Apple Plans to Launch More Affordable MacBook with iPhone A18 Pro Chip

Apple To Release Cheaper MacBook Air Powered By iPhone Processor, Analyst Says

According to the report, the 13-inch thin-and-light laptop will enter production in late 2025 or early 2026 and will be powered by the A18 Pro processor, the same chip powering the iPhone 16 Pro. This laptop might also feature more color variants, including pink and yellow, along with the standard silver. Apple is targeting a 5-7 million unit production run for 2026. While the A18 Pro chip would be a significant downgrade from the M-series chip, it's about on par with 2020's M1 chip, making it more than powerful for everyday tasks. A representative for Apple didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Of Apple's 2024 Mac shipments, the MacBook Air accounted for 33% of sales, according to Consumer Intelligence Research Partners. Despite the popularity of the MacBook line, Apple only has 9.2% of global computer market share, according to Statista. Currently, Dell, HP and Lenovo all command greater share of the market than Apple, likely thanks to a wider product portfolios and enterprise sales. Considering the MacBook Air starts at $999, a cheaper A18 Pro-powered MacBook Air could eat away at lower-end computer sales bring MacOS to more price-conscious consumers. And, given that the A18 Pro supports Apple Intelligence, the company's vision of AI-enabled computing, it could introduce AI to more laptop buyers.

Apple reportedly working on a cheaper MacBook with iPhone chip -- analyst says to expect A18 Pro in a 13-inch laptop

More affordable MacBook could also be silver, blue, pink, or yellow. Apple is reportedly working on a new, cheaper MacBook using a chip originally designed for the iPhone. Supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo posted on X that the company is planning a new 13-inch laptop using an A18 Pro chip. The laptop, which Kuo says would launch at the end of 2025 or the beginning of 2026, would be Apple's first Mac running on an A-series chip. The A18 Pro, which powers the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max, averages in the 3,400s on the Geekbench 6 single-core benchmark and 8,500 to 8,600 in multi-core. Those single-core scores are only slightly lower than what you see in the M4, which range between 3,400 and 3,700 points on the same test, depending on which Mac they're in. The multi-core score is a lot closer to the original M1 generation, which also falls around 8,500. This device will also reportedly come in various colors, including silver, blue, pink, and yellow. Some fans have called for Apple to bring the colors from the iMac line to the MacBook, but it hasn't done so yet. Apple's latest experiment with color on Mac laptops has been with the tastefully muted sky blue on the M4 MacBook Air. Kuo states that Apple is looking to sell 5-7 million units of this product in 2026. It's unclear how much they might cost, but presumably, these would be entry-level laptops that undercut the $999 MacBook Air. They would have to be pretty cheap to compete. The M3 MacBook Air has dropped to $799 new on sale before. Apple's current affordable play is at Walmart, which sells the M1 MacBook Air with the old design, 256GB of storage, and 8GB of RAM for $649. A lower price might put Apple in a position to compete with cheaper Chromebooks and mid-level Windows laptops in a play for the education market and for those who might only use their laptops for email, web browsing, and other simple tasks. The reference design is reportedly being supplied by Everwin Precision in Shenzhen, China. Beyond the laptop, Kuo claims that Everwin is building frames for smart glasses due to ship in 2027. Those would feature audio playback, a camera, and video recording like Meta's AI glasses, as well as "AI environmental sensing." Kuo says the glasses will lack display functionality. We'll have to see if any or all of these predictions come to pass.

