As far as I can see, the majority of MacBook Neo reviews are overwhelmingly positive. Other reviews are simply acknowledging that this new laptop will be a huge success, while also recommending other laptops, including the refurbished MacBook Air. These reviews share the same overall message: the Neo, especially after the August-September back-to-school season, will be an immense hit, potentially becoming the best-selling Mac computer of all time, maybe outselling the previous bestseller, I want to say three to four times (just speculating here).

With this upcoming increased volume of sales in the traditional computer market, i.e. not phones or tablets, and with these millions of users new to the Mac platform, what can this mean for MacOS and the ecosystem?

I have a lot of questions, and very few answers, as you can see below.

Will the Neo become a second chance for the Mac App Store? Will the popularity of the Neo, on the contrary, make the Mac App Store experience even worse? Will it become flooded with crappy apps, trying to take advantage of trusting users new to the platform? Will this change the average app price or business model on the Mac?

Looking at the Top Free Apps list on the Mac App Store as I write this line, the 6th most popular app is called “AI Chatbot · Ask AI Anything 5.2”.*1 It sits right after Microsoft Excel and CapCut, and before Microsoft PowerPoint. No, this app — unrelated to OpenAI — is not fishy at all (!) and the Mac App Store is very safe. The 12th most popular app on the list is “HP: Print and Support”. Great, great stuff. I wonder what will happen with millions of extra Mac users.

Will the Neo help the Mac become a proper gaming platform?

The Neo may not be equipped for “serious” gaming, due to its basic screen and “modest” GPU, but all the casual games and older games like Minecraft would be perfectly fine on this machine: there is definitely an opportunity for Apple and developers here, especially with the Mac being compatible with PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch controllers out of the box.

Will the popularity of the MacBook Neo be an opportunity for Apple to mobilise more third-party developers to build apps for MacOS, now that the potential user base can be significantly larger? How many of these new apps will be truly native, and how many will be built on top of frameworks like Electron, since the majority of these new users probably won’t care? Is the Neo a new opportunity for the Swift language? Will the Neo push Apple to finally update the Stickies app? I guess we will have to wait until WWDC 2026 to have parts of these answers.

Will this increased popularity of the Mac, arguably the first modern Mac for the masses, bring more heat to MacOS when it comes to viruses and security flaws?

This is one of the first questions I asked myself when I started to read about how the MacBook Neo could sell millions, on top of the current Mac sales. I understand that MacOS itself is pretty secure, but if MacOS becomes more appealing to apps and games developers, it will also be more appealing to virus makers.

How much of the iPad market will the Neo capture? How much of an impact will it have on the Safari vs. Chrome market share: will new Mac users just use Chrome on their new Macs or stick to Safari? Will the Neo push Apple to release more frequent updates for Safari? How many Safari extensions will be available by the end of the year?

How many of the new Mac users, brought to the platform via the Neo, will eventually become MacOS enthusiasts? What does it mean for the direction of MacOS? If, by the end of 2026, 80 to 90% of active Macs are MacBooks Neo (again, just speculating), what does it mean for the future of Liquid Glass?*2 Is an increased line of revenue for the Mac a reason for Apple to mobilise more people to work on MacOS?

I am a little worried that a never-seen-before popularity for the Mac would encourage Apple to make MacOS look and behave more like iOS.

Will the increased popularity of the Mac make the Mac less cool in the eyes of others, less exclusive? Is the Mac ready to become more than the cooler alternative to Windows?

I have a lot of questions, as you can see. I’m sure most of these questions have been asked hundreds of times already. Answers to these questions will appear obvious to some, less so to others. We don’t even know if the Neo will be as successful as most people predict. But I’m sure the Neo’s success is the one thing that raises the fewest questions…

I promise you I try to avoid linking to more than two articles on the same topic in each edition — and I really want to avoid my readers to feel too depressed reading this blog — but everything seems to be about A.I. or some sort of automation these days, either directly or indirectly. I also notice that most of the topics revolve around the how and rarely on the why, as if accelerating tasks to the max, regardless of their purpose, is unquestionably a good thing.

