Apple is working on a more affordable version of the MacBook that's powered by an A-series iPhone chip rather than an M-series Apple silicon chip. We've rounded up all of the rumors about the new machine, which is expected next year.

Design

The upcoming low-cost MacBook will have a 13-inch display (approximately), according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. That means it will be right around the same size as the 13-inch MacBook Air that Apple already sells.

Apple used to have a super thin 12-inch MacBook and there have been some off and on rumors over the years suggesting it could see a revival. A thin and light MacBook with an ‌iPhone‌ chip in it doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility.

The first version of the 12-inch MacBook had a low-power Core M chip, and it came out in 2015, well before Apple transitioned to Apple silicon. There were no fans inside and that kept it thin and quiet, a design that Apple has continued with the ‌MacBook Air‌.

An A-series chip would not run as hot as an M-series chip, and it would need even fewer heat dissipation features. Even though thinner and lighter often means more expensive with Apple devices, that might not be the case with an ‌iPhone‌ chip in a body the size of the ‌MacBook Air‌.

Colors

Apple reserves stately colors for its "Pro" machines, and often uses fun colors for its lower-cost products. Rumors suggest that the low-cost MacBook could be made available in silver, blue, pink, and yellow. Those color options actually sound similar to the color options that Apple offers for the iMac, so we could be looking at iMac-style shades.

Chip

Kuo says the low-cost MacBook will use an A18 Pro chip, and we've also seen signs of a MacBook with an A18 Pro in Apple's code, so all signs point to the A18.


The A18 Pro is the chip that Apple introduced in the iPhone 16 Pro. It uses a second-generation 3-nanometer process and for an ‌iPhone‌ chip, performance is impressive.

There's a 6-core CPU with four performance cores and two efficiency cores, along with a 6-core GPU and a 16-core Neural Engine for AI-based tasks. In Geekbench benchmarks, the A16 Pro has an average single-core score of 3451, and a multi-core score of 8572. For comparison, the M4 chip in the iPad Pro earns a single-core score of 3694 and a multi-core score of 13732.

The A18 Pro outperforms the M1, which is the chip that Apple kept around in a lower-cost version of the ‌MacBook Air‌ for several years.

So an A18 MacBook wouldn't be too far off from the M4 Mac/iPad chips in terms of single-core performance, but there would be a difference in multi-core performance.

Thermal Design

The ‌iPhone 16 Pro‌ has a thermal architecture that combines a titanium frame with a graphite clad aluminum substructure, and some parts of that build could translate to a MacBook.

RAM

Macs start with 16GB RAM, but the ‌iPhone 16 Pro‌ has 8GB RAM, the minimum for Apple Intelligence. We can expect an A18 Pro MacBook to have at least 8GB RAM so it can support ‌Apple Intelligence‌, but it's possible Apple will give it the 16GB that all Macs have.

Ports

The A18 Pro chip in the ‌iPhone 16 Pro‌ models doesn't support Thunderbolt, so the MacBook will be limited to USB-C (10GB/s) and won't offer Thunderbolt speeds. That will limit display connectivity, so it's likely the A18 Pro MacBook will only support a single external display.

Price

The ‌MacBook Air‌ with M4 chip is priced starting at $999, and it comes with a 10-core CPU, an 8-core GPU, 16GB RAM, and a 256GB SSD. The A18 Pro MacBook could be a couple hundred dollars less expensive, though we have no insight into pricing right now.

Apple probably won't want to undercut its ‌iPad‌ pricing. The low-cost ‌iPad‌ with A16 chip starts at $349, and the iPad Air with M2 chip starts at $599. A price around $599 to $699 could make the most sense because it wouldn't be as expensive as the ‌MacBook Air‌ or ‌iPad Pro‌, but would come in at or just over the ‌iPad Air‌'s cost.

$599 would be on par with some of the highly rated Chromebook options that people often purchase for school use. $599 is also the cost of the iPhone 16e, Apple's most affordable ‌iPhone‌ that uses a slightly less powerful A18 chip.

Launch Date

Kuo says Apple is going to start producing the low-cost MacBook late in the fourth quarter of 2025 or early in the first quarter of 2026. That would align with a spring 2026 launch timeline.
This article, "Apple's Low-Cost MacBook: Everything We Know So Far" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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