I think they mean that Apple is shipping the M5 now, while Asahi only runs reasonably on the M1 (from 2020!), half-works on the M2, and won't run at all on the M3 and above.
Asahi developers have done amazing reverse engineering and driver development. But for the foreseeable short-term, there's no chance of it being installed on a current M-series iPad; it can't even be installed on a current Apple laptop.
I think the Macbook Neo might change that. It's not even an M-series, so there's a quite a lot of work to get Linux running on it. But because it's so much cheaper than the other laptops, and quite powerful, it makes a good "spare" laptop for people who can afford an M-series. And it probably has many internal functions similar to the M-series. I think it might get more attention by reverse engineering enthusiasts over the next couple of years.
Also, AI agents can help experts with reverse engineering labour in ways they couldn't a year ago. (I'd love to do this, if anyone out there wants to pay for it :-)
