4 ms·

If Apple continues with the budget Neo brand into a 12 GB iteration, I can see this becoming more realistic (rather than a novelty). That being said, Parallels

If Apple continues with the budget Neo brand into a 12 GB iteration, I can see this becoming more realistic (rather than a novelty). That being said, Parallels may need to review its licensing with a budget tier in mind. Few will buy a cheap computer and then pay what Parallels charges for a license (regardless if one-time or subscription). They need to introduce something below the Standard license targeting the Neo. What I'd personally consider is: - Standard gets 16 GB vRAM (to perfectly target the base MacBook Air). But leave it at 4-6 vCPUs to not compete with the Pro (still for general computing, not power-users) - New "Lite" tier with 8 GB vRAM max for the Neo (4 vCPUs). Increasing to 12 GB vRAM if the Neo does. Then you target a $89 price point one-time-purchase for the "Lite" tier. Essentially three plans, targeting your three major demographics: budget, standard, and pro/power-user.

conradev 7mo ago
VMWare Fusion is free, even if it is a pain in the butt to download. It also has GPU paravirtualization for Linux/Windows which is the only reason I use a proprietary VMM on macOS these days.
- spullara 7mo ago
  You can also use UTM to run Windows for free and it is open source. https://mac.getutm.app https://mac.getutm.app
  - LoganDark 7mo ago
    Last I checked UTM doesn't have GPU acceleration. Parallels' proprietary GPU driver is the only reason to pay for it.
    - spullara 7mo ago
      fair
      - spullara 7mo ago
        I have Intent working on it. Maybe AI can make progress on this, but we will see.
        LoganDark 7mo ago
        Intent looks interesting but the fact that they have their own credits system turns me off of it. I pay $200/mo for Claude Code and that's enough for me; I wish I could use Intent with that.
        spullara 7mo ago
        Have you actually tried it? In addition to Augment, you can use it Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and more are coming.
  - littlecranky67 7mo ago
    Because I was fed up with parallels subscription model and they make me pay for the upgrade the non-subscription version with every new macOS release, I dropped parallels for UTM. I barely need windows, only every other month or so and often just for some small tasks. UTM is nice, but performance running windows is waaay below parallels. It is free, however, so I won't complain.
    - commandersaki 7mo ago
      The performance story doesn't really make sense as both UTM and Parallels use Apple Hypervisor Kit which pretty much is the hypervisor running Windows. It should be identical.
      - littlecranky67 7mo ago
        Classic VM solutions like Virtualbox, VMware, Parallels etc. always come with guest tools and driver packages for the guest that have a massive impact on performance. Just because both solutions use the same hypervisor doesn’t mean they perform equally.
- fragmede 7mo ago
  http://tart.run http://tart.run works great for running macOS (and Linux) VMs on macOS if you're technical. It's free for non-commercial uses too! (Don't think there's GPU acceleration tho).
- conradev 7mo ago
  I take this back: UTM has Venus in there with KosmicKrisp – the works, as of January. Long live QEMU.
Asmod4n 7mo ago
Apple already sells that, it’s called MacBook Air.
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
zitterbewegung 7mo ago
This isn't a novelty it will crush the low end of the PC market. No one cares if the next iteration will be better with 12GB of ram. The workloads that people say that 8GB can't handle will be ones that the actual users will either wait or tolerate. I've been noticing that people who review the Macbook Neo basically don't get the point [1] and just the headline of this article matters that VMs work and thats a big win. The most ridicuous thing about the laptop is that it appears to be reparable which sort of tells me this is a template similar to the M1 Air of the future laptop designs that Apple will come out with. [2] [1] https://samhenri.gold/blog/20260312-this-is-not-the-computer-for-you/ https://samhenri.gold/blog/20260312-this-is-not-the-computer... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbPCGqoBB4Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbPCGqoBB4Y
- Someone1234 7mo ago
  > This isn't a novelty it will crush the low end of the PC market. You took what I said out of context and then replied to something else. Running Parallels on a Neo is a novelty. Parallels is both what the thread is about AND what my reply was expressly about. Nobody can reasonably read what I wrote, in context, and believe I was referring to the computer itself as a novelty.
  - awesome_dude 7mo ago
    I saw the other day people complaining about AI slop being posted on this site by new accounts - which I agree is bad. Someone suggested that people with 10k karma and/or 10 years subscription to this site should be able to do things (such as auto-ban) to those accounts. The account that misrepresented your comment and thus acted in bad faith is one of those 10k+ accounts. To me, this is a data point showing the fallacy of long term subscription and/or karma accrual as evidence of their quality/good faith abilities
    - zitterbewegung 7mo ago
      I admit now after rereading that I did misrepresent what they said and I should have read their comment more closely and it was a knee jerk reaction and that its my fault.
littlecranky67 7mo ago
Don't underestimate what you can do with the 8 GB RAM. My mid-tier, Intel 2019 Macbook Pro with 32GB RAM suddenly died by the end of 2023. I quickly got a basemodel 256GB/8GB MacMini M2 as a replacement. While initialy supposed to be a temporary replacement until my MBP gets fixed, I ended up using it for another year as my main daily machine for everything, inluding professionally (fullstack software dev). There was simply no need to upgrade, the MacMini was faster in all regards then my Intel MBP. Out of curiosity of its capability I wanted to see how gaming performs - I ended up playing through all three Tomb Raider reboots (Mac native, but using Rosetta!) at 1080p in high settings. Absolutely amazed how fast it was (mostly driven by the update to M2). Only one thing ever made me notice the lack of RAM, and that was when I was running the entire test suite of our frontend monorepo. This runs concurrently and fires up multiple virtual browser envs (vitest, jest, jsdom) to run the tests in parallel. Stuttering and low responsiveness during the execution, but would complete in 3-4 minutes - it takes around 1 minutes on my current M4 MBP.
akst 7mo ago
There’s something called menu pricing, in order to keep its existing customer base buying their more expensive higher end models there need to be an unjustifiable drop in quality to switch. The gap in spec is no mistake, if it was appealing enough for existing air-book users to downgrade it would cannibalise their bottomline.
commandersaki 7mo ago
That being said, Parallels may need to review its licensing with a budget tier in mind. The budget tier is UTM. (Also recommend any users of UTM that find it useful should consider donating, preferably through Github sponsors.)

