When Apple CEO Tim Cook posted a short teaser (with the words «something’s in the air») that the company was planning to introduce a new gadget this week, most expected the MacBook Air to be announced. However, Apple announced the iPad Air with the M3 chip yesterday, and today it’s the MacBook Air M4 and the new Mac Studio.
When Apple CEO Tim Cook posted a short teaser (with the words «something’s in the air») that the company was planning to introduce a new gadget this week, most expected the MacBook Air to be announced. However, Apple announced the iPad Air with the M3 chip yesterday, and today it’s the MacBook Air M4 and the new Mac Studio.
Apple announced the new MacBook Air M4, with up to 18 hours of battery life and a new 12-megapixel Center Stage camera. It also offers support for up to two external displays in addition to the built-in one, 16GB of RAM, and macOS Sequoia with Apple Intelligence.
«MacBook Air is the world’s most popular laptop, and today we’re giving everyone even more reasons to love it, including significant performance boosts with the M4 chip, a new Center Stage camera, and a beautiful new Sky Blue color,» said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing.
The company clarified that the new MacBook Air M4 is equipped with a powerful 10-core processor, 10-core graphics processor and supports up to 32 GB of combined memory, thanks to which it works up to 2 times faster than the M1 model.
«Compared to the fastest Intel-based MacBook Air, the M4 model delivers up to 23x faster performance,» Apple says.
The neural engine in the M4 chip, which accelerates AI-based tasks, also runs three times faster than the M1 in MacBook Air, significantly accelerating tasks like automatically enhancing photos and removing background noise from videos.
Apple has also improved the Air’s webcam. Instead of the 1080p camera on the previous model, users now get a 12-megapixel sensor with support for Center Stage, which automatically keeps a person in the frame during video calls. This feature was originally reserved for the iPad and Apple Studio Display, but it has now arrived on the Mac lineup.
The new model starts at $999, a $100 discount from the previous model. The new 13- and 15-inch MacBook Airs are available for pre-order today and will be available for purchase on Wednesday, March 12.
Apple also introduced the next-generation Mac Studio, a powerful yet small desktop computer that comes in two processor configurations: the M4 Max chip or the new M3 Ultra chip.
The M4 Max is equipped with a 16-core processor and a 40-core GPU. Apple claims it’s 3.5 times faster than the Mac Studio with the M1 Max and just over six times faster than the 27-inch iMac with an Intel chip. The faster chip also unlocks some additional graphics capabilities, such as ray tracing, mesh shading, and dynamic caching for graphics-intensive tasks. It comes with 36GB of unified memory, with support for up to 128GB.
The new M3 Ultra chip is now the most powerful in the M-series lineup. It consists of two M3 Max chips, can contain up to 32 cores (with 24 performance cores), and the GPU can be configured with 80 cores. Apple claims that this chip is 2.5 times faster than the M1 Ultra. As with the M4 Max, it also offers mesh shading, dynamic caching, and ray tracing for graphics professionals. Users of this version will get 96 GB of RAM, expandable up to 512 GB, and the SSD storage can be increased to 16 TB.
The Mac Studio’s chassis remains largely unchanged. The front panel houses two USB-C ports and an SD card slot, while the back has four Thunderbolt ports, an HDMI port, two USB-A ports, a 10-gigabit Ethernet port, a headphone jack and a power jack, and a built-in speaker. The only change is that Apple has upgraded USB-C to Thunderbolt 5 for faster data transfer speeds.
The Mac Studio starts at $1,999 for the base model with the M4 Max. The base model with the M3 Ultra starts at $3,999.
