.

The new machine comes in a choice of four colors, although admittedly these are less vivid in the aluminum than they appear in photos …

The Cosmic Orange color Apple offered for the iPhone 17 Pro proved hugely popular, and was credited with helping the company hit record iPhone sales last year.

It seems the company’s competitors were paying close attention, several of them adopting a very similar color tone for their latest Android smartphones – with the above one of the more blatant clones …

Apple finally unveiled the long-awaited entry-level MacBook, the MacBook Neo – and it was certainly worth the wait. The shiny new machine hit the most optimistic of price estimates, with a starting price of just $599.

There’s little doubt that the Neo will cannibalize some sales of the MacBook Air. Although it certainly involves compromises, it will be the right choice for many. However, my suspicion is that it will actually end up cannibalizing even more iPad sales …

You’d expect Windows Central to be pretty adamant in favoring Windows laptops over any MacBook. Yet not only the website itself, but also its readers, see the MacBook Neo as a move that should see Microsoft panicking.

The site says that the timing couldn’t be better for Apple given that more Windows users than ever before are looking to switch platform, and thinks it will hurt sales of machines like the $600 ASUS Vivobook 14 shown above …

I earlier estimated that Apple would sell gazillions of MacBook Neo machines. TrendForce is now out with a slightly more formal estimate of four to five million units this year.

The market intelligence company also notes that Apple is headed in the opposite direction to most of its competitors …

I’ve just argued that the MacBook Neo offers phenomenal value for money and is the machine I expect to recommend to a great many people.

However, it of course won’t be suitable for everyone. I think a quick glance at the specs would rapidly rule it out for videographers, but there is one compromise that means it’s not a good choice for photographers either …

If there was one product that cemented the myth of the “Apple tax” – the supposedly excessive price premium paid for the logo – it was the MacBook Air. People would point to Apple’s cheapest laptop costing $1,000 and loudly proclaim that you could buy a Windows machine or Chromebook from around $300.

The comparison was of course spurious. The cheap laptops being used to make the argument were ugly plastic things with exceedingly poor specs compared to the MacBook Air. Still, it was undeniable that a four-figure starting price did prove a barrier to a lot of people – but all that has changed with the MacBook Neo …

The Apple Store app and website has just gone down with the ‘Be right back’ message Apple uses ahead of major new product announcements.

We’re of course expecting the imminent announcement of the new entry-level MacBook, which may be branded as the MacBook Neo …

TikTok is setting itself apart from most other online platforms that offer messaging by stating that it won’t be introducing end-to-end encryption to ensure the privacy of direct messages.

This means that the company will be able to read messages sent between users, which is likely to cause concerns even after its US operations were separated from its Chinese owner …

Update: Added comment from TikTok below

We noted that the brand new M5 Pro and M5 Max versions of the MacBook Pro have a significantly different chip architecture to their predecessors.

While the M4 Pro and M4 Max models had a mix of efficiency and performance cores to balance battery life against power, the new models ditch the efficiency cores …

Prior to yesterday’s launch of the new M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, Apple Silicon chips had two types of core: efficiency and performance.

The M5 chips now have three types of core, with a complication caused by the renaming of one of them. Here’s what’s going on …