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.
