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Apple's 2024 M3 MacBook Air Refresh: What to Expect

My M2 air is doing great… will be nice to see what design changes come with M4 or M5… by which tine id probably consider an upgrade…

Especially for the screen tech and battery life… maybe a mini led with 24 hour plus battery life 🤔
 
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HobeSoundDarryl said:
I have towards zero expectations of improved relative RAM and SSD upgrade pricing, so I won't hold my breath. But I will be holding my wallet ready to buy or not buy depending on a better value being offered or not. I'd definitely like one of these but not at current RAM & SSD upgrade pricing. So hopefully, Apple will be moved to throw customers a bone this time instead of "more, more, more" for shareholders. Else, my aging MBpro will keep being used until the wheels fall off.
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I'm not holding my breath either. I expect this machine to be identical in specs and price to the existing MBA, just with an M3. Hope I'm wrong - I've been waiting on this announcement before perhaps upgrading to a 14" MBP - but nothing about today's Apple makes me think we'll see any change other than the M3.
 
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HobeSoundDarryl said:
For me (24 year Apple (about) everything guy), I need to see much better value on both RAM and SSD upgrades than the current norm. I was ready to buy M2air on launch day until I upped those 2 things to my wants... and the price overran "deals" on M2 MBpros.

This one is going to be up against deals on M3 MBpros and I hope it will be different this time.

I have towards zero expectations of improved relative RAM and SSD upgrade pricing, so I won't hold my breath. But I will be holding my wallet ready to buy or not buy depending on a better value being offered or not. I'd definitely like one of these but not at current RAM & SSD upgrade pricing. So hopefully, Apple will be moved to throw customers a bone this time instead of "more, more, more" for shareholders. Else, my aging MBpro will keep being used until the wheels fall off.

Serious consideration that the next laptop may be a PC is growing... and that would not have even been a thought as recently as 5 years ago.
Click to expand...

My guess is they will keep the base spec of the MBA unchanged but drop the price to 999 because they need to push units - a three digit price point works wonders for sales.

The outrageous upgrade pricing will probably remain untouched but feel a tad more bearable at a lower starting point?

This isn’t as straightforward as it sounds though, the upsell points that make you consider crossing over into the MBP lineup are carefully balanced out. But since the Pros have been in the market for a bit, it wouldn’t be too surprising if they saw a slight price decrease as well.

Maybe they’ll keep the M1 Airs around to offer something in the 899 region? I never really understood why Apple doesn’t sacrifice some margin to increase market share, it seems so weird to focus on extreme profitability rather than ecosystem tie-in while you have a billion iPhone users and a hundred billion dollars sitting in the bank doing nothing.

But what do I know 🙂
 
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Flex77 said:
My guess is they will keep the base spec of the MBA unchanged but drop the price to 999 because they need to push units - a three digit price point works wonders for sales.

The outrageous upgrade pricing will probably remain untouched but feel a tad more bearable at a lower starting point?

This isn’t as straightforward as it sounds though, the upsell points that make you consider crossing over into the MBP lineup are carefully balanced out. But since the Pros have been in the market for a bit, it wouldn’t be too surprising if they saw a slight price decrease as well.

Maybe they’ll keep the M1 Airs around to offer something in the 899 region? I never really understood why Apple doesn’t sacrifice some margin to increase market share, it seems so weird to focus on extreme profitability rather than ecosystem tie-in while you have a billion iPhone users and a hundred billion dollars sitting in the bank doing nothing.

But what do I know 🙂
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I agree about the MBA specs and pricing. If you look at the history of the MBA, new designs are generally released at around $1,200+/-. Then, the price slowly drifts down to the magical $999 even as updated processors are introduced. Not a guarantee, but this has been the trend.
 
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HobeSoundDarryl said:
For me (24 year Apple (about) everything guy), I need to see much better value on both RAM and SSD upgrades than the current norm. I was ready to buy M2air on launch day until I upped those 2 things to my wants... and the price overran "deals" on M2 MBpros.

This one is going to be up against deals on M3 MBpros and I hope it will be different this time.

I have towards zero expectations of improved relative RAM and SSD upgrade pricing, so I won't hold my breath. But I will be holding my wallet ready to buy or not buy depending on a better value being offered or not. I'd definitely like one of these but not at current RAM & SSD upgrade pricing. So hopefully, Apple will be moved to throw customers a bone this time instead of "more, more, more" for shareholders. Else, my aging MBpro will keep being used until the wheels fall off.

Serious consideration that the next laptop may be a PC is growing... and that would not have even been a thought as recently as 5 years ago.
Click to expand...
I bought a Thinkpad for typing work documents, writing a book on, and I really love the typing experience on it. But, everything else on it sucks compared to my MacBooks. It has 16GB of RAM and a 4TB SSD and cost me less than $1k, but it just isn’t a Mac! The build quality is not on par. But the keyboard is heavenly. At some point there has to be a way for Apple to improve the keyboards. They’re really not good if you compare them to a Thinkpad.
 
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I expect less throttling at load due to an improved thermal envelope thanks to the die shrunk M3, which this chassis was designed for as it was supposed to be ready for the M2.

I also expect Apple to F us multi-screen users over with an artificially gimped I/O limiting us to one external monitor unless we want to mirror, because Apple gonna Apple.
 
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Will it have usb c on both sides? My two are on the left side. Very awkward. ONLY buy the titanium. My blue one is impossible to keep clean.
 
MacRumors said:
Right now, the MacBook Air is available in silver, space gray, starlight, and midnight, which is a new dark blue color. We could see the three standard colors and another special color, or a whole new color lineup.
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Just as Space Black is one of the major selling points of MacBook Pro with M3 Pro or Max, I believe new color for MacBook Air M3 will be a big draw.

But which colors?

I think Silver will remain in the line as it is an iconic classic Apple color. I would love iMac's Blue, Green, and Red (bolder back color) as opposed to nearly white varieties of iPhone 15.
 
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Well, the only meaningful upgrade I can see would be the Dynamic Island and I’m sure we’ll see that in the iPad Pro’s next month and then the MacBook Pros before it tricks down to the Airs.
 
"Most people who have an M1 chip may not want to update either,"

Correct, at least for me. LibreOffice is doing just fine, and for most everything else the internet is the limiting factor.
 
Hang on a second... weren't all the Apple news sites saying the new iPad Pros and Airs coming in March/April too??
So which is it, as Apple never released both of these things near each other?

IMO it'll be Pads in Mar/Apr, MBAirs in Jun WWDC. Makes more sense.
... with M3 Mac Studios in Autumn.
 
Don't agree with the blanket statement that if you have the M2 Macbook Air it won't be worth upgrading. In fact I have a 15" Air M2 and might just upgrade. As a working photographer averaging 20 photo sessions a week any improvement is appreciated and we'll see how much my current Air can fetch on trade in. I don't want a Pro model. I don't do video and prefer the lighter and thinner size. Blanket statements are never not usually a good thing...
 
My 2022 M2 is the best computer I've owned, hands down. For the size and battery life it got me through remote work for COVID and still works great. I'd like to think I need more, but I don't, the only reason I'd consider getting one is if I can replace my work Windows Desktop that I've about thrown out the window a few times...
 
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