Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Computing
  3. News

Apple’s serious miscalculation with the 15-inch MacBook Air

Alan Truly
By
Apple's 15-inch MacBook Air placed on a desk.
Luke Larsen / Digital Trends

Did Apple overestimate demand for a larger MacBook Air? A recent report suggests Apple reduced orders from its supply chain, indicating sales of the largest budget MacBook fell short of expectations.

According to DigiTimes, which specializes in supply chain news, 15-inch MacBook Air sales seem to be off to a bad start. People with knowledge of the matter are reported to say that Apple cut the shipment volume by half in July 2022.

Recommended Videos

Since Apple introduced the MacBook Air as a remarkably lightweight laptop, launching a large and relatively heavy version could prove to be a mistake. It’s only been a month, and the notebook market has slowed recently as a whole, so sales of Apple’s newest Mac, the 15-inch MacBook Air could pick up in the coming months.

Related

Weight and cost could be a concern. The 15-inch MacBook Air weighs more than the 13.3-inch MacBook Pro, which includes a fan to unlock greater performance. Both models sell for $1,299. The 15-inch MacBook Air costs $300 more than the entry-level 13.6-inch MacBook Air.

Apple MacBook Pro With Ventura Wallpaper and M2 Pro rendering
Apple / Apple

Making customers choose between performance and screen size could play a role in slower 15-inch MacBook Air sales. The 13.3-inch MacBook Pro’s specifications are nearly identical, but it has a battery life advantage, providing up to two more hours, includes a faster 67W charger, and weighs less.

The M2 chip update of the 13.3-inch MacBook Pro came in June 2022, and it does lack some of the 2023 MacBook Air’s features, such as thin bezels, six-speaker sound, improved Bluetooth 5.3, and a higher-resolution 1080p webcam in a notch.

All in all, it could be argued that choosing a MacBook in 2023 has become overly complicated. Confusing shoppers is a bad idea, but Apple has a chance to clear this up soon, as a new 13-inch MacBook Pro with an M3 processor could arrive earlier than expected.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Alan Truly
Alan Truly
Computing Writer
Alan is a Computing Writer living in Nova Scotia, Canada. A tech-enthusiast since his youth, Alan stays current on what is…
The MacBook Air 15 vs. MacBook Pro 14: the easy way to decide
Apple's 15-inch MacBook Air placed on a desk with its lid closed.

Picking out a new MacBook isn't as easy as it used to be.

The hardest choice in the lineup might be between the 15-inch MacBook Air and the 14-inch MacBook Pro. Both are now offered with the same M3 chip, despite there being a $300 difference in the base models. But when similarly configured, there's actually only a $100 difference between these two laptops.

Read more
I needed to buy a new MacBook. Here’s why I bought a power bank instead
Baseus Blade 2 65W power bank for laptops kept on a green couch.

I rely on a 13-inch MacBook Pro from 2020 for most of my work. Despite its age and being a base variant model, it continues to stack up well against my expectations for all these years.

Since MacBooks are known for longevity, the fact that my MacBook Pro still holds up well a few years later shouldn't sound surprising. However, the first signs of aging recently arrived in the form of a warning about the battery's plummeting health. I was already dreading the idea of having to replace what was otherwise a perfectly good laptop.

Read more
Apple quietly backtracks on the MacBook Air’s biggest issue
The MacBook Air on a white table.

The new MacBook Air with M3 chip not only allows you to use it with two external displays, but it has also reportedly addressed a storage problem that plagued the previous M2 model. The laptop now finally has much faster storage performance since Apple has switched back to using two 128GB NAND modules instead of a single 256GB module on the SSD drive.

This was discovered by the YouTuber Max Tech, who tore down the entry-level model of the MacBook Air M3 with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. In his tests, thanks to the two NAND modules, the M3 MacBook Air is nearly double faster than the M2 MacBook Air. Blackmagic Disk Speed tests show that the older M2 model with the problematic NAND chip had a 1584.3 Mb/s write speed, and the newer M3 model had 2108.9 Mb/s for the M3 model, for a 33% difference. In read speeds, it was 1576.4 Mb/s on the old model and 2880.2 Mb/s on the newer model.

Read more