Malcolm Owen
Shortly after introducing the 15-inch MacBook Air with the M2 chip, Apple is already working on the next generation of the model, with expectations of an M3 edition due by early 2024.
The 13-inch MacBook Air refresh of 2022 and the latest 15-inch MacBook Air both use M2 chips for processing. While Apple is still well into the M2 generation of chips, it is thought that an M3 edition of models are in development for release down the road.
In his "Power On" newsletter for Bloomberg on Sunday, Mark Gurman anticipates that updated models will turn up in 2024 sporting M3 chips. While M2 uses TSMC's 5-nanometer process, M3 should use a more power-efficient 3-nanometer process.
According to Gurman, the M3 versions should have fairly similar core counts for the CPU and GPU as offered by the M2 chips.
The MacBook Air aren't the only models set to get M3 chips, with Gurman expecting an updated iMac by early 2024, as well as a refresh to the 13-inch MacBook Pro.
Previously in March, Gurman offered expectations of M3 chips arriving at the end of 2023 at the earliest.
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3 Comments
Other than for benchmark bragging rights and the relatively tiny "advanced/power user" market, I'm not sure Apple needs to be in such a rush with its consumer-oriented machines. The M1 and M2 just run rings around Windows machines for 90+ percent of users, both in terms of speed and in terms of ease-of-use. A new chip every year with double-digit improvements is kind of a dead-end street -- there isn't going to be anything much smaller than the 3-nanometre process, so until quantum computing arrives we are already nearing the end of Apple's recent chip innovation streak.
Give a typical Windows user who's probably on a three-to-five year old cheap or mid-range PC a Mac mini or MacBook Air and they'd be blown away by the responsiveness and elegant design. And that's before they learn about the privacy and security protections, the deep integration, the great sound, the powerful ports, and so forth. I just don't think Apple can sustain for much longer the needs of the advanced-user/professional market, but I've been wrong before about this and would be happy to be wrong again.
Well it’s obviously in development, doesn’t mean it’s gonna be released any time soon though.