Engadget Podcast: Is the MacBook Neo the one?
TL;DR
Apple had a packed week: alongside the MacBook Air M5, MacBook Pro M5 Pro/Max, iPad Air M4, and iPhone 17e, it unveiled the MacBook Neo at $599 — its cheapest laptop ever.
Key Points
- The MacBook Neo is light on specs but, according to the Engadget podcast hosts, strong on value and character.
- On the AI front: the US Department of Defense reportedly continued using Anthropic's Claude for attacks on Iran even after Anthropic banned its model from military use the week prior.
- Author Spencer Ackerman joined the podcast to discuss what AI companies should realistically expect when they sign military contracts.
Nauti's Take
A $599 MacBook sounds almost too good to be true — and for spec-hungry users, it probably is. But Apple knows exactly what it's doing: lower the entry price, grow the ecosystem, lock in customers long-term.
Far more explosive is the Anthropic story. Signing military contracts and then acting surprised when the military uses your AI for military purposes is either breathtakingly naive or a calculated PR move.
You cannot outsource ethical responsibility with a ban announcement — especially when the contracts are already signed and the servers are already running.
Context
The MacBook Neo at $599 is a real statement from Apple: the affordable premium laptop market is no longer exclusively Windows territory. Meanwhile, the Anthropic-DOD situation exposes a critical gap between AI policy and real-world use. When a company bans its own model from military applications but the military keeps using it anyway, it raises hard questions about enforcement, contractual control, and the naivety — or cynicism — of signing government contracts in the first place.
Sources