The Bargain-Basement MacBook Neo Exposes the Insane Price of Another Key Apple Product

Let’s bring in some experts. They’re going to tell us we’re comparing apples with oranges here when looking at the Neo and Ultra. “They serve very different purposes, very different audiences,” says Jitesh Ubrani, research manager at IDC. “You’re essentially talking about a health device versus a general-purpose computer, right? And so the prices shouldn’t be comparable, because they do very different things.”

Told you. Thing is, I don’t think the average consumer cares about that. They do care about money, though. And they now see a bewildering price discrepancy between Apple products.

Terry White, principal worldwide design and photography evangelist at Adobe, certainly does. He has posted that the Neo now proves Apple’s iPad accessories are massively overpriced. “To get that same 256 GB storage on a base iPad, you’re at $449 (and a slower chip),” he posted. “Add the $249 Magic Keyboard Folio to match the Mac’s form factor, and you’re paying $698. We used to ask if an iPad could replace a laptop. Now the real question is: Why does replacing a laptop with an iPad cost $100 more?”

Ubrani admits that if you look at the Apple Watch SE versus the base Apple Watch versus the Ultra, “the SE arguably gives you 95 percent experience of the base, which then gives you 95 percent experience of the Ultra. But the price gap is huge between those models. Huge.” He agrees that Ultra is aimed at a group of users who will pay a lot more to have diving capabilities and a rugged design. “You charge a premium for those, simply because you can and because people will pay for it,” he says.

How many are paying this huge premium? IDC just released its Apple Watch sales estimates. In 2025, Apple supposedly shipped 41.1 million Apple Watches. “Ultra represented almost 3.5 million [of these] during the year,” Ubrani says, adding that the Ultra sales declined year over year “due to the lack of a meaningful refresh.” Still, Apple has convinced more than 8 percent of Watch buyers to hand over hundreds of dollars more for the premium model.

Balbir Singh, global smartwatch analyst at Counterpoint Research, feels Apple can almost name its price for its products, especially if those products are pricier and are already in the ecosystem. “They know the consumer mentality that eventually they will buy,” he says. “They know that they have niche adventure and athletic users that need something from Apple itself, for the Apple loyalist, the iPhone user.”

By the Numbers

The MacBook Neo.

Photograph: Julian Chokkattu

Apple may be greedy here, hiking the Watch price by hundreds of dollars, but it sure isn’t stupid. It knows Garmin’s flagship dive watch hovers around $800, and it wants to lure in those potential customers. We don’t want people experiencing an alternative ecosystem, now, do we?