I'd disagree that the article frames that Apple planned this.

But Apple did spend 10+ years pretending that the iPad was the computer of the future, despite all evidence to the contrary.

It also went through a long period where it actively under-invested in the Mac as it thought it could somehow migrate everyone onto iPads, despite protestations from most existing Mac users.

It also took 6 years, from the release of the first Apple silicon Mac, to actually realise that there is no reason that a Mac laptop needs to have a starting price of $999. In this period they had all of the hardware and components that could have easily made a cheaper low-end laptop Mac... as evidenced by the same hardware being sold a lot cheaper when they put it into an iPad.

So at least for the last 5 years, the failure of the iPad and the lack of a cheaper laptop Mac, has all been due to Apple's strategic missteps and biases.

To then release the MacBook Neo without those missteps being acknowledged is fine.

But it's been obvious to anyone with the slightest amount of insight that the iPad is not the future of computing. Apple should have also realised this and corrected course a lot sooner than March 2026.

About 10 years ago a guy was hired to be a change agent for a big section of the IT org where I work. We tried to voice concerns, but many things seemed to fall on deaf ears. He seemed arrogant, like he thought he knew it all. Some years later, after some re-orgs, his project was on its way out and we ended up on the same team. The topic of this early days came up a few times. What he said made a lot of sense, and I think applies here. While he did apologize and say he should have listened to us more and he learned a lot from that, he also talked about what is required for change. For real change to occur, there needs to be a certain amount of arrogance to push against the status quo. The person looking to affect change needs to believe wholeheartedly in the vision being sold. Without that, the project would be destined to fail.

Similarly, for the iPad to succeed, Apple had to believe in the vision they were selling and not waffle. This has to go on long enough to really give the idea and fair shot to grow and exist.

One of my biggest gripes with Microsoft is how quickly they’ll kill a platform. I think this is why they have so much trouble launching them. Even if I loved someone Microsoft released, I would be very hesitant to buy in, because they have been so quick to kill off their products in the past without giving them a real chance. I don’t have that same level of fear with Apple. I expect to get a long life out of an Apple device, even as an early adopter. That reputation matters and it gets built by riding these things out and seeing if a decades-long bet pays off. That isn’t something that can be known quickly.

Though I do agree, it seemed like they could have made a cheaper MacBook a long time ago, but when a keyboard is added to a iPad, it can be as much or even more expensive than a MacBook, so who knows. Some of it could have been allowing the supply chain to mature and recovering R&D costs for another big bet, which was Apple Silicon.