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The "in-between" is Apple's stubbornness to dig itself out of the very deep hole of profit over function and make the base model 16GB/512GB and use DUAL CHIPS that are readily available. But then, since their upgrades are so ridiculously priced (ie., pure profit), they'd be biting the hand that feeds them. Why, then, would Apple ever make 16GB/512GB the base model in the Air line (my question, not directed at your comment)?
Why would apple ever make 8/256 the base when it used to be 4/128? At some point they will make a base with more RAM and/or more SSD.
 
Ming-Chi Kuo literally said the 15” Air is going to be M2. Gurman said the same while speculating that M2 Pro could be an option for a high-end configuration.

Other analysts are also pointing towards the headset being powered by M2.

Additionally, MacBooks Pro and Mac minis just got M2 upgrades 4 months ago.

-Why is anyone still suggesting we’re getting any products with M3 for WWDC?

No way 15” Air gets to leave all the brand new M2 MBPs, M2 iPads Pro, and the $3000+ headset in the dust as the first and only 3nm Apple product.

Apple doesn’t need to do anything more than up the battery and display size on the Air to warrant millions of units sold.

Any other brand would add everything in their arsenal to get you to care. But not Apple, they don't have to.

15” Air will be M2. End of story.
 
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Ming-Chi Kuo literally said the 15” Air is going to be M2.

Other analysts are also pointing towards the headset being powered by M2.

Additionally, MacBooks Pro and Mac minis just got M2 upgrades 4 months ago.

-Why is anyone still suggesting we’re getting any products with M3 for WWDC?

No way 15” Air gets to leave all the brand new M2 MBPs, M2 iPads Pro, and the $3000+ headset in the dust as the first and only 3nm Apple product.

Apple doesn’t need to do anything more than up the battery and display size on the Air to warrant millions of units sold.

Any other brand would add everything in their arsenal to get you to care. But not Apple.

15” Air will be M2. End of story.

I think people are just hoping it will be M3, more than they are realistically expecting it to be. I agree that it will be M2. I just am not sure where the 13” Air fits into this, if it will updated this year or not. A part of me thinks we will not see M3 until 2024.

I really want to buy as I don't need the power of pro, only thing holding me back is the screen not being 90-144hz, in this day and age, comon..

For me it’s less about the refresh rate than about mini-LED. The HDR mini-LED display on the Pros looks almost as good as an OLED TV. The standard non-HDR LCD just can’t compete anymore.
 
I really want to buy as I don't need the power of pro, only thing holding me back is the screen not being 90-144hz, in this day and age, comon..
The low end of the line gets lesser components, not just less power. Expecting otherwise makes no sense.

I was mostly unaware how much components had changed until forced into the direct A-B comparison with a new MBP, and when I went back to the still-working 2016 MBP the older less good display and speakers were dramatically obvious.
 
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I think Apple wants all eyes and talk to be about the headset.

The headset isn’t just some new Mac or small accessory but a whole new product category, possibly the future of portable Macs.

For this reason, I see a best case scenario for new Macs is a MacBook Air with M3 but no Mac Pro, like you said.

But I’m a little doubtful of even M3 showing up at all since just putting it in a not-very-powerful portable Mac would possibly thwart the hype that Apple wants to build for M3.

M2 wasn’t a failure by any means. But much less successful than M1 in terms of hype and sales.

Also, just doing a M2 Air with 15” and maybe better RAM, M2 Pro and higher storage options would warrant a lot of purchases without doing M3.

Mac Pro is going to be the star of some other event but not WWDC 23. It’s too big of an announcement and it would serve Apple much better to spread these big products far apart.
M1 was a huge hype and leap, yet Apple introduced it in their least powerful lineup: MacBook Air, 13 inch MacBook Pro and Mac Mini.

The M2 debut in the MacBook Air. Its obvious at this point, Apple's strategy will be start with the least powerful line up reason being, it has more volume in product sales. Premium systems like the 16 and 14 inch don't sell in the same quantities as the MacBook Air and even 13 inch Pro. Its even why we have yet to see a Mac Pro. I suspect the amount of 2019 Mac Pro's sold didn't even pass 1 million.
 
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I think it would be fine for PS work, but you would want to upgrade the RAM, and get a decent monitor for color-critical work. If the 15" comes with an M2, you might consider a discounted 14" MBP which is a great PS laptop.

How much ram do you think is necessary? I saw a review of a 8gb M1 Mac Mini and it seemed to fly, is having a lot of ram necessary in the new machines?
 
Depends on your camera, how complex your files are, and how many programs you tend to run at the same time. I would suggest 16GB as a minimum for PS work.

Only think I’d be running at the same time is maybe Safari, I don’t do much else with my current Mac, and I use a Sony A7iii so not the highest resolution images.
 
Only think I’d be running at the same time is maybe Safari, I don’t do much else with my current Mac, and I use a Sony A7iii so not the highest resolution images.
You'll benefit from more ram if you have lots of layers or are doing things like HDR stacking or panoramic stitching. My 16" MBP has 16 and I would never consider less. You also need a lot of free drive space, either internal or a fast external drive, to be used a scratch disk.
 
You'll benefit from more ram if you have lots of layers or are doing things like HDR stacking or panoramic stitching. My 16" MBP has 16 and I would never consider less. You also need a lot of free drive space, either internal or a fast external drive, to be used a scratch disk.

