The M4 MacBook Air is likely to arrive in mid-March

Macworld

Following the non-event launch of the iPhone 16e last week, next up on Apple’s hardware release schedule is the MacBook Air. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports that Apple is “gearing up” for a March release of the M4 MacBook Air. And in case you didn’t notice, March is only a week away.

Gurman reports that the current inventory of the M3 MacBook Air is being “drawn down” to make room for the upgrade. He doesn’t provide a specific release date, but perhaps Apple’s current Higher Education Offer 2025 promotion in Australia and other regions offers a clue. The promotion, which includes the M3 MacBook Air, ends on March 13. So it’s likely Apple will launch the M4 MacBook Air after that back-to-school promotion is over.

That puts the most likely launch of the MacBook Air during the week of March 17 or March 24.

Previous reports had said that the new MacBook Air will feature a version of the M4 chip, which was introduced in November with the 14-inch MacBook Pro. The current entry-level MacBook Air has 2 fewer graphics cores (8 versus 10) than the higher-end models, so it’s likely Apple will continue this trend.

Another major upgrade that could find its way onto the M4 MacBook Air is a 12MP CenterStage camera, replacing the current 1080p one, which debuted with the M4 MacBook Pro. Apple also upgraded the M3 MacBook Air to start with 16GB of RAM back in October of last year. We don’t expect Apple to raise prices with the M4 MacBook Air, which should continue to start at $1,099.

While the M3 chip is a great chip, behind the scenes it created a conundrum for Apple. Its production process is more expensive than the one for the M4, so Apple wants to move off the M3. That could mean that Apple will keep the M2 MacBook Air as its most affordable laptop–its M2 chip is older but still provides enough performance for most people. Apple also kept the M1 MacBook Air for two generations.

For more information about the M4 MacBook Air, stay tuned to our release guide.