Rumor mill: An upcoming MacBook Air redesign may arrive in the next year and more information has surfaced as Apple is still perfecting it in its labs. As always, take this with a grain of salt, but it looks like the new colorful iMac with slim white bezels, white keyboard, and color-matched accessories may be a good indication of what the company has in store for the near future.
It's been rumored for months that a redesigned MacBook Air is high on Apple's priority list. Some industry watchers point out to a number of interesting internal developments at Apple, including testing of a 15-inch MacBook Air prototype as a potential new addition to the family.
According to reliable leaker Jon Prosser, the upcoming MacBook Air will get out of its comfort zone and embrace pastel colors, possibly even down to the color of the charging cable coming in the box.
In order to convey this new design to the public without giving away the source, Prosser enlisted the help of designer Ian Zelbo. Based on these renders, we can see that Apple is slimming down the bezels and making them white, just like it did on the new iMac.
Funnily, Intel may have accidentally predicted part of this design when it tried mocking Apple Silicon Macs in one of the new ads featuring "I'm a Mac" actor Justin Long.
Other notable changes shown in the Air prototype renders are a different bottom design and the addition of a MagSafe charging port to the left side along with the two Thunderbolt 4 ports.
The latter change is something we've heard about before, as Apple is said to reintroduce the feature on all MacBooks after removing it in 2016. It's also expected to offer faster charging speeds than what's possible with the current USB-C standard.
The supposedly redesigned bottom casing features two rubber ribbons instead of the current rubber feet present on all MacBooks, which would presumably help anchor the device to the desk so that someone tripping on the power cord would have a lower chance of pulling it off it.
Another interesting design change is the white keyboard, which is more in line with Apple's external Magic Keyboard design. Apple is calling the new scissor keyboards in the latest MacBooks "Magic Keyboards," possibly aligning their design and name.
Upcoming MacBooks may also see the introduction of the successor of the M1 SoC, which is highly anticipated by many in the tech industry. The only problem is that Apple is already having trouble securing the necessary components for current products, as even $1 display driver chips are getting hard to come by these days. This may delay the launch of the new MacBook Air until later in 2022 or beyond, when supply of these components is expected to catch up with demand.