Yea I upgraded my mini to 16 a few years back, helped a lot, but now it’s painfully slow. It’s a late 2012 model so anything new will probably feel like something out of the future to me. The drive is something I forgot about, I think my mini has an old 5400 rpm drive, a nice ssd should really help things out. Do you think 512 is enough? I have a couple large external drives I use for storage, and I know these things can get really expensive once you start adding things since Apple charges so much for ram and storage.
 
I think Apple is messing with Gurman's leaker's, I wouldn't be surprised if the 15 inch MacBook Air actually comes with M3 just like last years Air was the first debut M2.
Neeh..unfortunately , Gurman inside source are spot on till now...100% spot on
So this will be a big surprise if the 15" will be under N3 Tsmc
 
if this is true, I just hope the price will be reasonable. I mean M1Air-style reasonable.
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Oh wait, if this air is equipped with an M3 chip, then in an Apple Store we will see an M1 Air, an M2 air and an M3 Air side by side? I think that's interesting! It's like an Apple products museum showing the history of M series chips lol. Now in the Apple Store of Madrid we can see iPhone SE, iPhone 12, iPhone 13 and iPhone 14 side by side, and I think this is quite crazy, but MacBook Air with all the 3 generations of M series chips? That's another level!
 
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It’s never been more customer led. Economic conditions are challenging and PC market is contracting, so the customer demand is not there. It makes absolutely no sense to release this Air with an M3 in the peak of that when the new form factor alone will drive any demand it can get.
If it was customer led I doubt they would have a base 8Gb configuration? We see continual posts about 8Gb being too low? Customer led means customer led.
 
In many respects Apple have been victims of their own success with the M1 iMac, which gave such a good account of itself that expectations rose about the M2, which in my opinion it never got near to the expectations, and with so much publicity surrounding slower SSD's, which is ironic really as for most people it would not have really made a significant difference.
 
M1 was a huge hype and leap, yet Apple introduced it in their least powerful lineup: MacBook Air, 13 inch MacBook Pro and Mac Mini.

The M2 debut in the MacBook Air. Its obvious at this point, Apple's strategy will be start with the least powerful line up reason being, it has more volume in product sales. Premium systems like the 16 and 14 inch don't sell in the same quantities as the MacBook Air and even 13 inch Pro. Its even why we have yet to see a Mac Pro. I suspect the amount of 2019 Mac Pro's sold didn't even pass 1 million.
True.

But the one thing that everyone in here is forgetting:

  • iPhones 12 got 5 nm A14 in September 2020, followed by Macs getting M1 in November 2020.
  • iPhones 13 got A15 in September 2021. (Some) Macs got M2 in June 2022 (M2 is at large just A15 with more cores, running at a higher clock speed)
  • iPhones 14 got A16 in 2022. But (the A15/A16 based) M2 remains the newest Apple Silicon generation. High-end M2 Macs were introduced in 2023 (still same generation as A15/A16 though).
In short, Macs and other Apple Silicon products are always second in line to iPhones, and there's absolutely no chance Apple is ditching this strategy just to randomly blow us away with some cutting edge 15" MacBook Air dropping in Q3.

And why would Apple rush 3 nm in a product category with as small a market share as Macs?

Just to thwart a huge number of Q3-Q4 2023 M2 and M1 Mac sales and, even worse, steal most of the hype that iPhone 15 would have otherwise gotten as first 3 nm consumer product when it drops in September?

Apple will secure iPhone 15 sales by making it the first 3 nm smartphone. A17/M3 will then trickle down to other product categories on the following 2-4 years.
 
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If it was customer led I doubt they would have a base 8Gb configuration? We see continual posts about 8Gb being too low? Customer led means customer led.
What you actually mean is you want Apple to be “forum poster” led, not customer led.

I’ve literally never heard anyone say their M1 or M2 MacBook Air is too slow.

An interior designer in my office is rocking an 8GB M1 iMac making a living on Archicad. There’s shed loads of customers out there who don’t need any more than the base model M1 or M2 and don’t need to pay for extra ram.
 
I'm on my 13" M1 MBP. The two things I still regret about that machine is buying into the "8GB is enough" hype at the time (it's not, if you want to keep a bunch of apps open instead of having to close them all the time), and not getting the 1TB SSD (the 512 doesn't fit my entire archive of documents, which is really annoying on the road and having to search various cloud backups).

The M1, however, is still fine. I never hear the fans come on. Maybe once a week I'm actually taxing the CPU a bit and in most cases it's "would I really pay any kind of $$$ to make this export go faster?" It's SO fast compared to my previous Intel MBP it doesn't matter.

So what I need is 16GB (though I'm traumatised into wanting 32, and 24 is just weird), and a 1TB SSD.

And down the rabbit hole we go. Well, the 14" screen is nice, more screen real estate in pretty much the same form factor? Do want the 1080p camera. Magsafe is great too. Then there's also SD and HDMI, but hm well, use those maybe once a month and have the dongles. Oh hey there might be a 15.5" Air coming up? Which would be lighter? That's nice, a bigger screen, and the opportunity to get the RAM and SSD.

M1, M2, M3, pro and max, any of those would honestly be fine for someone who just has a zillion apps and tabs open and does some occasional tech testing and hobbyist video editing. Just want more memory and a larger screen.

So I'm mostly eagerly awaiting pricing and form factor: will the 15" Air be cheap enough to keep me away from Pro angst? Will it be light enough?
 
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