Malcolm Owen
Apple may introduce an updated MacBook Air at WWDC 2022, one that could be revealed as part of the launch of the M2 Apple Silicon generation.
Apple is rumored to be close to launching its next generation of Apple Silicon chips, with the M2 potentially being unveiled at WWDC 2022. As part of the launch, there is a chance Apple could bring out a new version of the MacBook Air at the same time.
According to Mark Gurman's "Power On" newsletter for Bloomberg, any hardware launches at WWDC will "likely be on the Mac side." Apple is also said to have been aiming to "launch the next MacBook Air with M2 chips at the conference."
While Apple planned for a launch, a supply chain crunch caused by COVID-19 lockdowns in China seemed to put that goal in jeopardy. However, Gurman says that developers have noticed Apple employees using "next-generation MacBook Airs with their apps," presumably for testing the hardware pre-announcement.
The idea of Apple introducing an updated MacBook Air has been floated a few times, and as one of the earliest M1 products, it seems like one of the biggest candidates for a refresh.
Rumors have put forward the idea that the MacBook Air can have a renewed appearance bringing it in line with the 14-inch MacBook Pro. This could include a display with a notch, complete with a 1080p camera, multiple color options, and a chassis change that removes the signature taper.
While the focus of Gurman's comment is the MacBook Air, there are reportedly at least nine Macs in development using M2-generation chips.
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20 Comments
I give a 0.02% chance of this happening.
As is typical for Apple, they will unveil new version of their various operating systems (iOS, macOS, iPadOS, etc.) at WWDC which will be available to developers leading up to their official release in the fall: new iPhones running on new A-series SoCs on the new iOS. It makes sense that new Macs running on new M-series SoCs will debut on the new macOS.
If they attempt to ship new M2 Macs on Monterey, there would likely be little new functionality offered by the current macOS Monterey unless they heavily forked macOS which isn't Apple's modus operandii. It's worth pointing out that there are no developer betas of the next generation macOS right now. Zero, zippo, zilch.
Things were different when Apple was still relying on Intel CPUs, Intel integrated GPUs and Radeon GPUs for their Macs but that time is passed.
New Macs = new M-series SoCs = new macOS.
And unless the new macOS ships in June, there isn't going to be a new M2 Mac on store shelves.
A more interesting topic is whether Apple will follow a "tick-tock" release cadence: Mx and Mx Pro SoCs in even-numbered years (2020, 2022, 2024) and Mx Max and Mx Ultra SoCs in odd-numbered years (2021, 2023, 2025).
For sure, Apple's macOS QA has declined substantially over the past few years and I'm not convinced that they are capable of releasing a high-quality macOS to support four flavors of M-series SoCs at the same time. (I would love to be proven wrong.)
Size matters! I mean Macbook Air screen size to at least 141." if not larger.
I was going to say that WWDC doesn't seem like the event to be updating the MacBook Air, but Apple did exactly that in 2013, so maybe.