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Apple is working on bringing Apple's new fourth-generation silicon chip to the Mac lineup, and while the first M4 Macs will arrive in 2024, the MacBook Air won't be updated until 2025.
M4 chip
The MacBook Air 13-inch and 15-inch models were updated with M3 chips in March 2024, so it's no surprise that they won't be the first devices to get the M4 chip. Apple plans to wait until 2025, so there will be about a year between the M3 and M4 chip lines.
Rumor has it that the M4 chip will focus on artificial intelligence to support AI features that will come with the next software updates. Most of the talk about AI has been around iOS 18, but Apple is expected to expand AI integration across its platforms. The M4 chip is expected to have a Neural Engine with more cores, with the Neural Engine handling AI and machine learning tasks. The M3 chip has a 16-core Neural Engine.
While Apple is working on the M4, M4 Pro, M4 Max, and M4 Ultra chips, the MacBook Air models are expected to get only the standard M4 chip. There will probably be at least two variants of the M4, the difference being the number of GPU cores. For example, for the current MacBook Air, the base M3 chip has an 8-core GPU, but there is also a variant with a 10-core GPU. The M3 processor is the same for all versions, and this should be the case with the M4.
The M4 will be built on Apple's 3-nanometer process, similar to the M3. There won't be as much of a performance boost between M3 and M4 as there is between M2 and M3 since there's no change in node size, but we can still expect a slight boost in GPU and CPU speeds.
Design
Apple redesigned the MacBook Air in 2022, and we don't expect the design to change in the 2025 refresh. Apple often waits a few years between design changes, and there are no rumors that there will be an updated look.
Apple is likely to stick with the 15,3-inch and 13,6-inch variants, and we can expect to see the same flat MacBook Pro-style body with a Force Touch trackpad and notch display. For now, it looks like the 2025 MacBook Air update will focus on internal updates.
Launch date
According to Mark Gurman of Bloomberg, MacBook Air will receive an update in the spring of 2025. Spring begins on March 20, 2025 and ends on June 20, 2025.
