Apple is on a roll with new product launches to open up 2025. The most notable so far has been the iPhone 16e; a not-quite replacement for the iPhone SE that offers the standard iPhone experience without too many bells or whistles while keeping the price as competitive as Apple needs it to be. The next big-ticket item is the M4-powered MacBook Air.
The MacBook Air’s M4 Delay
It’s the last of the macOS laptops to receive the M4 Apple Silicon chipset. The M4 was launched in May 2024 and has since found its way into the iPad Pro, MacBook Pro, iMac and mac Mini products. The MacBook Air, arguably Apple’s best-selling consumer Mac, is currently absent from that line-up.
This ten-month lag between launching the M4 and adding it to the MacBook Air has several advantages for Apple. By launching an M4 MacBook Air just now, it will still be seen as part of the current M4 generation, yet the M4 is approaching its end of retail pole position. Everyone is expecting the M5 to arrive at May’s Worldwide Developers Conference.
In essence, Apple has dragged out the timeline of the MacBook Air, so the new hardware is close to being a year old. That offers financial benefits in the bill of materials and some important psychological space in the product matrix.
Selling The MacBook Air
Apple has always struggled to find an argument for the MacBook Pro with the vanilla M-series chipset. For many, the slight performance upgrade over an equivalent M-series MacBook Air made little sense. With the M4 series, the M4 MacBook Pro has become the de facto ‘entry-level’ M4 chipset MacBook.
It’s a much easier device to sell for those looking for the newest and latest hardware when the M4 MacBook Air is not around. The MacBook Air maintains the psychologically locked-in starting price of $999, even while the MacBook Pro starts off the current M4 generation at $1599.
For those who keep up with the digerati and want a Mac with the biggest number, Apple is pushing the MacBook Airway from the fashionable end of the market into the functional end. Those who want the aura will want the latest hardware. Right now, that’s M4. In a few short months, it will be M5. And the MacBook Air M4 won’t cut it any more.
Making The MacBook Air Stand Out
Creating distance between the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro used to be a matter of increased performance and potential. That was certainly the case when Apple used Intel chipsets in the MacBook. The introduction of Apple Silicon equalised the Air and Pro laptops and lifted the performance ahead of the Intel-powered competition.
Since then, there has been little to tell the M-series MacBook Pro and MacBook Air laptops apart; both were using the vanilla M-series chipset, both had broadly similar I/O ports, both had broadly similar potential, and the key difference was the fifteen to twenty percent performance boost the addition of a cooling fan in the MacBook Pro offered. And for the majority of consumers, that extra power was not needed. The MacBook Air was seen as sufficient.
If the average consumer on the street isn’t chasing power, then there’s no need to have a MacBook Air matching the ultimate power of the day. Rolling back one generation of chipsets will not impact their experience. Still, it will create more space in the portfolio, create demand for the more expensive M4 MacBook Pro, and reduce Apple’s costs when parts are becoming pricier and a looming trade war between China and the US could impact margins.
And all Tim Cook and his team had to do was wait a year.
Now, read the latest MacBook Air, iPhone, and AirPods headlines in Forbes’ weekly Apple news digest…