¶

Emily Tucker’s Open Letter to Georgetown Students, In Response to Recent Announcements by the University about “Generative A.I.” – “It’s a big win for them, in their quest to persuade you of your powerlessness, that they have gotten your university to [adopt] their marketing language for its official statements, to shape its academic programming around the presumption of their indefinite economic primacy, and to pay for you to have free access to technologies that will make it harder — the more you use them — to know yourself to be a free intellectual, creative and moral agent.” (via Dan Gillmor)

Overthinking: A.I. wasn't the first to break my heart – This article from Ana Rodrigues read a little too close to home for my own comfort; the feelings described and words chosen are very accurate and indeed increasingly familiar to a growing number of people.

We’re Training Students To Write Worse To Prove They’re Not Robots, And It’s Pushing Them To Use More A.I. – “[…] the AI detection tool flagged the essay as “18% A.I. written.” The culprit? Using the word “devoid.” When the word was swapped out for “without,” the score magically dropped to 0%.”

The Future Smells Like Paper – “The technology should remove bureaucratic friction while preserving ceremonial weight. Make the process transparent without making it trivial. You can't automate meaning. You can only create conditions where it might emerge.” (via iA Writer)

What I mean when I say that I hate Gen A.I. – “I hate that I do it, and I am angry that I am forced - but I am an adult and I do what I must. I couldn't care less if I write the code I "make", but I am disenchanted with humanity. As a young boy I was full of optimism, I thought we can strive to be better. I was wrong. Money is all that matters.” (via Brain Baking)

Backseat Software – So many quotable parts in this beauty of an article by Mike Swanson. Before writing this very sentence, I successively pasted 3 to 4 quotes, each better than the previous one. What a great read; actually very hard to get through, as you'll want to stop every other paragraph to take notes. (via The Talk Show)

TextEdit and the Relief of Simple Software – An interesting perspective from someone deeply involved in the activity of writing on a computer, but seemingly not as passionate about software as one would assume. I’ll keep an eye on Kyle Chayka’s future columns, as I wouldn’t be surprised if this one is just a first step into the inevitable quest of finding a better writing app on the Mac. I’ve been there, both as a TextEdit-only user and as a text-editing software snob. I even play with Vim in the Terminal from time to time, just so I can feel like Dana Scully typing a report. (via Michael Tsai)

SubEthaEdit – Perfect transition to a really excellent text editor, for people who love “real” Mac apps, with a neat collaboration feature.

The Shape of Paris – At first, I just wanted to watch the first couple of seconds of this to see if it was worth saving for later or not, and I ended up watching it in full. Beautiful scenery that somehow made me nostalgic for the eight years of my life I lived in Paris. Also, has any other sport or hobby ever beaten skateboard in terms of style and looks? I don’t think so, it’s the epitome of cool. (via Kottke)

Shady Characters – Not as cool as a skateboard video in Paris, but this whole website looks incredible thanks to an exquisite typography. Subscribed to the RSS feed, and there is also a book, that I’ve just ordered.

Previous blend of links editions

Some time ago, I tried to use my web browser with JavaScript turned off by default. The experiment didn’t last long, and my attempt at a privacy-protecting, pain-free web experience failed. Too many websites rely on JavaScript, which made this type of web browsing rather uncomfortable.

I’ve kept a Safari extension like StopTheScript around, on top of a content blocker like Wipr, just in case I needed to really “trim the fat” of the occasional problematic webpage.*1

Recently, I’ve given this setup a new chance to shine, and even described it in a post. The results are in: the experiment failed yet again.

But I’m not done.

Even if this exact setup isn’t the one I currently rely on, JavaScript-blocking is nevertheless still at the heart of my web browsing hygiene on the Mac today.

For context, this need for fine-tuning comes from the fact that my dear old MacBook Air from early 2020, rocking an Intel chip, starts to show its age. Sure, it already felt like a 10-year-old computer the moment the M1 MacBook Air chip was released, merely six months after I bought it, but let’s just say that a lot of webpages make this laptop choke. My goal of making this computer last one more year can only be reached if I manage to not throw the laptop through the window every time I want to open more than three tabs.

