Apple’s MacBook Air 2018 could arrive on October 30

Speculation has bubbled up indicating that Apple could be introducing a refreshed MacBook Air – or a replacement for the ageing laptop – at its press event on October 30.

The story as detailed by 9 to 5 Mac is that a school recently ordered an iPad and Apple Pencil alongside a MacBook Air, with Apple fulfilling that shipment, all aside from the notebook which the customer was notified will be delayed – and is expected to ship on October 30.

As mentioned, that’s the same day Apple is holding a press launch in New York, and putting two and two together, this seems to indicate that a fresh machine replacing the MacBook Air will be revealed on the day – and can then ship to that education sector customer.

Of course, this is far from any guarantee, and it could just be a plain coincidence or momentary inventory blip somewhere in the pipeline.

However, with Apple having been long expected to do something on the stale MacBook Air front, it’s certainly a believable piece of speculation that a refresh or replacement is indeed coming at the end of October.

Ancient Air

The current MacBook Air is a seriously dated device and is certainly long overdue an overhaul on the hardware front. If that comes, it’s unlikely to be a minor upgrade to the components, but rather, a more thorough rethink.

Or indeed a more wallet-friendly 13-inch Retina MacBook could emerge, effectively making the MacBook Air redundant and seeing it scrapped (rumors along these lines have been swirling since the very beginning of this year).

Another interesting nugget here is that the school ordered the higher-spec 256GB MacBook Air, and was charged $1,199 (around £930, AU$1,690) with education-related discount, suggesting that this could be a ballpark figure for the cost of the new machine.

Although that really is veering off into speculative territory, it does point more to the emergence of a 13-inch Retina MacBook at that cost, with a more budget-friendly model being introduced (or re-priced, rather) at the entry-level.

At least we’ll know what Apple has up its sleeve on the MacBook front very soon, as there’s less than a week to wait for the press event now.

• There are multiple MacBooks on our best laptops list

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