Busting the Apple Tax myth, once and for all

When Apple launched the $599 MacBook Neo, there were pained cries of disbelief from the tech media and the general public alike. “B-b-but Apple is for gullible suckers with too much money!” they exclaimed. “Its products are overpriced! Out of touch! Won’t somebody please think of the Apple Tax?”

But to more astute Apple watchers, the MacBook Neo was just the latest in a long line of reasonably priced devices from the Cupertino marquee. And while the tides of affordability have ebbed and flowed over the years, a vein of fair pricing and premium quality has run through Apple’s lineup from start to finish.

If you’ve been paying attention, the idea that Apple can put out a remarkably good laptop for $600 should not feel at all unusual. In fact, that kind of value for money is everywhere you look in the Apple Store. It’s something that can be traced right back to Apple’s foundation, flowing through its DNA despite the shifting sands of the tech industry. And you can bet it’s here to stay.

The MacBook Neo’s incredible value

When initial reports surfaced that Apple was working on a secret low-cost laptop that would run on a mobile chip, many were quick to pooh-pooh the idea. A mobile chip? In a laptop computer? Don’t those Apple sheeple realize they’ll be throttled within seconds of booting up that overpriced garbage?

Of course, we all know that nothing of the sort is happening with the MacBook Neo. That comes down to two big factors.

The first is that anyone paying $600 for a laptop has modest needs. If you’re interested in a laptop in that sort of price range, you’re not after something that can crunch enormous datasets or chew through 4K gaming at 120fps. Checking your email, browsing the web, listening to music–these are the sorts of simple tasks that a laptop like this is built for. When that’s what you are up to, throttling is less of a concern.

The other, more pertinent, factor is the Apple silicon that powers the MacBook Neo. Unlike many products in the PC or Android space, Apple’s mobile chips and desktop chips run on the same architecture. The A-series chips that power the iPhone are essentially the little siblings of the M-series chips in the Mac. The chips outfitted in an Apple laptop are not gimped in any way.

Add to that the fact that Apple’s mobile chips are the best in the industry–it’s not even close–and the idea that an A-series laptop is underpowered is well and truly destroyed. Even the tasks that the iPhone 17 Pro Max was designed to handle struggle to slow down its A19 Pro. Do you really think any MacBook Neo customer is going to test the chip’s limits when they draw up that simple Pages document?

But it’s not just the phenomenal power for the price that makes the MacBook Neo such a great bargain; there’s also the build quality. Start sniffing around the lower end of the laptop market, and you’re confronted with a sea of tacky plastic chassis, flimsy, wobbly keyboards, and small, uncomfortable trackpads. This is an area where price compromises are stubborn, obvious, and keenly felt.

Pick up the MacBook Neo and it’s clear that it’s in a separate class entirely. Apple kept the metal frame found in all of its laptops, which exudes the kind of quality that budget competitors cannot hope to match. The Magic Keyboard is present and correct, and while the trackpad lacks haptic feedback, it’s still usable at every point on its surface. Touch the MacBook Neo and you know it’s something different.

And that’s absolutely key. Apple knows that first impressions matter, and if you’re picking up a rickety plastic laptop every day, you’re going to be acutely aware that it’s poorly made.

It might not sound like much, but that kind of dedication to quality, even at the budget end where concessions must inevitably be made, is a perfect example of the shortcomings of the Apple Tax myth. No MacBook Neo customer is paying over the odds here. If anything, the opposite is true. Price-conscious shoppers deserve quality, even if they need to save money. The MacBook Neo provides that in spades.

Foundry

Overpriced versus expensive

While the MacBook Neo might represent low-cost affordability, Apple’s more expensive devices still offer tremendous value for money. Most Apple products fall under one of these two headers: either surprisingly low in price, or more expensive but packed full of premium features.

The MacBook Neo might be the most obvious example of Apple cramming in the value, but it’s far from the only one. The iPhone 17 Pro costs $1,199 to the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra’s $1,299, yet obliterates it in terms of performance. The iMac is by far the best all-in-one desktop on the market and is very reasonably priced. And don’t even get me started on the Mac mini versus its pint-sized competition.

Yet the myth that Apple’s products are overpriced persists. It seems to me that this comes down to a simple idea: people are confusing overpriced with expensive. If something is overpriced, the perceived value for money drops as the cost increases. An expensive product, though, can still be a fantastic bargain: the value rises in line with (or faster than) the cost.

True, you’ll often pay more up front for Apple products than for rivals’ offerings. No one can deny that the Mac Studio costs a big old heap of change, after all. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s in any way overpriced.

Foundry

Think of it like this. If you had the chance to pay $1,000 for a MacBook Air or $700 for a similar Windows laptop, you might think the latter is the better deal. But if that Windows laptop only lasts you two to three years and the MacBook lasts you six, then Apple’s device is a much better bargain. Over that six-year period, you’d have to buy two or three Windows laptops for a total of $1,400 to $2,100. Suddenly, that $1,000 MacBook Air seems like quite the steal.

This isn’t just a fantasy example, either. There have been numerous reports and studies over the years that show that Apple’s products endure far longer than those from other companies. They’re sturdier, more capable, and built to last. Simply put, you get what you pay for.

Smart and cheap and good

When you trace a path back through Apple’s history, affordability has often been a key consideration for the company. Take the Apple I, for example, the very first product that Apple put out into the world. When looking for a microprocessor for the computer, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak balked at the price of the then-current Intel 8080 CPU–each one “cost almost more than my monthly rent,” he said–and instead designed the computer without a chip until one arrived that was affordable enough. When it finally arrived, it wasn’t the fastest chip on the market, but it allowed Apple to focus on getting the details right while keeping the Apple I’s price down.

Or take the time in 2007 when Steve Jobs was asked whether he wanted Apple to overtake the PC in market share. He told the interviewer that Apple’s goal was to make “the best personal computers in the world and to make products we are proud to sell and would recommend to our family and friends. And we want to do that at the lowest price we can.” The problem, Jobs said, is that “we just can’t ship junk.”

“What you’ll find,” Jobs continued, “is that our products are usually not premium priced. You go and price out our competitors’ products and you add the features that you have to add to make them useful, and you’ll find in some cases they are more expensive than our products.”

This was something that mattered to Jobs. The idea of shipping a low-quality, low-effort device just to keep the costs down–a product that was cheap in every sense of the word–was anathema to him because it compromised the product, the experience, and Apple’s good name too much. Instead, Apple raised the price but also raised the quality in equal measure. As a result, Apple gained a reputation for premium tendencies, but many people forgot that the higher price came alongside a better fit and finish.

Perhaps the best summation of this philosophy was, again, espoused by Jobs himself. Speaking to biographer Walter Isaacson, Jobs compared Apple to the modestly priced Eichler homes that were built for working-class families in the 1950s.

“Eichler did a great thing,” Jobs said. “His houses were smart and cheap and good. They brought clean design and simple taste to lower-income people … I love it when you can bring really great design and simple capability to something that doesn’t cost much. It was the original vision for Apple.”

That idea served Apple well for its first 50 years. With the MacBook Neo and many of its other products, Apple is bringing that mindset into the next half-century.