MacBook Air 15-inch rumors have circulated for a long time, but things are heating up ahead of WWDC 2023 in June with production of the long-awaited laptop allegedly ramping up yet again.
As reported by MacRumors, a tweet by respected display analyst Ross Young indicates that the MacBook Air 15-inch has entered a third round of production. Production of the larger Air started this past February, with a ramp in production also happening in March, according to previous reports.
Young stated that he doesn't know the "precise launch timing." He estimates it may happen in "late April/early May." Although he previously projected an April release, that feels less likely as we near the midway point in the month with no suggestion that an Apple spring event is coming. Given that this will be a brand new model, we expect Apple to want an event rather than a simple press release as we saw for the MacBook Pro 14-inch and MacBook Pro 16-inch.
MacBook Air 15-inch what to expect
Besides a 15-inch retina display, what else should we expect design-wise from Cupertino? Imagine a MacBook Air M2 with its 13.6-inch display...got that image in your head? Ok, now imagine it about 1.6 inches larger. We aren't anticipating Apple reinventing the wheel with the Air 15-inch, this is just ticking a box for the company to offer a larger-screen laptop that doesn't start at $2,499. Now we still have no idea what the cost will be, but hopefully, it starts at or below $1,499.
While the 15-inch size could surely accommodate more, rumors suggest we'll still have just two USB-Type C ports, which is too bad. The fanless MacBook Air 15-inch should however feature the MagSafe charging port, 1080p camera, and upgraded speakers of the current Air M2. An SD card slot or HDMI port would be excellent, but again it seems that will remain the realm of the Pro models.
Lastly, one could hypothesize that since Apple cornered the market on 3nm chips from TSMC, it could be possible that the MacBook Air 15-inch launches with an M3 series chipset. If so, I will write until my fingers are shriveled up bloody knubs.
Regardless, we shouldn't have long to wait, the latest projected arrival would be June 5, 2023, during WWDC.
