Amber Neely
Apple is expected to upgrade its MacBook Air on Wednesday, though like with the iPad Air and new iPad, the update will probably be just a spec bump.
On Tuesday, Apple introduced the new M3 iPad Air. It also announced a new base-model iPad, upgraded with double the base storage and the A16 chip.
Now, it looks like we could see another upgrade to Apple's lineup as soon as Wednesday — the M4 MacBook Air. The prediction comes from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, who posted to X on Tuesday.
The new iPad Air, low-end iPad and low-end Magic Keyboard are here. All the details here. Expect the M4 MacBook Air tomorrow as part of the new product wave. https://t.co/knHOWRvvDe
— Mark Gurman (@markgurman) March 4, 2025
We anticipate that the MacBook Air update will largely be a spec-bump upgrade, with the change in chip likely to be the main alteration. The same design and two sizes will be available as last time. Presumably, the base M4 chip will be used, saving the M4 Pro and M4 Max for the MacBook Pro lineup.
An update to the webcam to an ultra-wide version, appearing in macOS code references, is also a strong possibility.
The M4 chip first made its debut in May 2024, in the seventh-generation iPad Pro.
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3 Comments
I already have the MacBook Air 13” M3 so I going to wait for the M4 15” to go on sale before I get the new M4!
We've gotten to the point that our iPads and MacBooks are so good, that updates (however much appreciated they are) just "feel" a bit lackluster. There's little from Apple (other than VisionPro) that rattles us these days. Even if all notches were eliminated (which would be glorious), it just wouldn't recapture the magic of Apple Announcements in decades past. Some think it was because Steve Jobs was alive back then, but I'm not so sure. Apple broke new ground back then. These days we get updates only.
This isn't so much a complaint from me as it is an acknowledgement of the times in which we live. But I do hope to see more innovation from Apple in the near future. Having Vision Pro pave the way to new exciting technologies is what I am looking forward to.
I've got a 15" M3 MBA and can't see any reason to upgrade, unless Tim himself offered to swap straight across. Our machines on many fronts have pretty much plateaued, so incremental updates don't do much for anyone who's bought a recent machine. But somebody with an M2 MBA might appreciated the M4 update. That's reason enough for Apple to do the incremental thing.
There was a time when we could count on an upgrade providing more RAM, more storage, a CPU bump, and maybe GPU bump for the same money we paid for an earlier version, less equipped. I don't know that this happens nearly as much.