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Apple's 2022 MacBook Air: Everything We Know

MacRumors said:


The next-generation MacBook Air refresh coming in 2022 will see Apple introduce the biggest design update to the MacBook Air since 2010, which is when Apple introduced both 11 and 13-inch models. We're expecting a total overhaul of the look of the machine, and this guide aggregates all of the rumors that we've heard so far.
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This article feels like - "Oh M2 will be better than M1"
How so? Lets make up a few rather captain obvious generic statements to backup my above statement. Just make the justifications generic enough so almost anything Apple does will match up.

I do think we need to thank Captain Obvious (I mean Jon Prosser) for this nugget of very easily predicted musings.

tenor.gif
 
The ‘Air’ suffix is outdated and obsolete at this point, especially with everything at Apple more-or-less the same thickness. Dropping it completely will help restore some sanity within the the Mac line up again.

1. MacBook / MacBook Pro
2. iMac / iMac Pro
3. Mac Pro (TBD)
4. Mac Mini / (Mac Mini Pro?)
 
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MacRumors said:
Ports

While the MacBook Air will feature multiple USB-C/Thunderbolt ports, it is not expected to adopt an SD card slot or an HDMI port, with those options remaining limited to the MacBook Pro to set the two machines apart.
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yes, it is those 2 ports that "set the two machines apart" :rolleyes:
 
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UsernameAlreadyInUse said:
The ‘Air’ suffix is outdated and obsolete at this point, especially with everything at Apple more-or-less the same thickness. Dropping it completely will help restore some sanity within the the Mac line up again.

1. MacBook / MacBook Pro
2. iMac / iMac Pro
3. Mac Pro (TBD)
4. Mac Mini / (Mac Mini Pro?)
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This would make sense. The iPhone lineup finally sort of follows the same naming logic, at least as far as what means what, which I love. I really wish they'd drop the version numbers every year, as it was starting to get off putting with iPhone 11, but that's a minor gripe. If I ran the world, the current version would just be iPhone/mini/Pro/Max would have no number, and then all old/discount versions would have years. It would take a while for the version numbers to filter out though, which would be a messy transition and pretty un-Apple-y.

But I'm not sure what you can do about iPad naming at this point, which goes opposite the Mac, because of course it does. The iPad Air is at this weird mid level fill-in-this-price-gap model (and is actually the one I sort of want right now), and the iPad is the budget model. The mini kind of mirrors the niche-ness of the iPhone mini or Mac mini, but the middle two just need to be flipped around or we need to do away with "Air" altogether.

The whole Air thing is just about as pointless and played out in 2021 as putting the small I in front of everything. Getting rid of that moniker would clean things up the rest of the way.
 
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danmaldesign said:
Another person who doesn’t understand the marketing, concept or industrial design behind the original MACBOOK AIR … emphasis on the word “AIR”. Branding and industrial design newbies…class is dismissed.
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But the wedge shape was just a solution at the time to make it seem thinner than it was. They can make it actually thin now without such tickery. How would that be?
 
AlexanderUK said:
Thing of it is, the current MacBook Air has the exact same single core performance and 2/3 multi-core performance of the Pro and Max models. The only performance gain the Pro / Max models have in chipset cases is GPU, heat throttling and max RAM.

So I'm not sure how MacRumors can claim they won't be as powerful as the Pro and Max chips, be an upgrade of the current M1 stock, and yet it will somehow have speed improvements (outside of graphics) - which would have to make them more powerful. Talk about contradictory.
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The M1 is the moderate performance, high efficiency chip for Apple’s consumer line. It has 4 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores.

The M1 Pro and Max use the same core design as the M1 but they increase the performance cores to 10. Each core is essentially the same speed as the M1 core but there are 2.5 times as many cores.

That means that an app that uses a single core would run at about the same speed on the M1 Air or on the M1 Pro / Max MacBook Pros. An app that can use multiple cores could run 2.5 times as fast on one of the new Mackbook Pros because of those extra cores.

The M2 is rumored to have a new core that will likely be incrementally faster (somewhere in 10-15% would be likely). If the new Air has an M2 chip it would be a little faster than the old Air and than the M1 Pro / Max Backbook Pros when using a single core. The MacBook Pros would still be more than twice as fast for any apps that used multiple cores.

Once Apple is ready, they will likely launch M2 Pro and Max versions that also share this faster core.

This difference between the speed of a single core and the speed of a whole pile of cores is why MacRumors wrote that.
 
segfaultdotorg said:
To be clear, this is the new MacBook Air Pro, not the very old one (over a year old) Apple is still selling, which is apparently still setting sales records, despite lacking MagSafe or a current-generation M1X/M2 chip?
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No, the Air that Apple is selling now, which was released a year ago, does have the current-generation chip, which is the M1 generation, and comes in M1, M1 Pro, and M1 Max variants. The M2 generation has not yet been released.

I've not heard anyone refer to the new M2 Air the article is discussing as the Air Pro (except in jest). The Air is not intended to have the Pro designation.
 
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Tagbert said:
The M1 Pro and Max use the same core design as the M1 but they increase the performance cores to 10. Each core is essentially the same speed as the M1 core but there are 2.5 times as many cores.
That means that an app that uses a single core would run at about the same speed on the M1 Air or on the M1 Pro / Max MacBook Pros. An app that can use multiple cores could run 2.5 times as fast on one of the new Mackbook Pros because of those extra cores.
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The Pro/Max have 8 performance cores and 2 efficiency cores (except for the one low-end model, which is 6/2). So they have double the number of performance cores, and half the number of efficiency cores, compared to the 4/4 of the M1.