My current setup

On my Mac, JavaScript is now blocked by default on all pages via StopTheScript. Leaving JavaScript on, meaning giving web sites a chance, sort of defeated the purpose of my setup (performance and privacy). Having JS turned off effectively blocks 99% of ads and trackers (I think, don’t quote me on that) and makes browsing the web a very enjoyable experience. The fan barely activates, and everything is as snappy and junk-free as expected.

For websites that require JavaScript — meaning frequently visited sites like YouTube or where I need to be logged in like LanguageTool — I turn off StopTheScript permanently via the Websites > Extensions menu in the Safari Settings. I try to keep this list to a bare minimum, even if this means I have to accept a few annoyances like not having access to embedded video players or comments on some websites.

For instance, I visit the Guardian multiple times daily yet I won’t add it to the exception list, even if I’m a subscriber and therefore not exposed to the numerous “please subscribe” modals. I can no longer hide some categories on the home page, nor watch embedded videos: a small price to pay for a quick and responsive experience, and a minimal list of exceptions.

For the few times when I actually need to watch a video on the Guardian, comment on a blog post, or for the occasional site that needs JavaScript simply to appear on my screen (more on that later), what I do is quickly open the URL in a new private window. There, StopTheScript is disabled by default (so that JavaScript is enabled: sorry, I know this is confusing).

Having to reopen a page in a different browser window is an annoying process, yes. Even after a few weeks it still feels like a chore, but it seems to be the quickest way on the Mac to get a site to work without having to mess around with permissions and exceptions, which can be even more annoying on Safari. Again, a small price to pay to make this setup work.*2

Another perk of that private browsing method is that the ephemeral session doesn’t save cookies and the main tracking IDs disappear when I close the window. I think.

The problem I had at first was that these sessions tended to display the webpages as intended by the website owners: loaded with JavaScript, ads, modals, banners, trackers, &c. Most of the time, it is a terrible mess. Really, no one should ever experience the general web without any sort of blocker.

To solve this weakness of my setup, I switched from Quad9 to Mullvad DNS to block a good chunk of ads and trackers (using the “All” profile). Now, the private window only allows the functionality part of the JavaScript, a few cookie banners and Google login prompt annoyances, but at least I am not welcomed by privacy-invading and CPU-consuming ads and trackers every time my JS-free attempt fails.

I know I could use a regular content blocker instead of a DNS resolver, but keeping it active all the time when JS is turned off feels a bit redundant and too much of an extension overlap. More importantly, I don’t want to be tempted to manage yet another exception list on top of the StopTheScript one (been there, done that, didn’t work in the long run). Also, with Safari I don’t think it’s possible to activate an extension in Private Mode only.

¶

John Gruber, in a follow-up reaction to The 49MB Web Page article from Shubham Bose, which highlights the disproportionate weight of webpages related to their content, wrote:

One of the most controversial opinions I’ve long espoused, and believe today more than ever, is that it was a terrible mistake for web browsers to support JavaScript. Not that they should have picked a different language, but that they supported scripting at all. That decision turned web pages — which were originally intended as documents — into embedded computer programs.

There would be no 49 MB web pages without scripting. There would be no surveillance tracking industrial complex. The text on a page is visible. The images and video embedded on a page are visible. You see them. JavaScript is invisible. That makes it seem OK to do things that are not OK at all.

Amen to that. But if JavaScript is indeed mostly used for this “invisible” stuff, why are some websites built to use it for the most basic stuff? Video streaming services, online stores, social media platforms, I get it: JavaScript makes sense. But text-based sites? Blogs? Why?

The other day I wanted to read this article, and only the website header showed up in my browser. Even Reader Mode didn’t make the article appear. When I opened the link in a private window, where StopTheScript is disabled, lo and behold, the article finally appeared.

For some obscure reason, on that website (and others) JavaScript is needed to load text on a freaking web page. Even if you want your website to have a special behaviour regarding loading speeds, design subtleties, or whatever you use JavaScript for, please, use a <noscript> tag, either to display the article in its most basic form, or at least to show a message saying “JavaScript needed for no apparent reason at all. Sorry.”*3