Ask Paul: March the 13th ⭐

Happy Friday! This Friday the 13th, we’re haunted by the MacBook Neo and for no good reason. It’s like we never learn the lessons of the past.

? Simplistic

anoldamigauser

on March 13, 2026 at 07:42 AM

You have discussed the idea that an OS can start with something simple and be made more functional…iOS for example, or start with something more complicated and functional, and remove features…Windows or MacOS.

Yes. It’s fascinating that this conversation is ongoing and that simpler devices, which used to be “companions” running things like Windows CE or Palm OS have evolved into very powerful devices that can replace computers.

With all the navel gazing engendered by the MacBook Neo, I was wondering whether you think the real answer for normal people will be an iPad with the advances in iPadOS making it more “computer” like, and/or an Android/Aluminum laptop or tablet? Possibly even a phone that can work with a screen and keyboard?

Yes, of course. These are all viable outcomes, as is having dedicated phones, tablets, and computers. Which, for all my own navel-gazing, is what I do right now and have for many years. (This is the whole Right Tool for the Job thing.) But. Things do change. And as these devices and OSes evolve, new usage patterns can emerge. A lot of our behaviors and habits are more tradition and inertia than anything else. I try to get past it, but we’re all human and change is hard. Some people, maybe most people, don’t even think about this stuff. They just keep doing what they do.

Each of us will approach the tools we use, hardware and software, in our ways. The choices are expanding.

Many old-timers like us will likely stick to a laptop and a phone. Or a desktop at home/work, a laptop on the go, and a phone. Some will add a tablet for reading. This is what I’m doing.

My kids? They’re on their phones all the time, but they use a laptop/PC at work or school as needed. This is probably pretty common for most people these days, where you turn to a bigger screen only when you need to and not otherwise. My kids do not care about watches or tablets.

The hybrid use case thing is endlessly fascinating to me. This is a dream, similar to the alchemic promise of turning lead into gold, where one can replace two devices with one and do so without compromise. The compromise bit will vary by person, but you can sort of get there, maybe, with a folding phone or PC, depending on your needs. A phone or whatever that plugs into a dock that turns it into a computer is interesting for obvious reasons. A future in which we don’t worry so much about individual devices is likewise interesting: I imagine just showing up wherever, say, a plane, and technology in the seat back in front of you scans your eyes and authenticates you and you just have access to all your content and data.

But for now, we’re still navigating the change. Just looking at what I think of as a traditional laptop use case, there are literal laptops running Windows, Mac, Linux, and Chrome OS. There will soon be Android/Aluminum OS laptops. You can use an iPad like a laptop. You could connect a phone of any kind, including a folding phone, to a Bluetooth keyboard and, optionally, mouse and use that sort of like a laptop. (And that latter configuration is eerily close to the Palm device plus folding keyboard thing that triggered my Right Tool for the Job editorial way back in 2013.)

More and more, I am feeling that for many people I know, the more something behaves like a more capable phone, the happier they will be using it in their personal lives.

I agree.

There are many reasons why this is so.

Phones (and, to some degree, tablets) are more personal. PCs (and other computers) are where we go to do work, while phones are where we go for personal reasons, fun reasons, relationship reasons. Phones are always with us, they’re companions. PCs and other computers tend to be more complex, which makes them frustrating to use, especially for mainstream users. And so on.

One of Microsoft’s core strengths over the years was taking technology that was previously expensive, complex, and restricted to scientists or engineers, and giving it to the masses. This a through-thread for most of its history. But like any other company or entity, it also got stuck with its own success. And the way the PC evolved over time is tied to that. It’s better than ever. But it’s no less complex, not really. Meanwhile, simpler and more personal devices are much more popular now. Because that’s what the PC once did to the mainframe and minicomputer. This is natural and to be expected. But it’s also odd to me, and a matter of history, that Microsoft, which led this change 30 or 40 years ago, is now a company that is to some degree the problem. Or, a problem, I guess.

This, too, is what makes the irrational exuberance about the MacBook Neo confusing to me. Apple just made the iPad make sense as a laptop. It doesn’t need this thing now. Nor does the world. In the sense that Microsoft lost its way with personal computing, as above, Apple, too, has lost its way. It’s celebrating its old “here’s to the crazy ones” marketing right now, at a time when it is one of the biggest companies on earth and the safest bet imaginable, and nothing like it was in the 1990s. And no can see that it’s just making yet another hardware device to buy, an unnecessary addition to an already crowded collection of overlapping devices, each compromised to make room for the others. Just like it did in the 1990s.

But that’s Big Tech. This is about their needs, not ours.

