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 The new MacBook Neo has a breakthrough starting price of just $599, and AppleCare repair fees for the laptop are lower than all other Macs too.
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 The colorful new wallpapers that Apple introduced with the MacBook Neo are available for all Macs in the fourth beta of macOS Tahoe 26.4 that came out for developers today.
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 The first reviews of the iPhone 17e were published today by selected publications and YouTube channels, ahead of the device launching on Wednesday.
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 The fourth iOS 26.4, iPadOS 26.4, and macOS Tahoe 26.4 betas that Apple provided to developers today introduce nine new emoji characters.
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Perhaps one of the most surprising things about the Apple Silicon era is how quickly Apple now updates its products. Take the iPad Air, for example. It's been less than two years since the company released the M2-powered iPad Air in 11- and 13-inch sizes. We're already on our third iPad Air iteration, one with the M4 inside. That's the same chip that was inside the iPad Pro that was unveiled alongside that M2-powered Air in 2024. (The Pro was updated with an M5 last fall.)
Just as I said a year ago when Apple unveiled the iPad Air M3, this latest model doesn't fundamentally change the formula. The Air is a notable step up over the basic iPad, with a more powerful processor, more RAM, a better display and superior accessories like the Apple Pencil Pro and Magic Keyboard. The Air line is also the only way to get a 13-inch iPad without spending $1,300 or more.
But without more substantial updates this year, I find myself less enthused by it than I was when the 13-inch model M2 model arrived in 2024. That's primarily because Apple has stuck with the same display for another year. As best I can tell, the 11-inch iPad Air that I'm reviewing has the same screen in 2026 as it did when the redesigned version with no Home button was released in late 2020. Other features that feel like they should be table stakes at this point, like Face ID, are also restricted to iPads that cost at least $1,000. For better or worse, the Air is a very mature product with few surpr
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Apple's new $599 budget phone brings MagSafe compatibility, higher base storage and an A19 chip. That makes the trade-offs easier to swallow.
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 Apple is planning more Mac refreshes for the rest of the year, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman writes.
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Apple's wallet-friendly era will be short-lived, reporting suggests.
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 Apple is planning to launch an all-new "MacBook Ultra" model this year, featuring an OLED display, touchscreen, and a higher price point, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports.
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 Apple this week unveiled seven products, ranging from the iPhone 17e to the MacBook Neo, but new Apple TV and HomePod mini models were not among them.
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Apple just announced the MacBook Neo, a 13-inch laptop offering the full macOS experience for just $599. It is the machine, I'm sure, plenty of the company's fans have been clamoring for since the dawn of the netbook. I'm equally sure its specs have enough drawbacks to ensure there are still plenty of customers for the more expensive Macbooks; the same cannot be said of the iPad Air.
If you're looking for a machine that you can actually use meaningfully, the Neo has the Air beat. It has two USB-C ports, 16-hour battery life, a real keyboard, trackpad and the ability to run macOS with proper multitasking. $599 won't even get you an iPad Air with a keyboard and trackpad, which costs you an extra $270.
Of course, the MacBook Neo is sandbagged in all of the ways Apple will always sandbag a cheaper product. But I do think the company has been smart enough to ensure the base model, which I'm sure will sell a crazy amount, is enough of a computer to matter. The A18 Pro chip will run a lot slower than Apple's M-Series silicon but raw performance isn't the big issue. After all, if you're buying this machine as Apple's version of a Chromebook, you're not going to be compressing 55GB Final Cut Pro files here. This is a machine for light work, the sort of stuff the iPad was always meant to enable, but has never quite been able to.
Apple knows how its A-series chip stack up against low-end laptop CPUs. Given the differences in OS, it's impossible to make a real comparis
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