We had heard about entry-level 13-inch retina MacBook Air last month, and in today’s new report Digitimes claims that Apple has pushed back assembly of the new laptop into the third quarter and won’t be launching at the WWDC in June.
It is also reported that the pricing of the 13-inch retina MacBook Air is said to be around $899. Since there is no possibility of WWDC launch, Apple’s supply chain partners are now stuck with piling inventory of parts until Apple gives the go ahead. The report further states that the upcoming product as a new MacBook Air, however, only Apple knows the exact branding.
Furthermore, it will have a slim design, a Retina display, and the latest Intel notebook processor. More details like the number of ports are still unclear. Apple back in 2017 has refreshed the entire line of laptops at the WWDC keynote with internal spec bumps. There is also a possibility that the company might tease the new laptop at the event since the mass production schedules are not starting quite yet.
WWDC is purely based on the software side of the Apple, although it also reveals details about the hardware. This year at the WWDC we can expect to see the iOS 12, macOS 10.14, watchOS 5 and tvOS 12. We should know more details about the WWDC announcements as we move forward.
The DigiTimes report says:
The sources said that Apple has informed supply chain partners that mass production of its new notebook model for 2018 will not kick off until the second half of the year, yet without explaining the rescheduling move. Some partners speculated that the postponement might be caused by problems with some key components such as processors.