So it’s nice to have choices, I guess. But it’s also confusing when there are too many choices. And while Steve Jobs’ well-known four product grid from the very late 1990s is overly simplistic for today, we as humans need those kinds of choices from these companies, not what we have today. We celebrate Apple for having one SKU of macOS, unlike Microsoft with Windows, but then we also celebrate them for having 1100 different devices? Come on. This company has lost its way, and its marketing is so good, we walk around like people in The Matrix, patting each other on the back for how good it all is. It’s vaguely sad to me.

Simpler is always better. Apple used to walk that talk. Now they just talk it.

“Apple iPhone Fold to feature iPad-like interface when opened”

Obviously.

? U$B

Anlong08 asks:

Device makers mixing USB 2 and 3 has come up several time recently. Do you have any idea what those costs are to a manufacturer? Both the cost of the hardware and I assume the license to whoever “owns” USB?

There is a cost to each component, of course, and yes, there are different levels of licensing costs associated with USB as a brand. There’s also no real way to know how much a USB 2.0 port costs a company vs. a USB 3.0 port or whatever, because bigger companies with more sales volume, like Lenovo, will pay less than smaller companies.

But there is one way to get a rough idea of the relative cost of these things. You can configure a computer at Framework and see how much they charge people for these parts. And here’s the thing. They’re not expensive. A USB 3.2 Type-A port is $11 on a Framework Laptop 13. And a USB4 (Thunderbolt 4) Type-C port is also $11. They do not offer a USB 2.0 anything because no human being would want such a thing in 2026.

What this tells me is that margins are razor-thin in the PC market. This is why we still see a mix of ports. On the MacBook Neo, the situation is a little different. Apple has excellent margins, but the chip it used is limited to USB 3.x, and Apple sold phones with that chip that used USB 2.0 or 3 charging (non-Pro vs. Pro). That it gave users one of both is beyond bizarre, a weird instance of penny-pinching I do not understand.

Even a base model Snapdragon X-based laptop like the HP OmniBook 5 has all USB 3.2 ports at 10 Gbps. That’s a good example of something that is inexpensive and a good value and is thus not cheap.

“Former Microsoft lead reviews the MacBook Neo: ‘It just has to stay excellent’”

“Former Epstein confidant reviews the MacBook Neo” is not the event I ever expected Apple blogs to promote

? Modularity is key to the PC

silenthero117 asks:

If Xbox is becoming more PC-like, why not make modularity part of the strategy? Looking at the current gen, the Xbox Series S has no real upgrade path. If a gamer wants more performance, the only option is to replace the system entirely with the X, which feels like a weak value proposition.

I’ve been thinking the same thing.

When you compare the PC with any generation of whatever console, the key advantage of the PC is that it will always provide better performance and graphics quality because that platform improves indefinitely whereas the console is stuck in time. But the key disadvantage is complexity and, tied to that, the cost of being best. The console is better is the sense that it is more predictable and is custom-made for playing games so it handles some fundamentals better for most people.

Except for the PowerPC-based Xbox 360, every Xbox has really been a PC. Microsoft made this patently obvious with the OG Xbox, but the Xbox One series and Xbox Series X|S are PC-based designs too. That Microsoft is moving the Xbox as a console and the PC closer together is logical given how the market has evolved. But it also opens up an interesting possibility. What if a future Xbox could have all the advantages of a Windows PC for gaming but none of the downsides?

So I’ve wondered whether there will be some modular aspect to Project Helix. Current generation consoles also support upgradable storage to some degree, but I’m thinking more like graphics or even full SoC package replacements. I don’t know whether this means slots or whatever. But in the sense that an Xbox storage adapter today is very much like a cartridge for the Commodore 64s of yesteryear, perhaps there could be that kind of plug-in solution. It’s an interesting idea, and it would solve the problem of in-generation upgrades to some degree.

I also worry that if Microsoft stays with AMD as its only silicon partner as Sony will do the same, which limits meaningful hardware differentiation even if Xbox ends up being the more powerful console. Would Microsoft be better off offering an “Xbox Core” with baseline graphics for compatibility, then allowing optional GPU expansion through a special eGPU port or even a graphics slot, possibly through licensed third-party hardware? And if that expansion path included the option for NVIDIA graphics cards, which reportedly hold about 94 percent of the discrete GPU market, would that be an attractive differentiator for gamers? In the bigger picture, would that kind of flexibility actually help Xbox appeal to gamers more? Do you think it could serve as a cheaper, more accessible way to get people into PC gaming?

Obviously, cost becomes an issue at some point. One of the advantages of focusing on Windows-based gaming is that it introduces an entire industry of PC makers that are much better at making and selling hardware and can offer a lot of choices. Those choices can include form factors, like laptops and handhelds, but they can also include modularity, per above, or even processor choices. Based on the leaks we got a few years back, it’s clear that Microsoft considered going with an Arm-based console, for example. And while gaming is the one area where Arm lags, that can’t last. And I could see a future Xbox gaming handheld based on Arm, or even a hybrid living room/portable device like the Switch.

