Kuo: New MacBook Air coming later this year with M1, no mini-LED

What on earth is going on?

What you need to know

• Ming-Chi Kuo appears to have changed his mind regarding the next MacBook Air.
• Multiple previous reports have stated Apple will debut a MacBook Air with an M2 processor later this year.
• Kuo now claims the device will feature an M1 chip, as well as no mini-LED display.

Reports apparently stemming from analyst Ming-Chi Kuo indicate the analyst has revised predictions regarding Apple's next MacBook Air.

According to a tweet purportedly sent by Kuo, Apple's next MacBook Air will actually not include some of the previous upgrades that Kuo and multiple other sources have said it will. From the source:

Predictions for new MacBook Air in 2022:
1. Mass production in late 2Q22 or 3Q22
2. Processor: M1 chip
3. No mini-LED display
4. All-new form factor design
5. More color options

— 郭明錤 (Ming-Chi Kuo) (@mingchikuo) March 9, 2022

The new color options are not a surprise, both Kuo and Jon Prosser have reported that Apple will debut a new MacBook Air with color options, and Kuo has further previously stated that the MacBook Air will be redesigned. Other rumored features we've heard about include support for MagSafe charging.

However, according to this latest tweet, Kuo claims that the new MacBook Air will not feature either the M2 chip or mini-LED display, despite multiple previous reports to the contrary.

As early as March 2021 Kuo himself reported:

We believe that the MacBook will outperform the iPad in the coming years due to significant improvements in product competitiveness, and expect the new MacBook Air to also use mini LEDs in 2022 to help increase the mini LED adoption rate of the MacBook.

Kuo reported the same forecast in December of 2020 and reiterated it in July 2021. Digitimes has also reported on numerous occasions the next MacBook Air will feature mini-LED.

There have also been other reports that Apple's next MacBook Air will feature an M2 Apple silicon chip including from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, who says that Apple is testing a new M2 chip with 8 CPU and 10 GPU cores.

The changed timeline is also contrary to previous rumors, with both Kuo and Mark Gurman reporting the MacBook Air would debut in the first half of 2022, Kuo's tweet claims mass production is not set to begin until later this year, perhaps as late as Q3.

It is worth noting that this latest Kuo insight does not come from his usual verified channel, but from a Twitter account that has not been publicly verified as belonging to the famed analyst. It is however the Twitter account associated with a LinkedIn profile that is believed to belong to Kuo. The alleged account shared details of the rumored iPhone SE prior to Apple's March event, wrongly predicting the new phone would support mmWave 5G. Other details shared about the form factor, storage, case, and colors were accurate, following previous reports Apple was not planning to change the iPhone SE's design.