Apple’s new 15-inch MacBook Air model, set to be released on Tuesday, has an exciting new form factor that’s perfect for beginners. But, by Apple’s usual standards, it has outdated inner workings, using the M2 chip that was already in last summer’s 13-inch MacBook Air model. Bloomberg journalist Mark Gurman, who is well-informed about Apple, revealed that the reason for this is that the 15-inch MacBook Air was supposed to be launched alongside the 13-inch model, but due to production issues, it was delayed.
As a result, Apple chose to launch the 13-inch model with the M2 chip, but didn’t update it further because the new Apple M3 SoC wasn’t available yet. Gurman indicated that Apple has been working on the M3 version for a long time and is currently in the testing phase. The M3 variants of the MacBook Air are expected to be released in 2024, though it’s unclear whether it will be in the summer or spring. The iMac M1’s successor is also being developed with an M3 chip, and is expected to be released early next year.
Meanwhile, Apple continues testing its 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro models with the new SoC. The last update for MacBook Pro was in Spring and featured M2 Max and M2 Pro. It’s unclear whether the new MacBook Pros will be released in spring 2024 or autumn. The basic model of the M3 will have a similar number of cores as the M2, but it’ll run faster overall, due in part to the smaller structure width. M3 Pro and M3 Max will have more cores in the power efficiency areas. Apple has launched its fastest SoCs to date, such as the M2 Ultra in Mac Studio and Mac Pro with Apple Silicon.
