Exclusive: New 13- and 15-inch MacBook Air models will both use M3 chips; refreshed MacBook Pro is also in the works

We’ve been hearing rumors about a new MacBook Air for a while, but some details about it remain unclear. 9to5Mac has now heard from independent sources that Apple is indeed working on a new generation MacBook Air in two different sizes: 13-inch and 15-inch.

More than that, the company also plans to introduce an updated 13-inch MacBook Pro. What will these laptops have in common? They will be powered by the M3 chip.

New MacBook Air and MacBook Pro with M3 chip

The news follows a Bloomberg report on Sunday that said updates to the MacBook Air are “imminent” and that at least one of the new models would have the M3 chip.

According to 9to5Mac’s sources, the new 13-inch MacBook Air (codenamed J513) is already in the works with an M3 chip. It will be announced along with a brand-new 15-inch version (codenamed J515), which will also have the M3 chip.

In the past, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said that Apple could release the 15-inch MacBook Air powered by the M2 and M2 Pro chips in “early April.” However, our sources say that the 15-inch model will get the same entry-level M3 chip as the new 13-inch MacBook Air. The chip will have an 8-core CPU just like M1 and M2.

There’s no evidence that any versions of the new MacBook Air will be equipped with more powerful versions of the M3 chip, such as M3 Pro. But these are not the only new MacBooks Apple has been working on.

9to5Mac has learned that, just like last year, Apple also plans to refresh the 13-inch MacBook Pro with its latest Apple Silicon chip. Codenamed J504, the new entry-level MacBook Pro will also get the same 8-core M3 chip as the new MacBook Air. Last year, Apple even considered dropping the “Pro” branding from this model, but the company seems to have given up on that idea.

Back in 2022, both Bloomberg and 9to5Mac also reported that Apple would skip the M2 chip for the iMac. The company’s all-in-one desktop is expected to get an updated model this year with the M3 chip.

When will the new Macs be announced?

It’s unclear at this point when exactly Apple plans to introduce all these new Macs. However, Mark Gurman has suggested that at least the new MacBook Air will be introduced in June at WWDC. And since both the 13-inch and 15-inch models will feature the M3 chip, it seems unlikely that Apple will announce new MacBooks in the first half of the year.

It’s worth noting that the M2 chip was announced at WWDC 2022 along with the new MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro, so it won’t be a surprise if Apple repeats the same formula this year.

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