Upcoming 15-inch MacBook Air Again Rumored to Feature M2 Chip

[MacRumors]

The forthcoming 15-inch MacBook Air will indeed be equipped with an M2 chip, not the M3 that Apple originally planned, claims news aggregator account "yeux1122" on the Korean Naver blog.

According to the blog's Taiwanese supply chain source, Apple's decision to use an M2 chip was not down to production issues at chipmaker TSMC, but was due to a combination of factors, including market conditions and inventory adjustment.

A previous report out of Korea earlier this month claimed that Apple temporarily halted production of its M2 series chips at the start of 2023 following a pronounced slump in global demand for MacBooks.

The suspension is said to have continued through February, after which production of M2 series chips resumed, but they were "only half the level of the previous year," said the Korean-language report at the time, quoting a person familiar with the matter.

Last week, an unreleased 15-inch MacBook Air with a processor "on par" with the M2 chip was spotted in App Store developer logs. The MacBook Air configuration had an 8-core CPU and 10-core GPU, just like the M2 chip, along with 8GB of RAM. The new Air was also listed with a display resolution equal to that of the 14-inch MacBook Pro.

It's unclear exactly when the 15-inch MacBook Air will be released, but it will likely be announced by WWDC, which begins June 5. The existing 13-inch MacBook Air with the M2 chip launched in July 2022 after being announced at WWDC a month earlier.

The release of an M3-powered Mac is expected to come at a later date, and will represent a transition to a 3-nanometer production process from the current 5-nanometer standard. The 3nm process, which is also being used in this year's iPhone 15 series, allows for significantly improved performance and more efficiency.

Article Link: Upcoming 15-inch MacBook Air Again Rumored to Feature M2 Chip

 

[Rudy69]

They should just wait for the M3 at this point

 

[madmin]

News aggregator accounts hah!
Readers want exclusives, so here's one:

2023 WWDC will be Tim Cook's last as CEO
as he wants to go out with a bang he's going to come on stage dressed as Lily Savage (RIP)

 

[DocMultimedia]

Sounds nice if it happens this year. My M1 13in Air is still doing quite well.

 

[Aluminum213]

They should just wait for the M3 at this point

Might as well wait for the M4 at this point

 

[jon08]

I hope 15” MBA would at least come with a fan this time around. I’d feel more at ease as I’m still not a fan of fanless MBA (no pun intended ).

 

[russell_314]

Of course it’s going to come with M2 if it comes out this year. M3 is likely going to be late 2024.

Most people buying this are not going to care. I don’t think anyone here could tell the difference between M1 and M2 without some type of benchmark method. It’s not something that’s going to make a difference to people using a MacBook Air.

Perhaps tech nerds won’t have bragging rights to tell their friends they have M3 in their laptop but maybe they can wait till it comes out 🤷‍♂️

 

[MBX]

That's a bummer. I thought M3 was already in production end of last year?

Now wait another year until the Air's have the M3?

 

[russell_314]

I hope 15” MBA would at least come with a fan this time around. I’d feel more at ease as I’m still not a fan of fanless MBA (no pun intended ).

That’s my favorite part of my M2 MacBook Air. I don’t have to worry about vents or fan noise. I know it’s hard for people coming from Intel where they’re used to having a jet turbine cooling the processor.

 

[contacos]

Still starting at 8GB of ram? 🙃 soon our phone will have more than a Mac laptop

 

[ifxf]

Might as well wait for the M4 at this point

By then Apple will change its naming to something like S1Pro and maybe a heavy duty S1ProMax /s

 

[russell_314]

Might as well wait for the M4 at this point

If you’re going to wait, I would say wait for M6 or M7. I think that’s when we’re going to see the real performance increase

 

[russell_314]

Still starting at 8GB of ram? 🙃 soon our phone will have more than a Mac laptop

You can get up to 24 GB if you need it. Not everybody needs that much.

 

[applesed]

Imagine now how much the prototype m3 15 inch MacBook Pro will go for at auction. “Look at all the smudges.”

They could have done it but just decided not to introduce the m3 in this computer, cause it would be too perfect, they are saving that feature for later.

 

[ascender]

They should just wait for the M3 at this point

I'd rather they just get it out there asap - its not like the M2 is a bad chip in terms of performance, efficiency, heat etc. At the moment, anyone wanting a 15" laptop has to spring for the 16" MacBook Pro, so the sooner an alternative option is available the better.

 

[Leon Ze Professional]

I just want to see and touch this 15 inch Macbook Air. Whether it has an M2 or M3 chip, is not the deciding factor here. It's the weight and screen size that are the key drivers I'm looking for.

 

[senttoschool]

3nm Speculation:

• TSMC started 3nm volume production on December 29th, 2022. [Offical source straight from TSMC.]
• Apple is the only 3nm customer right now. [Many rumors]
• TSMC is reportedly producing as many as 45,000 3nm wafers per month [Digitimes report]
• 45,000 wafers can produce 9.5 million M3 chips assuming ~60% defect rate [my own math]
• Thus far, if Apple started producing 3nm chips back in December 29th, they would have ~20-30 million M3 chips in stock, assuming a ramp up to 45,000 wafers/month [my back of the napkin math].
• Apple sells about 7.5 million Macs per quarter [IDC report]
• 30 million M3 chips could supply Apple with enough Mac M3 chips for an entire year already. [my own math]

So if Apple isn't releasing M3 with MBA 15" at WWDC, what were they doing with all the 3nm wafers since December 29th?

Who is wrong here?

