Apple often releases new Macs in the fall, but we are still waiting for official confirmation that the company has similar plans this year.

The Apple Silicon M4 was launched in May 2024. For the first time, Apple’s new M series debuted not in a Mac but in an iPad, the seventh generation of the iPad Pro. Mac fans will have been waiting nearly six months for an M4 MacBook when the laptops hit the shelves in November.

I’m led to conclude that there’s a simple explanation for Apple holding back the MacBook Air – twice now – when it introduces a new wave of Mac products. Apple simply wants its shiny new M4 chip to look good – and it’s easier to showcase that in a Pro-level laptop with active cooling, rather than the slimmer, passively-cooled MacBook Air.