IIRC, each efficiency core is worth about 1/4 performance core. So the 4/4 M1 is effectively as fast as a hypothetical 5-perf-core model, while the 8/2 Pro/Max is effectively equivalent to 8.5 perf cores. Thus, for CPU-bound tasks that can utilize all 10 cores, the Pro/Max should have a total multicore performance about 8.5/5 = 1.7 x faster than the M1.

[Geekbench multicore scores show the Pro/Max as 1.5 x faster than the M1, but these are preliminary.]
 
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DHagan4755 said:
I'm starting to doubt white bezels AND a notch. Either the bezels are white with no notch or they're black with a notch like the new 14" & 16" MacBook Pros.
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I think you are right. Apple has to have decided at some point that white notches are not what they want, otherwise we would have had a white iPhone notch by now. Remember these dummy units we were seeing before the iPhone X came out?

22344-26891-iphone8coppermock-front-l.jpg
 
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theorist9 said:
Nope, what I wrote seems to be just how it generally worked in the past. From the data I found, 2018 (which introduced the Retina monitor) was the one exception to the general rule that Apple keeps the entry-level prices about the same as (or less than) the previous generation's.

Specifically, in looking at the introductory pricing for new 13" entry-level models from the Air's 2008 introduction to the present, 2018 was the only year they raised the price. [I think I have these right -- feel free to confirm them for yourself.] The last two releases, in particular, kept at the $999 mark.

2008 (Introduction): $1799
2009: $1499
2010:$1299
2011: $1299
2012: $1199
2013: $1099
2014: $999
2015: $999
2017: $999
2018 (Retina): $1199
2019: $1099
2020: $999
2021 (M1): $999

Of course, you could argue that, if they do a Pro Motion screen on the 2022 Air, that might have the same effect on pricing as the Retina did in 2018.
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I guess I see this data differently. The 2010 MBA was a completely different model than the 2008/2009. The 2010 was the introduction of the wedge design, and was really the first MBA intended to be an everyday computer for the masses. Apple made a ton of them, and they could lower the cost as production and supply chain ramped up. It started at $1299 in 2010 and slowly decreased to $999. Likewise the 2018 started at $1199 and slowly decreased to $999. I would suspect the same trend with the new MBA model in 2022. Initially, it will be a couple of hundred bucks more than the current model, and then it will drift down to the magical $999 as mass production and economies of scale kick-in.

The 2008/2009 models are not good reference points. This was a niche product at the time (early ultraportable), and this model didn't really take off. It only lasted a couple years.
 
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It is impossible always be on top. There must be decline at some point. With advent of execrable notch, the subsequent come-down was predictable
 
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Second/3rd quarter of 2022? Wow that's a long time...
Tagbert said:
But the wedge shape was just a solution at the time to make it seem thinner than it was. They can make it actually thin now without such tickery. How would that be?
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The wedge shape actually is pretty good for ergonomics.
I'm not sure why Apple would steer away from that design, unless it's just a decision to distance themselves from Ive's design language.
 
Cam Elppa said:
Bit nostalgic. Maybe it will be the rebirth of the iBook? With
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UsernameAlreadyInUse said:
The ‘Air’ suffix is outdated and obsolete at this point, especially with everything at Apple more-or-less the same thickness. Dropping it completely will help restore some sanity within the the Mac line up again.

1. MacBook / MacBook Pro
2. iMac / iMac Pro
3. Mac Pro (TBD)
4. Mac Mini / (Mac Mini Pro?)
Click to expand...
The MacBook Air is not a suffix…it has a different design, weight and thickness. The “more or less the same thickness” sentiment is absolutely ridiculous.
 
Well, Apple can call the next MBA chip whatever they like....M2, M1X.....whatever. But, if they want to keep the MBA fanless, I suspect the increase in performance will be incremental, which is probably fine for the typical MBA customer. Rather, the new chip might focus on improved power efficiency, which Apple could use to reduce the battery size and weight while maintain the current battery life (which is pretty good as it is).
 
warriors2017 said:
Colorful laptops are so '90s ?
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The ’90s were a much, MUCH more interesting decade computing wise, both in terms of silicon development and design, than our present.

If Apple hadn’t gone with their own design, but used merchant chips, basically nothing would have happened the last decade.
 
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TheYayAreaLiving said:

Apple's Redesigned 2022 MacBook Air: Everything We Know. According to TheYayAreaLiving!​


Introducing MacBook Air 2022. Coming Soon in Spring!​
View attachment 1906136
Tim Cook: One more thing...

“At Apple we have been working on introducing dual camera set up for years. This will enrich people lives. At Apple, we think you are going to love it”.
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Double notch for people with double chin?
 
topmounter said:
Apple really needs to come up with something for the traveling professional. White bezels and cotton candy colors are definitely not it. Think 12" MacBook Pro or a reboot of the 12" MacBook. The 14" MacBook Pro went the wrong direction size-wise being bigger than the 2017 MacBook Air.
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Not size is the point – weight is the disadvantage of these new MBP 14" and 16" – can't wait for this M2-MB(Air)! ?
 
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