Apple will soon bring its MacBook Air up to speed. It's been nearly a year since we got our last MacBook Air update, with Apple releasing the M3 Air in early March 2024, so a spring refresh with the M4 processor has been expected for some time. Tim Cook teased yesterday with the tweet, "There's something in the AIR," that all but confirms the arrival of an M4 MacBook Air.
The MacBook Air has trailed the MacBook Pro in terms of Apple silicon since last fall when the Pro models received an M4 update. And the MacBook Pro wasn't the first Apple device to get the M4. That was the iPad Pro in May 2024 when Apple first unveiled its M4 processor. So, the arrival of the M4 MacBook Air won't surprise anyone. We've all been waiting.
This week. pic.twitter.com/uXqQaGNkSk
— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) March 3, 2025
M4 MacBook Air arriving tomorrow
Apple today announced new iPads, and new MacBook Airs are expected to follow very soon. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says tomorrow is the day we'll get the new M4 Air models.
The new iPad Air, low-end iPad and low-end Magic Keyboard are here. All the details here. Expect the M4 MacBook Air tomorrow as part of the new product wave. https://t.co/knHOWRvvDe
— Mark Gurman (@markgurman) March 4, 2025
Right now, the cheapest M4 MacBook you can buy is the 14-inch Pro at $1,599. If Apple keeps pricing the same for the 13-inch Air, an M4 MacBook becomes much more affordable at $1,099. You can expect better performance from the M4 than the M3, but keep your expectations in check. Think incremental gains in CPU and GPU performance but nothing revolutionary.
Read more: MacBook Air vs. MacBook Pro
The M3 chip in the current 13-inch MacBook Air has 8 CPU cores and 8 GPU cores, and the M4 chip in the baseline 14-inch MacBook Pro has 10 CPU cores and 10 GPU cores. The M3 and M4 chips feature a 16-core neural engine that supports Apple Intelligence features, but Apple says the M4 is twice as fast as the M3 with AI workloads.
Soon, both the MacBook Air and iPad Pro will feature Apple's M4 chip.
Both the 13- and 15-inch MacBook Air models are expected to get the M4 update, but so far we've heard no rumors of design tweaks. This appears to be an internal update only.