These new Macs could land a little later this year, around WWDC, in June.
The transition from Macs to Apple Silicon chips seems to be going smoothly in Cupertino. While Apple has been presenting its new M1, M1 Pro, M1 Max and M1 Ultra SoCs for almost two years, it seems that it has decided to switch to the new generation for its next portable Macs.
Definitely, 9To5Mac seems to have very productive little informants, since after having learned that two new Mac minis are being designed in Cupertino, we learn today that the firm is also working on new MacBook Pro and MacBook Air.
The first model mentioned by 9To5Mac is a new 13-inch MacBook Pro. The current model runs on an aging M1 chip and it wouldn’t be surprising if Apple modernized all that. Known internally under the code name J493, this new machine should keep the same design as currently, thus leaving the new version to the 14 and 16 inch versions, but moving to an M2 SoC. It is also rumored that Apple would have considered for a time abandoning the “Pro” label for the 13-inch model, considered by some to be entry-level.
Un MacBook Air M2
The second laptop to arrive this year would be a MacBook Air, dubbed J413 internally. Just this week, we mentioned the rumor of Ming-Chi Kuo specifying that this new MacBook Air would adopt a new design but would run under a SoC M1. Information that 9To5Mac formally refutes, which sees this new ultra-thin laptop embed an M2 SoC, slightly more efficient than the M1 but still below the performance of the M1 Pro, M1 Max and M1 Ultra.
For the release window, 9To5Mac evokes the middle of the year, with a probable presentation at WWDC in June. Both Macs would be in a very advanced state of development, so the release window would be getting closer and closer.