When the first MacBook Air came out, it had a very specific design philosophy and direction – it was supposed to the lightest, most portable notebook on the market, and it did that job quite well. Sure, it made some compromises with its hardware, especially when it came to utilities like a CD/DVD drive and other similar elements, but in the end, some people were more than happy to make those compromises if it meant getting a notebook as light as that.
Now, the company is reportedly preparing a new installment in this line, and if the rumors are true, it might take a slightly different approach to its overall design than what we previously saw from the “Air” products. Apple are apparently trying to make the device as powerful as possible despite cutting down on its size even further, and the new MacBook Air might turn out to be significantly more capable than its predecessors.
One of the rumors about the new device claims that it will use Intel’s newest Skylake processors, giving the notebook immense processing power and some serious capabilities when it comes to on-the-go computing. On the other hand, the new processor reportedly isn’t that heavy on the battery drain, so users should be able to get a pretty good lifetime out of their devices despite getting a much better computing platform underneath.
In addition, another claim about the new laptop is that it will be one of the next devices to use Apple’s relatively new Force Touch technology. Apple have been very active in spreading that tech as much as possible and implementing it into different devices, which is certainly not a bad thing in any way – the technology does have its benefits and it’s definitely useful when applied in certain places. A mobile device makes perfect sense, even if it’s a laptop and not a tablet.
Apple have been known for their quality touchpads in general, so it wouldn’t really be surprising to see them utilizing Force Touch to further improve the experience and give users some additional input options when interacting with the operating system.
When is the new laptop coming out? Rumors are a bit conflicting on that, but many are predicting that the device will actually be ready until the end of this year, despite the 2016 in its model name. We don’t know if this refers to the unveiling or the actual release, but it would definitely be good to see the laptop come out before the end of 2015.
In particular, rumors are talking about a November release date, and that could give Apple some pretty good positions on the market too, especially if they want to compete for presence in the headlines around the holiday season. A launch like that could really prime them for a lot of success down the road, although of course Apple aren’t exactly a company that suffers from issues with their marketing to begin with.
They will surely be able to get as much exposure for the new MacBook Air as they need, probably without even having to specifically put any work into that. The company already has a large crowd of fans anxiously awaiting the release of their next laptop and keeping an eye on their plans, and this should get some very warm responses if the notebook lives up to the hype. A new MacBook Air will definitely be worthy of a lot of discussion for some fans if Apple really are planning to have it out by the end of 2015, as the current hype about the device is quite high already.