We’re likely now mere weeks away from Apple revealing its new slate of M4 Mac products, with current leaks suggesting the new Macs will land in early November. It’s been a less-than-watertight build-up to launch, with a bevy of leaked details (including an apparent full leak of the M4 MacBook Pro on YouTube), but there’s one very conspicuous absence.
I’m talking, as you may have guessed, about the long-awaited M4 MacBook Air. Now, this isn’t actually the new product I’m most excited about – that honor goes to the M4 Mac mini, since despite my usual Apple skepticism I’m a sucker for a powerful compact computer – but I’m frankly baffled by the Air's apparent exclusion from the new product lineup, with current rumors suggesting it’ll launch sometime in early 2025.
After all, the MacBook Air is kind of a big deal. Apple itself labels it ‘the world’s most popular laptop’ – a term I take with a pinch of salt, since Apple doesn’t offer the same variety of configurations and models that virtually every other laptop manufacturer does – and we awarded the most recent M3 MacBook Air a rare five stars in our review. Even as a known macOS hater, I have to admit that it’s undeniably a stellar laptop. So why isn’t Apple leading with it when it comes to its upcoming M4 lineup?
Best foot forward
This isn’t the first time Apple has snubbed its ‘most popular’ Mac product. Last year’s ‘Scary Fast’ October event saw the same odd move, with the M3 chip being officially unveiled first in a new MacBook Pro and iMac. The M3 MacBook Air didn’t release until March this year, so it now looks like Apple is going to repeat that pattern.
Now, I’m just a humble tech journalist, not privy to the conversations no doubt taking place behind closed doors at Apple, but I’d like to posit a few possible explanations for this frankly rather baffling decision to apparently de-prioritize the MacBook Air, despite its claimed popularity. Why exactly doesn't Apple want to lead with its supposedly market-conquering laptop?
Well, our first answer might come from sales statistics. According to a survey conducted by research organization CIRP, the MacBook Pro currently accounts for the largest portion of Mac products sold in the US, taking up a 43% share, while the MacBook Air sits in second place at 34%. But that’s still more than the remaining Mac devices combined, with the iMac, Mac Pro, Mac mini, and Mac Studio (in descending order of share) accounting for the remaining 23%.
So, the MacBook Air is significantly more popular than the iMac and Mac mini, yet both lines are reportedly receiving new M4-powered models this year. It could have to do with profitability; the iMac and MacBook Pro both typically retail a fair chunk above the Air, and putting out the more expensive products first could be a savvy business move. On the other hand, the Mac mini is the cheapest Mac product by far, with the M4 model supposedly getting a significant redesign that hopefully won’t impact its entry price too much (especially since there was no M3 variant of Apple’s diminutive desktop system).
A little trickery
I’m led to conclude that there’s a simple explanation for Apple holding back the MacBook Air – twice now – when it introduces a new wave of Mac products. Apple simply wants its shiny new M4 chip to look good – and it’s easier to showcase that in a Pro-level laptop with active cooling, rather than the slimmer, passively-cooled MacBook Air.
That’s not even mentioning the fact that the new M4 MacBook Pro will reportedly ship with 16GB of RAM in its base configuration – something that users and reviewers alike have been demanding for years, as 8GB simply isn’t enough for intensive work these days. If Apple plans to keep 8GB of unified memory as the baseline for the MacBook Air, the M4 chip inside the cheapest model will naturally perform less well in many tasks against a new 16GB MacBook Pro.
By releasing the new MacBook Air long after the buzz about a new chip has died down, Apple could be hoping to mitigate any backlash surrounding expected versus real-world performance – and Apple already kicked off excitement about the M4 by releasing it in its latest iPad Pro 13-inch back in May, a smart move given that high-level computational performance is less important on a tablet device, and iPadOS is less resource-intensive than macOS.
Just to be clear: I’m not saying that the new MacBook Air is going to suck. It won’t be as strong as the MacBook Pro, and that’s totally fine – it’s cheaper, after all – but Apple probably doesn’t want anyone thinking of it as the ‘downgrade’. I will, however, be heavily disappointed if it launches with only 8GB of memory as standard, especially given the ludicrous amount Apple charges for RAM upgrades. Don’t let me down, Tim…
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