Why Apple would want to release M3 at WWDC 2023 speculation:

• It's already been one year since M2.
• M2 itself was late because it had to wait for the redesigned MBA [many reports/rumors].
• M2 used A15 cores (iPhone 13). It's unlikely that M3 will use A16 cores (iPhone 14) because A16 is not a 3nm design. It's still a 5nm family design.
• Thus, M3 has to be using A17 design and using 3nm. See above on what Apple has been doing with all the 3nm wafers. [Read discussion on why M3 could come out before A17]
• Because Apple skipped using A16, they would have had more time to produce an M series using A17.
• Apple would want to make a splash by introducing a new Macbook with a new SoC. They seem to want this based on recent history.
• An Apple executive was quoted as saying that they want to release a big upgrade for M series every year. [See quote below, source]

“The M2 family was really now about maintaining that leadership position by pushing, again, to the limits of technology. We don’t leave things on the table,” says Millet. “We don’t take a 20% bump and figure out how to spread it over three years…figure out how to eke out incremental gains. We take it all in one year; we just hit it really hard. That’s not what happens in the rest of the industry or historically.”

• Marc Gurman doesn't think it's M3 because the developer logs had an 8-core CPU/ 10-core GPU. This is weird speculation because it makes more sense for M3 to have the exact same number of cores as M2. A tik-tok model makes more sense.

M1: New node, new architecture
M2: More cores
M3: New node, new architecture
M4: More cores
M5: New node, new architecture
M6: More cores

 

[contacos]

You can get up to 24 GB if you need it. Not everybody needs that much.

I also didn’t need more than 16 GB of space on my iPhone at some point but it’s still nice to have the option of 128 GB without paying extra just in case

 

[Mac Fly (film)]

They should just wait for the M3 at this point

100%. M2 MBA launched nearly one year ago. Wait until June at WWDC 2023 and lunch the bigger M3 MBA alongside an updated small one, to bring the family onto the same common sense schedule. That will be a 13.6" M3 MBA and a 15" one (probably 15.5"). That's what they could do.

Personally, if it were my choice I would make the larger MBA 14.2" and make the smaller one 12.9". They are "air" after all. Well, they are supposed to be, and leave MBP as 14.2" and 16.2".

I would also give MBA SD Card and HDMI for teachers, office staff and conference attendees who don't want or need a powerful and heavy chonk-monster and prefer the ultraportable form-factor.

Make MBA more everyday-practical for those who want a thin and light (myself included; I have a powerful Mac desktop machine). MBP already has many differentiating features besides those two ports, such as screen quality, variable refresh-rate, screen size, speakers, more raw power, fans and cooling, high RAM capacity, SSD size, and additional thunderbolt 4 ports—MBP going forward should have four, and MBA should have two.

 

[cdsapplefan]

They won’t release M3 chips until March Apple 2024 Spring Event. They missed the spring event this year but not next year with new OLED iPad’s and M3 MacBook Air’s. Apple Silicon Chips go on a 18-month cycle except for the iPhone 📱 which comes every 12 months to the T.

 

[ascender]

100%. M2 MBA launched nearly one year ago. Wait until June and lunch the bigger M3 MBA and update the existing size MBA to M3 coincident with that launch probably at WWDC 2023.

But on the flip side, the M2 is more than powerful enough to cope with anything you can throw at it. M3 will give performance improvements, but they're not going to be massive jumps in performance. We're pretty much in to the regular, incremental speed-bump releases now that we've all been complaining didn't happen under Intel latterly.

If you buy an M2-based Air this year, it's going to last you for years.

 

[MayaUser]

But on the flip side, the M2 is more than powerful enough to cope with anything you can throw at it. M3 will give performance improvements, but they're not going to be massive jumps in performance. We're pretty much in to the regular, incremental speed-bump releases now that we've all been complaining didn't happen under Intel latterly.

If you buy an M2-based Air this year, it's going to last you for years.

yes , but think of the sells..if the 15" Mba was on N3 based...not only the consumers, casual users would have bought it, but also some professionals who likes to have the latest architecture

 

[cgs1xx]

Hopefully this will make it cheaper than expected? 🤷🏻

 

[azentropy]

You can get up to 24 GB if you need it. Not everybody needs that much.

Sure not everyone needs that much, but you shouldn't have to BTO to get more than 8GB of RAM anymore. At this point they should offer a 16GB pre-built configuration that retailers can carry.

 

[russell_314]

I also didn’t need more than 16 GB of space on my iPhone at some point but it’s still nice to have the option of 128 GB without paying extra just in case

You’re paying for whatever it is that’s included. At some point MacBooks had 2 GB of RAM and of course that was upgraded just like your iPhone had 16 GB of storage. At the time your 16 GB iPhone came out I’m sure could have included 32 GB. If Apple decided to do that you would’ve paid more for your iPhone.

Tech nerds wants a MacBook Air under that magical $1000 price but want 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage. It’s just not possible. You have to remember people that are buying basic Windows laptops at big box stores are often getting them with 4 GB RAM. This is the competition Apple is up against when it comes to selling a basic laptop. People are already looking at $1000 price tag like it’s insane. If they did that upgrade like most tech nerds want it’s going to be at least $250 more expensive.

Apple computers are already significantly more expensive than their Windows counterparts so Apple has to do everything they can not make that problem worse. Part of that solution is to keep the base model as basic as possible so they can keep that price down.

Apple looks at their basic user and sees what they do with the computer because obviously they can tell with people sharing stats and they see many or not needing more than 8 GB of RAM. I could’ve gotten my mom at 16 GB MacBook Air, but it would’ve been a complete waste of money. I would’ve paid $200 for nothing. The same with the storage upgrade.