The 15-inch MacBook Air is one of the most anticipated Apple products set to launch this spring. The larger Air laptop has appeared in various reports recently, with the latest one indicating the launch event is coming soon, but not as soon as expected. If some rumors said the 15-inch MacBook Air will get a late April or early May release date, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman now says Apple will likely launch the laptop during the busy WWDC 2023 opening keynote in June.
According to the same insider, the 15-inch MacBook Air would be only the first of a slew of MacBook updates coming this year. But a spring launch for the biggest Air so far means the laptop can’t get the next-gen M3 chip coming later this year.
Gurman points to a jam-packed WWDC event this year in his Power On newsletter. The event could rival some of Apple’s pre-Covid era keynotes, some of which lasted two and a half hours.
The Bloomberg reporter listed all of Apple’s upcoming WWDC announcements:
- the Reality headset, the first major new Apple product category in nearly a decade
- a new xrOS operating system and software development kit
- new MacBooks
- iOS 17
- iPadOS 17
- macOS 14
- a major watchOS 10 update
The WWDC 2023 menu isn’t exactly surprising. And it’s interesting to see the 15-inch MacBook Air get a special segment in a WWDC keynote. Apple could have always announced the new laptop via a press release.
Gurman also says Apple is working on several new computers in addition to the 15-inch MacBook Air. We’re looking at refreshes for the 13-inch MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro, a new 24-inch iMac, the first Mac Pro with M-series chips, and brand-new high-end MacBook Pro models. The report notes that the laptops should go on sale either this year or in early 2024.
But at least some new laptops will be unveiled at WWDC 2023, Gurman said. A June launch for the 15-inch MacBook Air and any other new MacBook would mean they’ll run “something in line with the current M2 processors.” A WWDC reveal would probably give the 15-inch MacBook Air a mid-June release date. It’s likely the machine would be available for preorder soon after the event.
The 15-inch MacBook Air might have appeared in developer logs, which indicate the machine features an 8-core CPU that has four performance cores and four efficiency ones. That’s the CPU design of the base M2 chip.
Furthermore, the purported 15-inch Airs feature 10-core GPUs and 8GB of memory. These leaked specs indicate the 15-inch Air might feature specs that are on par with the more expensive 13-inch M2 MacBook Air that Apple sells right now.
That’s all speculation for now. And Apple could always use an 8-core CPU, 8-core GPU configuration for the cheapest possible 15-inch MacBook Air.
As for prices, Gurman doesn’t mention any figures. But considering that the 8-core CPU, 10-core CPU 13.6-inch model starts at $1,499, I’d expect the 15-inch to either match that figure or cost slightly more. The base 14-inch M2 Pro MacBook Pro starts at $1,999, so Apple has plenty of room.
On the other hand, Apple’s Mac sales dived in the first quarter of the year by more than 40%. That’s the biggest decline in over 22 years and a sign that Apple is eager to improve sales. The 15-inch MacBook Air might help with that, especially if to comes with a reasonable price.
