By Oliver Haslam
Publication Date: 2026-03-12 16:21:00
The Parallels Desktop virtualization tool is confirmed to work on Apple’s new MacBook Neo, but there are enough caveats to suggest that you’d be better off buying a MacBook Air or MacBook Pro instead.
Parallels Desktop has long been the go-to app for people who need to run virtualized machines on a Mac. It’s a great way for people to use Windows apps without having to use a separate machine or switch entirely.
With the release of the MacBook Neo, some had wondered whether its A18 Pro chip would be capable of running Parallels Desktop. The A18 Pro first debuted in the iPhone 16 Pro, and this is the first time a Mac has used an iPhone A-series chip. M-series chips are normally found in Apple’s computers.
The good news is that Parallels has confirmed that its Desktop app does indeed work on the MacBook Neo. However, the company has warned that it has only completed basic usability testing — more tests are needed to confirm which operating systems can be virtualized.
Good, unsurprising news
This news shouldn’t be all that surprising, however. While the A18 Pro did make its debut in an iPhone, it’s still based on the same architecture as M-series Mac chips. That’s why macOS can be run on an iPhone chip.
We also know that Rosetta 2, Apple’s x86 emulation layer for legacy Mac apps, also works on the MacBook Neo. Rosetta 2 and hypervisors (virtual machine host devices and software) like Desktop Parallels use similar underlying technologies.
