Friday, December 28, 2012, 05:39 am

Apple's MacBook Pro, MacBook Air to retain current designs in reported June refresh

By AppleInsider Staff

Apple will reportedly update the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air product lines in June 2013 with upgraded innards, but no major design changes are expected for either laptop range.


According to the hit-and-miss publication DigiTimes, Taiwanese supply chain sources said Apple recently issued requests for quotations (RFQs) for a number of notebooks, including the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air, with the new models slated to reach consumers in June 2013.

Little information was offered regarding the revised MacBook Pro as the publication focused its report on the effect Apple's MacBook Air will have on so-called Ultrabook makers next year. For 2013, Apple's thin-and-light is said to be switching to a new processor platform, most likely Intel's next-generation Haswell architecture.

As for design, sources say no major changes are planned for either product line. While the MacBook Pro line was the recipient of a design overhaul with the Retina display model, non-Retina versions still sport a unibody chassis largely unaltered since its debut in 2008. The MacBook Air's enclosure was revamped in 2010, taking on a more angular look as Apple applied design cues learned from its development of the iPad.

DigiTimes also suggests Apple may cut MacBook Air prices ahead of the June launch, but such a move is unlikely considering the company has no recent history of discounting products prior to a newer version's release. The publication made similar claims in May when it incorrectly predicted that Apple would introduce a $799 version of the laptop in the third quarter of 2012.