I was talking to my brother about this. He thinks I’ll be better getting something with 16GB RAM, and more power than just the A18 chip. I originally said I was thinking about the Neo.
Hmm, not the best thing to hear. But if I’ve 16GB RAM then it should run decent?
I’m trying to get an apprenticeship in Jersey with my Entitled status, but if I can’t secure one then I’ve got this unconditional offer to study Accounting and Finance, and it’s a bit late to change it now as I’ve accepted the place.
Money side of things isn’t an issue. This is the sort of thing I’ve been saving for and I can comfortably afford it. And I think I’d go for the 13" for £1,378. And I’d be planning on using it for >5 years.
I also had no use for it until around 2021 when I was doing my masters in public health and still working full time.
I had lots of research and reports to do.
Fortunately at my job that time they could let us do whatever we wanted in the “free time” we got during working hours when it wasn’t busy.
I got one and it made my studies a lot easier. I could type reports and hit deadlines with less stress while still getting paid.
It was portable and had a somewhat larger screen, could also multi task and also supported some of the apps for research aggregation.
After completing the masters, it remained for use on the plane and occasional Disney+.
I suggest watching this from Mark Ellis. He’s not into Geekbench scores, etc. but rather which machine is best for which job. Watch this one and his “The truth about the Neo” video as well. I’ve had a quick play with the cheaper Neo and, to be honest, it didn’t feel that much different from my Mac Studio for web browsing and using the office apps.
I was thinking this too - the 13" might be easier to carry around if you’re mostly going to use it with an external display anyway
Are you buying through the education store for the discount too? They usually have an offer that runs in the summer, that might also be worth considering if you’re buying new
This was the only reason I bought my original iPad (Mini 5) - I had a five hour flight to Madeira coming up and wanted something to watch.
Since then I’ve found it invaluable and my go to device for checking on the news, taking notes etc. The “upgrade” to the A16 standard ipad has been brilliant for form factor, less so for modernity. I kinda wish I’d not just assumed the latest thing would work with the latest things. For example it doesn’t support Apple Intelligence which is easily circumvented by downloading Chat GPT.
Yeah, using it for some university work… I had no issues using a Mac for my programming assessments. Not sure why anyone would worry about economics - unless you’re doing a lot of graphics processing then the Neo is enough.
I still suspect a £500 Neo now and another £500 Neo in 2-3 years would give you a better overall experience. And £378 to stick in a LISA / spend it on whatever it is students do these days.
No, they don’t usually release products at WWDC. My guess is there’ll be an event a couple of months after the iPhone launch in September for AppleTV, HomePod and maybe some of the new home hardware that’s been rumoured so possibly October/November.
The iPhone 18 will be the first product to launch with the new Siri and that is what’s holding up all these other products apparently.
Yeah - The rumours are that the delayed Apple TV’s and HomePod Mini 2 is because they’re waiting for Apple Intelligence improvements/Siri v2 so they’ll probably launch those in the autumn when tvOS 27 is released.
Although I think there’s a strong chance they’ll release them at the same time as iPhone 18 - not delay them by a month or two because they’ll release iOS, iPadOS, tvOS and MacOS 27 at the same time and most of the new features in tvOS27 will need the new more powerful Apple TV box.
BTW - although I don’t think there will be a new Apple TV released at WWDC, there is a strong suggestion that the new M5 Mac Studio will be released around then. It’s a power, not a feature bump, due for an upgrade and at the moment its looking like delivery times are around 3 months which normally indicates that they’re running the current generation stock down ready for the new one.
So I received the Neo yesterday, after a long wait on delivery, and I am impressed. It’s replacing my MacBook Pro from 2018.
The only very slight downside is the trackpad, but turning on the tap to click in settings takes away 85% of clicks, but for the price, this is a very small sacrifice.
