A second-generation MacBook Neo with a touch screen has gone from a yes to a maybe to a no, according to rumors.
In his Power On newsletter today, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said Apple has yet to decide whether to bring touch-screen support to any Macs beyond the next high-end MacBook Pro, which is expected to be released in late 2026 or early 2027.
A touch screen would slightly increase the cost of making the MacBook Neo, which is priced as low as $499, so the laptop will likely remain without one for years.
In September 2025, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said the second-generation MacBook Neo "could" include touch support, but last week he said it "may" not happen after all, and now Gurman has completely ruled out the possibility for now.
"I'd be shocked if a touch screen comes to the Neo in the next three years," said Gurman.
Nevertheless, a second-generation MacBook Neo will likely be released next year, according to Kuo. The key upgrade should be the A19 Pro chip with an increased 12GB of RAM, up from the A18 Pro chip with 8GB of RAM in the current model.
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Apple this week unveiled seven products, including an iPhone 17e, an iPad Air with the M4 chip, updated MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models, a new Studio Display, a higher-end Studio Display XDR, and an all-new MacBook Neo that starts at just $599.
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Wednesday March 11, 2026 9:14 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
With the new MacBook Neo, Apple just bumped up its number of laptop categories to three, and it might just add a fourth before the year is out.
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On this week's episode of The MacRumors Show, we discuss Apple's concentrated week of announcements that saw the introduction of 10 new products.
Subscribe to The MacRumors Show YouTube channel for more videos
The most significant announcement of the week was the MacBook Neo, an all-new entry-level Apple laptop that starts at $599. The MacBook Neo is designed to compete with lower-cost...
After decades of availability on windows machines I still do not understand why I’d ever want a touch screen laptop. Like maybe some sort of convertible that could act like a pure tablet as long as the transition was seamless and the device light weight but reaching out to touch the screen when I have more ergonomic access to the keyboard and touxhpad? Why?
The touch screen rumor cycle around the Neo is probably missing the point.
People tend to frame this as a philosophical question to whether Apple is finally willing to admit that touch belongs on the Mac. But the Neo isn’t really a philosophical product. It’s a cost engineered one.
The entire reason the Neo exists at $499–$599 is that Apple is reusing a huge amount of the iPhone silicon ecosystem and keeping the hardware extremely simple. Once you understand that, the touch question becomes much less mysterious.
Adding touch isn’t just “one extra feature.” It means a different display assembly. Higher cost and higher complexity.
And the Neo doesn’t actually need touch to succeed in the segment Apple is targeting.
The machine isn’t competing with iPads. It’s competing with the low end Windows and Chromebook laptops that dominate the $400–$700 retail band. In that market, the differentiator Apple is introducing isn’t touch, it’s Apple Silicon efficiency, build quality, and the macOS ecosystem at a price point where Macs historically didn’t exist.
So the real question isn’t “why doesn’t the Neo have touch?”
The real question is: What problem would touch solve for this product that Apple currently needs solved?
Until there’s a clear answer to that, the simplest explanation is that Apple will keep the Neo exactly as it is, cheap, simple, and strategically disruptive to the bottom end of the laptop market.
Touch screens make much more sense on higher margin Macs where Apple can absorb the cost without undermining the whole point of the machine.
Isnt this obvious? Why would Apple give a feature to entry level product but not available in upper tier products (unless entire mac lineup would have touch screen feature in next iteration)
This device is using binned leftover chips from the 16 Pro with 1 less GPU core. The SoC was basically free, which is what keeps the price of this laptop down. They won’t switch to a touchscreen until they have so many stocked in a warehouse collecting dust that it is cheaper to use them than to shop for something else.
