The latest Apple rumor has me excited for April 2024, when the M3 MacBook Air and a handful of iPads could finally arrive
A new rumor has surfaced about potential new Apple products – and I don’t mean the Apple Vision Pro; we could be treated to new iPad and MacBook Air models as early as April, with each product getting a decent specification and (hopefully) a slightly refreshed look.
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman (a journalist with a track record of accurate Apple leaks) notes in his Power On newsletter (in a Q&A section behind a paywall) that “Apple strives to to release new iPad Airs, including a larger model, refreshed iPad Pros and M3 MacBook Airs in the spring.”
If Gurman is right, we could see updated 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air laptops equipped with the incredibly powerful M3 chip. He hints that the new releases will all come out at the same time in April, rather than having separate launch dates for the MacBook and iPads. This potential update for the MacBook Air follows the release of last year’s MacBook Pro lineup and the much-needed refresh of the 24-inch iMac, which debuted with the new M3 chip.
However, the M3-equipped MacBook Air was notable by its absence. The MacBook Air is Apple’s most popular laptop and the company launched new models to showcase the M1 and M2 chips when they were unveiled, leaving many of us wondering what happened to the M3 version.
With the M3, the potential new MacBook Air laptops will get serious improvements in their CPU performance, including better power efficiency, accelerated ray tracing and a better gaming experience. The proposed April release for the new MacBooks would make sense considering the M2 MacBook Air is approaching two years old, so it’s time for Apple’s thin and light laptop to get an upgrade.
iPads as powerful as MacBooks?
As for the iPads, we could see them getting closer and closer to MacBooks in terms of performance with these rumored updates.
The 11-inch and 13-inch iPad Pro models could be the first iPads to feature OLED displays, which would immediately improve brightness, contrast ratio, power consumption, and of course, image quality compared to existing models with LCD panels.
Apple is already using OLED screens for the latest iPhones and Apple Watches, so it’s time we had a full-featured iPad Pro for the artists and designers who appreciate the boost that an OLED screen brings. We could also see the iPad Pro arrive with M3 chips, as the current models on sale from Apple were released two years ago and still have the M2 chip.
According to the rumors, the iPad Air appears to be getting a minor update compared to the iPad Pro and MacBook Air, with a larger size of 12.9 inches, as well as a possible redesign of the camera bump. The larger size makes sense if you’re looking for an iPad that offers more work space without having to spend a lot of money on an iPad Pro.
If all of this is true, we’re looking at an exciting start to the new year for Apple. With the launch of the Apple Vision Pro headset just days away and the potential for this new product to renew itself on the horizon, this could be a great year for Apple fans.