AAPL Company

Apple execs talk biggest flops, MacBook Neo, more in new interview

Chance Miller | Apr 15 2026 - 6:42 am PT

We’re one month removed from the launch of MacBook Neo, and all indications are that it’s been a hit for Apple.

In a new interview with Tom’s Guide published today, Apple executives John Ternus and Greg Joswiak talked more about MacBook Neo, Apple’s biggest “flops,” and more.

Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, explained what he thinks really sets MacBook Neo apart from other products in its price class:

“The products in this space that (the Neo) is competing against, they’re plastic. You can literally flex them. They’re so cheap. Because what have they done? They just tried to cut a nickel, cut a quarter, cut a dollar. Everything to try to make it cheaper. Which is very different from making it a lower price and a high value, which was the approach we’re taking.”

He continued:

“We never wanna ship junk, right? We wanna ship great products that have that Apple experience, have that Apple quality. And to do that with the Neo required something completely new from the ground up, right? Leveraging both the technologies we’ve been developing, like Apple Silicon, but also kind of the expertise that we’ve developed over many, many years of building Macs and building phones and building iPads and all of these things.”

Here’s Joz on the idea of Apple glasses and the “inevitability” of this product category:

“There’s some inevitability to combining the digital and physical world. That’s what spatial computing was all about. I can’t give you a timeline for when spatial becomes anything else, but you know it’s an inevitability. Of digital and physical worlds coming together.”

In line with Apple’s recent 50th anniversary, Joswiak and Ternus were asked about what they view as Apple’s biggest “flops” over the years.

Joz pointed to the first MacBook Air:

“We’re not perfect. We’re going to make mistakes along the way,” said Joz. “Steve talked about it. No one bats a thousand. But what you try to do is, when something doesn’t go right, you pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and figure out what are you going to do to change it?”

As iconic as the new initial 2008 MacBook Air was, it “didn’t sell very well” according to Joz.

Ternus, meanwhile, cited the infamous disaster launch of Apple Maps:

“When we started out with maps, it was an ambitious undertaking. It was bumpy. But the team had just been over the years just pushing and pushing and pushing. And Apple Maps today is absolutely amazing. If you have the vision and you’re persistent and you keep working at it, you can take something you know that has a rocky start and turn it into something great.”

You can read the full interview on the Tom’s Guide website, or in video form below. What do you think Apple’s biggest flops are? Do you agree with Joz and Ternus? Let us know down in the comments.