Serial leaker and analyst Ming-Chi Kuo claims Job’s Mob is cooking up a budget MacBook that could dip below the $999 mark for the first time.

The machine is rumoured to ship with the A18 Pro chip the same silicon jammed into the upcoming iPhone 16 Pro and might arrive in silver, pink or yellow, just in case you thought this was a serious machine.

Kuo reckons production will kick off either late 2025 or early 2026, with plans to churn out between five to seven million units in 2026. That’s not a hobbyist run. If true, it suggests the cultists in Cupertino are eyeing the mainstream market for once.

The new machine is expected to sport the same 13-inch screen as the current MacBook Air, which implies the only real compromise will be under the bonnet. The A18 Pro is good when you compare it to other Apple homemade chips but it is not likely that it will do as well compared to chips designed for the purpose.

For most daily tasks, single-core grunt matters more anyway, and this thing should handle emails, browsing and even a bit of light editing without fuss. This means that you would be paying $999 for an Apple laptop which does the same thing as a $450 Windows machine with a reasonable AMD chip.