The trick to any console is keeping it simple. But if Microsoft can figure out how to tone down Windows enough to make it work on a real console, or make it acceptable as Xbox Mode or whatever on a real PC, then it has an interesting differentiator there.

But yes, imagine if you could buy an Xbox Series S, use it for a few years, and then buy a $200 plug-in card that made it an Xbox Series X or whatever. From Microsoft’s perspective, selling yet another console is obviously better, but if few will do that mid-stream in a generation then why not support upgrades for existing customers? Cost, I guess. And complexity. But this feels solvable to me.

“Amazon adds “sassy” personality style to Alexa+ assistant”

Maybe just add one that actually works first.

? In-person events

helix2301 asks:

I know you own Thurrott.com any plans to do events like when BWW owned. I remember when you launched FRD at a Microsoft event. Then for a while you were going to Build I think it was every year. Any plans for stuff like that going forward? I know its an expense just wondering.

I mentioned tradition, habit, and behavior above, and I feel like work travel in general falls into that area in that I did it for so long that I stopped thinking about it, but then the pandemic happened and I realized two things. One, I didn’t want to travel as much for work anymore. And two, I had to travel sometimes because there is real value in the human connection, especially, and there are people I’ve gotten to know over the years that I like to see. So finding that balance is key.

The problem with having a live event of whatever kind, whether it’s a meetup or just an impromptu thing in whatever place I happen to be, is that the changes I experienced have happened to everyone. There are still people, like Richard Campbell, who travel just as much for work now as ever. But most do not. And the big industry events aren’t so big anymore, at least as in-person events. Most are mostly virtual.

And now it’s all on me, too. No one is paying for me to travel now, so I have to really think about the value of what I’m doing if I want to attend some event. Last year, I went to Seattle, Berlin, and Hawaii for industry events, and to New York City several times for meetings. But I used to be on the road 20 to 35 weeks a year, and I am never going back to that. I have to pick and choose now. I could have gone to Florida last week with TWiT, for example, and I would have liked seeing those guys, but … Florida? From Mexico? No thank you.

I don’t have any plans or even ideas for this, but I would love to have some kind of a meetup anytime, really. It’s just that the big events where everyone is there are few and far between. In each of those industry events last year, I saw a subset of the people I used to see all the time. Each time was great on various levels, but it’s never going back to the way it was. I miss it. But I also don’t miss it.

If anyone has any ideas about how such a thing might work, I’m listening.

“The Galaxy S26 series is now officially on sale”

So, it’s just “on sale” then. Literally. Technically.

? Colors and compromises

justme asks:

A general Mac question, largely inspired by the new Neo: while I understand MacOS tends to be efficient, the 8GB ram and 256GB drive supplied by default with the Neo seem…low for a modern computer. Looking at other Mac offerings, this appears to be a common trend in Apple products – by which I mean offer less RAM and storage than you might see on a comparable Windows machine. Is it that MacOS is just much more efficient than Windows? Why skimp on storage, especially as you cannot swap hard drives or add RAM to Mac products?

As Mike Nash taught me when he was at HP, every product is a compromise between the needs of the customer and the cost of making the thing you sell to a customer. Compromise, like bias, is a tough word, a word that many get wrong or feel is only negative. But a compromise is how you get to a solution that benefits both sides. It’s a process, not a bad thing.

I can’t explain why Apple made the choices it made with the MacBook Neo, including the choice to actually make the thing in the first place. Apple is unique, and though it is a shadow of its “Think Different” past in the sense that no one buying Apple products today is thinking differently, they’re conforming to safe norms, the company does do things in strange and unique ways. Apple also has its own cost structures that none of us will ever understand, its own ability to demand things of suppliers and fabricators. And so on. Apple is quirky. What can you do?

But to hit this $600 price point, Apple did compromise this laptop a lot. There are basic physics and costs here that even Apple can’t bend. Whether one feels that those choices—those compromises—add up to something of value is up to each person. But we should acknowledge that it has a pretty good track record when it comes to building hardware that people want to buy. I have my opinions, we all do, but let’s not confuse popular with quality. The best-selling car in the world used to be a Ford Escort and that was a piece of crap.

As to the Mac and efficiency, yes, macOS is less resource intensive than Windows, but it’s a subtle distinction, not a major difference. I might argue that the 24 GB MacBook Air I have is roughly equivalent to a 32 GB Windows laptop from a resource usage perspective, for example, but I still would have preferred getting 32 GB. But whatever. 8 GB on a Mac is not like 16 GB on Windows. And 8 GB is not enough for a computer, period. The iPad Air with an M4 chip has 12 GB of RAM and iPadOS is much more efficient than macOS or Windows. That is a much more suitable big screen device for most people than a MacBook Neo in large part because there are no major compromises. And a base iPad is even better for most in that regard.