conradev 7mo ago

VMWare Fusion is free, even if it is a pain in the butt to download. It also has GPU paravirtualization for Linux/Windows which is the only reason I use a proprietary VMM on macOS these days.

spullara 7mo ago
You can also use UTM to run Windows for free and it is open source. https://mac.getutm.app https://mac.getutm.app
- LoganDark 7mo ago
  Last I checked UTM doesn't have GPU acceleration. Parallels' proprietary GPU driver is the only reason to pay for it.
  - spullara 7mo ago
    fair
    - spullara 7mo ago
      I have Intent working on it. Maybe AI can make progress on this, but we will see.
      - LoganDark 7mo ago
        Intent looks interesting but the fact that they have their own credits system turns me off of it. I pay $200/mo for Claude Code and that's enough for me; I wish I could use Intent with that.
        spullara 7mo ago
        Have you actually tried it? In addition to Augment, you can use it Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and more are coming.
- littlecranky67 7mo ago
  Because I was fed up with parallels subscription model and they make me pay for the upgrade the non-subscription version with every new macOS release, I dropped parallels for UTM. I barely need windows, only every other month or so and often just for some small tasks. UTM is nice, but performance running windows is waaay below parallels. It is free, however, so I won't complain.
  - commandersaki 7mo ago
    The performance story doesn't really make sense as both UTM and Parallels use Apple Hypervisor Kit which pretty much is the hypervisor running Windows. It should be identical.
    - littlecranky67 7mo ago
      Classic VM solutions like Virtualbox, VMware, Parallels etc. always come with guest tools and driver packages for the guest that have a massive impact on performance. Just because both solutions use the same hypervisor doesn’t mean they perform equally.
fragmede 7mo ago
http://tart.run http://tart.run works great for running macOS (and Linux) VMs on macOS if you're technical. It's free for non-commercial uses too! (Don't think there's GPU acceleration tho).
conradev 7mo ago
I take this back: UTM has Venus in there with KosmicKrisp – the works, as of January. Long live QEMU.

