Seven new products landed at Apple stores this week, but all the attention is on the $600 MacBook Neo. The 13-inch machine, which comes in shades of yellow, blue and pink, is the cheapest laptop the company has made, and reviews around the web are raving about its performance.
At 8 a.m. Wednesday morning, I picked up the new “blush” Neo at Apple’s Fifth Avenue store. Pink was also the choice model for the two other early bird customers I met (who both got the discounted student rate, which starts at $500).
In this week’s episode of One More Thing, which you can watch embedded above, I bring you along with me to Neo’s launch day. Along with my first impressions, I dive into why this laptop will be so disruptive. (One CEO called the Neo a “shock” to the PC industry.)
But something else feels different. There’s a fresh attitude in Apple’s marketing on social media. The company began posting cheeky short clips to TikTok and launched a new Instagram account. One video included a cute little cartoon persona with a “Finder” Mac face. And now there’s already fan art being made about it as a squishy Apple mascot. (But no official word from Apple on the future of this little Finder guy just yet.)
Apple this week also posted a note to kick off celebrations for its 50th anniversary year. It’s refreshing to see this new social media energy and excitement around the Neo, because it taps into something I felt from Apple in the early 2000s. It was a time when silhouettes would dance with iPods, and a reminder that tech, sometimes, is just about having fun.
For more One More Thing, subscribe to our YouTube page to catch Bridget Carey breaking down the latest Apple news and issues every Friday.