Tied to this, madthinus asks

The MacBook Neo is an interesting device for multiple reasons. With the gloom over the PC market due to memory shortages and all indication that the lower end of the market is going to fall away as the shortage and price increases bite, here comes Apple with an 8GB notebook that can play League of Legend and other casual games very well, seems to be fine on performance for most tasks and is very handsome and feels good. On the other end, Windows Laptops at $700 is a wide variety of a mixed bag.

The major piece that gets left out of this conversation is that the PC market and the Mac are in many ways two completely different things. Microsoft can make Windows and it can port it Arm, but it has an industry of partners that sell the PCs and they’re all stuck in this tradition/habit pattern that helps in some ways and hurts in others. Here, the important bit is that Apple, as the only company making macOS and Macs, can do things that PC makers do not and Microsoft cannot. We all celebrate the backward compatibility stuff in Windows, and the choice of PCs at all these price points, but we’re all stuck in the past two while Apple races ahead, thinking differently.

Is it just a case that Windows bloat and Intel /AMD inefficient power management is at fault here?

There are terrific Snapdragon X-based laptops out there. There are very good AMD and even Intel-based laptops out there, but the good ones are more expensive (and more powerful) but also more unreliable and have all the fans and noise and complexity that some hate in PCs. We’re stuck in a holding pattern between the new and the old. Apple, as the sole supplier, is not keeping Intel Macs around just so there can be expandable workstations or gaming PCs or whatever. It’s all in on its own thing. The PC isn’t like that and can’t be.

You interested to review one of these?

No. This is toy computer for kids and the easily duped, and is, to my mind, unnecessary as a product. I already can’t stand macOS and can barely tolerate it on my MacBook Air, which is a real computer and is otherwise excellent. My next major Apple purchase will almost certainly be an iPad Pro with a third-party keyboard case that lets me orient the screen in both portrait and landscape modes. As noted above, simpler is always better and now that iPadOS makes sense as a laptop OS, I’m going to see whether I can make that work.

And because we can’t stop talking about a laptop all of a sudden, red.radar also asks:

I know much has been said about the MacBook Neo, but why hasn’t a windows arm device done well at this price point ? I have seen a few devices dip in this price range and I would think it would be a great option. We just waiting for more of a response by pc vendors or is snapdragon struggling and just not going to survive ?

There are only two things holding back Snapdragon X and Windows 11 on Arm. PC makers and the customers still buying PCs, which are largely businesses. Both are stuck in the past. Tradition and habit vs. thinking differently.

The only people criticizing Windows 11 on Arm are those who have never used it (and, as noted above, are stuck in the past and refuse change for the better) and those with incredibly esoteric needs. And yes, there is a gaming case. But no one is playing games on the Mac, so whatever. A Windows 11 on Arm laptop is, right now, about 100x better than a Mac when it comes to games.

Let’s look at one.

The HP OmniBook 5 has a Snapdragon X processor and there are versions with 14-inch and 16-inch screens. It has Windows Hello facial recognition and there are models with multitouch displays (and without). It has three USB 3 ports, all at 10 Gbps, one Type-A and two Type-C. It has 65-watt fast charging and the battery lasts more than a day. You can get 16 or 32 GB of RAM, 256 GB to 1 TB of SSD storage, and you can replace the SSD yourself with a bigger version later if you want. None of that–none of that–I wrote there is possible with or available on the MacBook Neo.

A version of the OmniBook 5 with 32 GB of RAM, 1 TB of storage, and a 14-inch multitouch display is available now for $850, which is higher than the cost last year, yes. But it’s still a better computer and a better value than the MacBook Neo. There is no comparable Neo, but the closest is the $700 version, which is, again, less expensive. But it’s just cheaper, really. The OmniBook 5 is what a no compromises laptop looks like. The Neo is nothing but colors and compromises.

It’s amusing that we’re doing the OG iMac/iBook thing again 20 years later. Or sad. I’m not sure.

“5 ways to resist the urge to keep looking at your phone”

I’ll start with this article, thanks.

? Art collectors

Alex Strickland asks:

This is not a tech related question, but what is that art print above your couch? I have seen many First Ring Daily episodes and have been curious.

My wife and I write about this in our book, Eternal Spring: Our Guide to Mexico, but there are art markets every weekend throughout Mexico City in places like San Angel, Coyoacan, and elsewhere, and because these things are so inexpensive compared to buying similar items back home, we have art, for lack of a better term, on the walls throughout the apartment. I can’t imagine we spent more than a couple of hundred dollars for all of it, combined. We just added two more recently that are on the wall in the second bedroom that we use as an office, and where I now record Windows Weekly from. Those are prints, but the rest of this stuff is all handmade by local artists.