Asmod4n 7mo ago

Apple already sells that, it’s called MacBook Air.

deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]

zitterbewegung 7mo ago

This isn't a novelty it will crush the low end of the PC market. No one cares if the next iteration will be better with 12GB of ram. The workloads that people say that 8GB can't handle will be ones that the actual users will either wait or tolerate. I've been noticing that people who review the Macbook Neo basically don't get the point [1] and just the headline of this article matters that VMs work and thats a big win. The most ridicuous thing about the laptop is that it appears to be reparable which sort of tells me this is a template similar to the M1 Air of the future laptop designs that Apple will come out with. [2] [1] https://samhenri.gold/blog/20260312-this-is-not-the-computer-for-you/ https://samhenri.gold/blog/20260312-this-is-not-the-computer... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbPCGqoBB4Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbPCGqoBB4Y

Someone1234 7mo ago
> This isn't a novelty it will crush the low end of the PC market. You took what I said out of context and then replied to something else. Running Parallels on a Neo is a novelty. Parallels is both what the thread is about AND what my reply was expressly about. Nobody can reasonably read what I wrote, in context, and believe I was referring to the computer itself as a novelty.
- awesome_dude 7mo ago
  I saw the other day people complaining about AI slop being posted on this site by new accounts - which I agree is bad. Someone suggested that people with 10k karma and/or 10 years subscription to this site should be able to do things (such as auto-ban) to those accounts. The account that misrepresented your comment and thus acted in bad faith is one of those 10k+ accounts. To me, this is a data point showing the fallacy of long term subscription and/or karma accrual as evidence of their quality/good faith abilities
  - zitterbewegung 7mo ago
    I admit now after rereading that I did misrepresent what they said and I should have read their comment more closely and it was a knee jerk reaction and that its my fault.

littlecranky67 7mo ago

Don't underestimate what you can do with the 8 GB RAM. My mid-tier, Intel 2019 Macbook Pro with 32GB RAM suddenly died by the end of 2023. I quickly got a basemodel 256GB/8GB MacMini M2 as a replacement. While initialy supposed to be a temporary replacement until my MBP gets fixed, I ended up using it for another year as my main daily machine for everything, inluding professionally (fullstack software dev). There was simply no need to upgrade, the MacMini was faster in all regards then my Intel MBP. Out of curiosity of its capability I wanted to see how gaming performs - I ended up playing through all three Tomb Raider reboots (Mac native, but using Rosetta!) at 1080p in high settings. Absolutely amazed how fast it was (mostly driven by the update to M2). Only one thing ever made me notice the lack of RAM, and that was when I was running the entire test suite of our frontend monorepo. This runs concurrently and fires up multiple virtual browser envs (vitest, jest, jsdom) to run the tests in parallel. Stuttering and low responsiveness during the execution, but would complete in 3-4 minutes - it takes around 1 minutes on my current M4 MBP.

akst 7mo ago

There’s something called menu pricing, in order to keep its existing customer base buying their more expensive higher end models there need to be an unjustifiable drop in quality to switch. The gap in spec is no mistake, if it was appealing enough for existing air-book users to downgrade it would cannibalise their bottomline.

commandersaki 7mo ago

That being said, Parallels may need to review its licensing with a budget tier in mind. The budget tier is UTM. (Also recommend any users of UTM that find it useful should consider donating, preferably through Github sponsors.)