New MacBook Air Announced as First Apple Silicon Mac With M1 Chip and Fanless Design

Apple today introduced a new MacBook Air as its first Mac with a custom Apple Silicon processor known as the M1 chip. The new MacBook Air is up to 3.5x faster than the previous-generation MacBook Air, with up to 5x faster graphics performance.

late 2020 macbook air
Key features of the new MacBook Air:

  • Apple-designed M1 chip with 8‑core CPU and 8‑core GPU
  • A completely silent, fanless design
  • Up to 3.5x faster CPU, up to 5x faster graphics, and up to 2x faster SSD
  • Up to 9x faster machine learning
  • 13-inch Retina display with True Tone and P3 wide color gamut support
  • Up to 2TB of SSD storage and up to 16GB of memory
  • Up to 18 hours of battery life
  • Two Thunderbolt 3/USB4 ports
  • Magic Keyboard, Force Touch trackpad, and Touch ID
  • Wi-Fi 6

The new MacBook Air along with new 13-inch MacBook Pro and Mac mini models are available to order now on Apple.com and through the Apple Store app, with the first deliveries and in-store availability to begin November 17. The new MacBook Air continues to start at $999 in the United States, with $899 pricing available for students and other educational customers.

The first three Macs with M1 chips mark the beginning of Apple's transition away from Intel processors in Macs. Back in June, Apple revealed its plans to begin using its own custom Apple Silicon processors in Macs, promising industry-leading performance per watt. At the time, Apple said that the transition would take about two years to be completed.

In the interim, Apple teased new Intel-based Macs in development, including an updated 27-inch iMac released in August. Apple said that it will continue to support and release new versions of macOS for Intel-based Macs for years to come.

Related Roundup: MacBook Air
Related Forum: MacBook Air

Popular Stories

2024 iPhone Boxes Feature

Apple Changes Trade-In Values for iPhones, iPads, Macs, and More

Thursday January 16, 2025 6:45 am PST by
Apple today adjusted estimated trade-in values for select iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch models in the U.S., according to its website. Some values increased, while others decreased. The changes were not too significant, with most values rising or dropping by $5 to $50. We have outlined some examples below: Device New Value Old Value iPhone 15 Pro Max Up to $630 U ...
Generic iOS 19 Feature Mock Light

iOS 19 Leak Reveals All-New Design

Friday January 17, 2025 2:42 pm PST by
iOS 19 is still around six months away from being announced, but a new leak has allegedly revealed a completely redesigned Camera app. Based on footage it obtained, YouTube channel Front Page Tech shared a video showing what the new Camera app will apparently look like, with the key change being translucent menus for camera controls. Overall, the design of these menus looks similar to...
Generic iOS 18

Everything New in iOS 18.3 Beta 3

Thursday January 16, 2025 12:39 pm PST by
Apple provided the third beta of iOS 18.3 to developers today, and while the betas have so far been light on new features, the third beta makes some major changes to Notification Summaries and also tweaks a few other features. Notification Summary Changes Apple made multiple changes to Notification Summaries in response to complaints about inaccurate summaries of news headlines. For...
iPhone 17 Slim Feature Single Camera 1 Redux

'iPhone 17 Air' Launching Later This Year With These 10 New Features

Wednesday January 15, 2025 7:16 am PST by
While the so-called "iPhone 17 Air" is not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the "ultra-thin" device. Overall, the "iPhone 17 Air" is shaping up to be a mixed bag. Due to its thinness, the device is expected to have some limited specifications compared to the iPhone 17 Pro models, including only a single rear camera, only a single speaker, no SIM...
2024 App Store Awards

Apple Explains Why It Removed TikTok From the App Store in the U.S.

Sunday January 19, 2025 6:58 am PST by
Apple on late Saturday removed TikTok from the App Store in the U.S., and it has now explained why it was required to take this action. Last year, the U.S. passed a law that required Chinese company ByteDance to divest its ownership of TikTok due to potential national security risks, or else the platform would be banned. That law went into effect today, and companies like Apple and Google...
iPhone 17 Pro Dual Tone Horizontal Single Feature

iPhone 17 Rumored to Feature Major Thermal Design Upgrade

Friday January 17, 2025 4:33 am PST by
The iPhone 17 lineup will feature a vapor chamber heatsink to improve thermal performance, according to a new report. The news comes from Chinese tech news site MyDrivers, which claims that the entire iPhone 17 lineup, consisting of the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Air, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max, will adopt the improved thermal heat spreader. Vapor chamber technology is already used...
iPad Pro vs iPhone 17 Air Feature

Here's How Thin the iPhone 17 Air Might Be

Friday January 17, 2025 3:38 pm PST by
For the last several months, we've been hearing rumors about a redesigned version of the iPhone 17 that Apple might call the iPhone 17 "Air," or something along those lines. It's going to replace the iPhone 17 Plus as Apple's fourth iPhone option, and it will be offered alongside the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max. We know the iPhone 17 Air is going to be super slim, but...
HomePod mini and Apple TV

Apple Expected to Launch 20+ Products This Year: Here's the Full List

Friday January 17, 2025 5:30 am PST by
2025 promises to be quite a big year for Apple, with the company rumored to be planning more than 20 product announcements this year. Apple's rumored smart home hub will be its second all-new product to launch in as many years, following the Apple Vision Pro headset last year. And of course, we will get several new iPhone and Apple Watch models, like every year. Beyond that, Apple could...

Top Rated Comments

neuropsychguy Avatar
55 months ago
Macrumors is degenerating into a bunch of whiny users again. 2020 has been the most impressive year for new Apple products in a long time. This is a great start to a new era for Apple.
Score: 30 Votes (Like | Disagree)
edwrap Avatar
55 months ago
Wow, can’t believe they switched from expensive Intel chips to their own ARM chips and kept the price the same. The profit margin on these must be insane, even for Apple.
Score: 27 Votes (Like | Disagree)
TheYayAreaLiving ?️ Avatar
55 months ago
I'm going to miss the Fan : Now we won't know if the Mac is working hard or not.
Score: 26 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ericg301 Avatar
55 months ago

Wow, can’t believe they switched from expensive Intel chips to their own ARM chips and kept the price the same. The profit margin on these must be insane, even for Apple.
uh apple had to pay for all the R&D alone for the new chips...instead of just buying them from intel.
Score: 24 Votes (Like | Disagree)
profets Avatar
55 months ago
Low end of the Silicon SoCs, yet tremendous performance improvement, significant power savings, and to top it off fan-less design. Honestly quite impressive.
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
FranApple Avatar
55 months ago

"We took at the fan. That is just nuts."

Yes. I agree. When things get heated, you cannot remove the heat from the case.
So then why isn't heat an issue on iPads? :)
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)