MacBook Air M4
Few days ago Apple presented the MacBook Air with the new M4 chip. At the first glance the updates do not appear very revolutionary - just a new processor, new color and a lower price. However, there are two magic words used few times in the press release – “Apple Intelligence”!
Apple introduced MacBook Air for the first time in 2008 as the “world’s thinnest notebook” saying that the notebook had 0.16-inches at its “thinnest point”. Clearly, it had lots of issues: slow processor, slow hard drive and only one USB port. The RAM memory and processor were not upgradeable, and the hard drive was difficult to replace. The non-replaceable battery had poor performance and used to die faster than needed. CNet reviewer even nominated the first MacBook Air as the biggest disappointment of the year: “overpriced and underpowered the Air is a piece of junk”. Nevertheless, the Air began a multi-year effort to bring many iPhone innovations "back to the Mac", including multi-touch gesture support, instant wake from sleep, and fast flash storage and finally in 2020 - the ARM type of processors. A decade after its launch, journalist Tom Warren wrote that the MacBook Air had "immediately changed the future of laptops", starting the ultrabook trend.
Apple’s Silicon
Over the past decade Apple quietly acquired startups (- buying a company every two to three weeks on average) to implements its vision of the own-designed chips.
P.A. Semiconductor focused on designing energy-efficient, high-performance processors achieving good results with Power ISA-based PWRficient chips. Their strength were their innovative engineering team that included experts from leading processor projects like DEC Alpha and StrongARM.
Intrinsity specialized in creating high-speed, low-power processors leveraging their expertise in dynamic logic design. The processor strengths were exceptional performance and energy efficiency, which made those chips a desired choice for mobile and embedded systems.
Apple acquired P.A. Semiconductor in 2008 and Intrinsity - in 2010. These acquisitions brought in expertise that helped Apple develop its own custom silicon chips. In 2010 Apple launched its first custom chip, the A4, which powered iPhone 4 and iPad. In 2020 Apple implanted its own M1 chip inside the MacBook Air - a thin, light notebook with no fan, 18 hours of battery life outperforming the latest MacBook Pro model at that time.
Best of MacBook Air M4
At its March 2025 launch Apple highlighted mainly those upgrades:
M4 Chip: Built by TSMC, the M4 offers 50% faster CPU and 4x faster GPU performance than the M2.
Center Stage Camera: The new 12MP camera automatically keeps users centered in the frame as they move around. The camera also supports Desk View, which simultaneously displays the user and a top-down view of their desk, making video calls even more engaging for those who want to show off their latest projects.
Versatile connectivity: the computer features fast Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3. It also includes two Thunderbolt ports for connecting external accessories.
Some observes were surprised about the quick arrival of the M4 processor since the M3 version was a great chip already. It seems that the manufacturing process of M4 has been greatly improved delivering lower costs and better performance to Apple and its customers.
Media Reviews
The reviews emphasize the broad appeal of the MacBook Air. TechCrunch writes that “the MacBook Air remains one of the top-selling laptops due to its good balance between performance and price”. 9TO5Mac notes - “the new MacBook Air stands out from Apple’s lineup as a rare product I can heartily recommend to just about anyone”. Macworld admits that “Apple silicon is the main reason I don’t need a large MacBook anymore”.
Other observers mention few improvements. Laptop Mag reviewer - “I'd like to see Apple bump up the base storage like it did with the base RAM since 256GB is really not enough storage for most people in 2025”. Tom's Guide warns that “while you'll be able to play some of your favorite PC games on the MacBook Air M4, it probably won't be a great gaming machine”. Engadget concludes that “last year's Air models were quite good but didn't do anything revolutionary and the same seems true for the 2025 versions”.
Time To Upgrade?
Apple knows pretty well what Mac models people use. On its website the company compares the new MacBook Air M4 to MacBook Air M1 and MacBook Airs with Intell processors implying that the older machines need to be upgraded.
One aspect which is still not very clear today is the Apple Intelligence supported by the MacBook Air M4. Although this intelligence is not that “intelligent” at the moment the situation is constantly changing. For example, it was recently announced the ChatGPT app for macOS can take action to edit code in supported developer tools including Xcode, VS Code and JetBrains. This shows that innovations sometimes arrive to the Apple ecosystem faster and the MacBook Air is the most affordable entry laptop.