Apple's spring 2025 to be busy with M4 MacBook Air, iPads

A report suggests Apple's budget iPad and MacBook lines are set for updates in early 2025, and the Mac Studio won't get its M4 upgrade until the summer.

Apple is quickly shifting away from the undesirable 3nm process used for M3 by upgrading all of the affected products in quick succession. While Mac mini, iMac, and MacBook Pro will get the M4 treatment before the end of October, it'll be 2025 for the rest of the Mac lineup.

According to a report from Bloomberg, Apple is gearing up for a busy spring release cycle. The M4 MacBook Air is expected to begin production soon with an early 2025 release window.

That leaves the Mac Studio and Mac Pro, which will likely be announced in the usual summer window between WWDC in June and mid-July. At that point, Apple would reveal the M4 Ultra for those high-end desktops.

The report states the Mac Studio is "delayed" as Apple had originally expected to release it alongside the MacBook Air refresh. However, the reported March to June release for Apple's desktops fits its usual schedule, so it isn't clear why Apple would have pushed it out sooner or why this is considered a delay.

A busy spring

It goes on to say spring to be packed with products, including the long awaited iPhone SE 4 and an updated eleventh-generation iPad. The iPad Air lineup could also get the M4 processor in a surprise year-over-year chipset update — but that seems less likely.

Apple could surprise customers with an M4 iPad Air after upgrading the tablets with M2 in 2023, but that is the same chipset used by the iPad Pro. And there's little to no chance Apple would move it to M3 when it could have in May, so it seems odd that the iPad Air is included in the product launch rumors unless Apple is dramatically changing its iPad strategy.

While Apple could shift the early 2024 announcements around to space things out, the timeline for the M4 MacBook Air and desktop Macs fit Apple's usual schedule. We're rating this rumor a likely, but note that it is still early enough that things can shift by March.