I'd love Apple to make a cheap MacBook with iPhone power

A budget MacBook with an iPhone processor makes total sense to me Apple could deliver a MacBook surprise within the next couple of years, and it sounds like terrific news for aspiring budget laptop shoppers. As per TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple is planning a new MacBook that will be powered by the same chipset as the iPhone 16 Pro. According to Kuo, the laptop features an "approximately 13-inch display" and might enter mass production in the fourth quarter of 2025, or early next year. He further adds that the company aims to ship anywhere between 5-7 million units of this new machine, accounting for nearly a third of total laptop shipments in 2026. Recommended Videos Those are ambitious numbers and suggest Apple is rather bullish about the prospects of a "more affordable" MacBook with an A18 Pro chip inside, instead of the traditional M-series processor. Either way, the whole idea is pretty interesting for multiple reasons. It just makes sense The A18 Pro is a freakishly powerful processor, and it's the only mobile silicon out there that can handle console-grade titles such as Death Stranding, Resident Evil, and Assassin's Creed Mirage with ease on a phone. Paired with bigger heat management hardware and battery, I won't be surprised to see it race against the Snapdragon X-powered Windows laptops. But the real surprise here is the promise of a more affordable Apple laptop. Is it the long-awaited revival of the 12-inch MacBook? Probably. What I am more interested in seeing is the asking price. Over the past few years, Apple has kept the entry-level MacBook Air locked close to the $999 bracket. Unless Apple wants a deliberate overlap, the new "affordable" MacBook should ideally start somewhere around $799, the same price bracket that is now a sweet spot for Microsoft's Surface and other Windows-on-Arm laptops that draw power from Qualcomm's entry-level Snapdragon X silicon. An asking price of around $800 would make the rumored MacBook an unbeatable proposition, assuming Apple sticks with its high hardware and performance standards. Will Apple experiment with cheaper materials, such as polycarbonate, to lower the asking price? That's plausible. We haven't seen Apple go beyond a metal chassis for MacBooks in a while, so it would be interesting to see whether the company makes a pivot. What truly matters here is the incredible longevity of Apple laptops. You can still pick up a used or refurbished M1 MacBook Air for around $500-600, and it will run the full macOS Tahoe experience with the Apple Intelligence bundle and no feature cuts. And from my personal experience, it's still astoundingly smooth and reliable. If Apple launches a cheaper MacBook around $800 -- and factor in the usual student discount on top -- there is little doubt that buyers would pick a Windows machine. But it's not just the hardware situation where Apple has a leg up. Ever since the Copilot+ breed of laptops has landed, multiple Windows features, such as Recall, have been locked to certain chips that can meet the AI performance requirements at the hardware level. Even Intel's 2025 batch of enthusiast-class H-series misses out. On the other hand, a five-year-old M1 MacBook doesn't water down the macOS experience to date. Also, Apple has lost the "thin and light" laptop race to machines such as the Asus ZenBook A14, so maybe it's time to reclaim that crown with a reimagined MacBook armed with an iPhone silicon? A historical performance perspective If the idea of a MacBook with an iPhone processor sounds ludicrous, look no further than the Windows machines, especially those with Qualcomm processors inside. More specifically, the Windows on Arm laptops and the new breed of Copilot+ machines. The move doesn't even surprise from Apple's own perspective, especially when it comes to concerns about firepower. Apple put a laptop-tier M1 processor inside the iPad Pro years ago. In fact, when Apple announced the M1 silicon, its similarities with the A14 became a crucial talking point. The microarchitecture was similar, built atop the 5nm process node, and the same kind of unified silicon-on-chip (SoC) approach with fused memory on the same module as the CPU, GPU, and the NPU. Apple borrowed the A14's Firestorm and Icestorm cores, increased the core count, married it with a beefier GPU, and created the M1. Back then, the A14 was already performing ahead of x86-based processors, and the M1 only made a bigger jump. In fact, when Apple started preparing for the transition away from Intel (x86 silicon), the Developer Transition Kit offered to developers came kitted with an A12Z processor that was fitted inside iPads back then. In the years that have followed, Apple hasn't changed the fundamental approach. The A18 Pro still sits at the top of the mobile food chain, and the M4 silicon packed inside Macs and iPads is no different. If Apple fits an A18 Pro silicon (even paired with its 8GB RAM situation), it would be able to handle the demands of macOS with ease. Also, if you look at the Windows side, and especially the Copilot+ laptops with a Snapdragon processor inside, you will find some similarities. The Snapdragon X-series processors for laptops now share the Oryon cores with the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip for Android phones and tablets. Apple's CPU cores outperform the competition across the mobile and laptop segments, and it won't be surprising to see the A18 Pro-powered MacBook coming out with some impressive performance figures. The biggest dilemma is "if" and "when" Apple puts such a machine on the shelf.

Apple to Launch a 'More Affordable' MacBook With iPhone Chip: Report

It could be available in blue, pink, silver, and yellow colour options Apple is said to have plans of introducing a more affordable version of its MacBook in the coming years. According to a seasoned industry analyst, the purported laptop will sport a compact display, similar to the current base-level MacBook Air. It will be powered by a flagship iPhone processor. The Cupertino-based tech giant reportedly expects to recover its shipment numbers to the pre-Covid-19 period, with the affordable MacBook anticipated to have a high share. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo shared details about the purported affordable MacBook. It is said to come with a 13-inch screen, the same size as the display on the base MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models. It will reportedly be powered by an A18 Pro chipset. Notably, this processor also powers the iPhone 16 Pro and the iPhone 16 Pro Max. It supports the Apple Intelligence suite of artificial intelligence (AI) features, which indicates Apple's upcoming laptop may also too. While other details remain under wraps, the more affordable MacBook is expected to hit mass production in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2025 or Q1 2026. It may ship in blue, pink, silver, and yellow colour options. As per the analyst, the Cupertino-based tech giant aims to increase its total MacBook shipments and bring them to the pre-Covid-19 period. It is estimated to ship 20 million MacBook units in 2025, whereas its shipments may increase to 25 million in 2026. Kuo suggests that the more affordable MacBook model could account for 5-7 million units among the total shipments next year. Consequently, Everwin Precision is expected to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of Apple's new model. The China-based company designs, produces, and sells electronic components. As of today, the company supplies casings for the MacBook Pro and is soon said to begin the same for the MacBook Air as well. Additionally, it is also reported to serve as the reference design supplier as part of the New Product Introduction (NPI). Kuo states that courtesy of Apple, the company expects its revenue to grow by up to 20 percent YoY and profits to increase to up to 40 percent YoY in 2026.