Of course it can use pro apps. It’s a computer

When I started doing YouTube in 2020, I was in the middle of my iPad era, and the only Mac in my life was a 2012 Mac mini. I don't remember its exact specs, but suffice to say it positively sucks by 2026 standards. And while it was very slow, it did technically handle everything I could throw at it, including photo and 4K video editing.

Also of note, this was a year before my switch away from the iPad-only lifestyle, and in retrospect, it was quite telling that I wasn't able to use my faster, much more modern iPad Pro to do this work. Anyway…

I bring this up because, of course, the MacBook Neo is able to run all of your professional apps, and I'm glad Tyler Stallman showed this off in his video. Consider how much faster the MacBook Neo must be than a 2012 Mac mini, and tell me that you can't do awesome, creative work on this thing.

Maybe there's something about the modern computing world of iPads and smartphones where we're used to professional features being gated by specific hardware classes, but that's fundamentally not how it traditionally works in computers. You can certainly spend more on a Mac, and tasks will complete more quickly. You'll have a nicer screen, and there will be other general quality-of-life things you might enjoy. But the work that a $600 MacBook and a $6,000 MacBook do is basically the same. Running large local LLMs is the only thing off the top of my head that's literally impossible on the MacBook Nano, but even then, you can run local models; they'll just be slower and less performant.

So if you're someone who wants to do creative work, even relatively high-end creative work on a computer, and your budget doesn't allow you to go past the Neo, don't worry. I promise you, you can do whatever you want to do. It'll just take a bit longer than doing the same tasks on a much more expensive Mac.