What you need to know
- Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says a redesigned MacBook Air is coming next year.
- The refresh will see the return of a feature that's been missing for far too long — MagSafe.
Apple is heavily rumored to have a big MacBook Air refresh incoming, and a new report by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has that happening at some point next year. But more importantly, it's going to see the return of a feature that should probably have never gone away in the first place — MagSafe.
Writing in this weekend's issue of the Power On newsletter, Gurman said that the new MacBook Air will arrive at some point in 2022, adding that it will include support for MagSafe as well. While we don't know for sure what that will actually look like, it does sound very much like we're going to get a magnetic charging solution for Apple's notebooks once again. I'd also expect that to be brought to other Mac portables in due course, too.
Apple's original MagSafe implementation, long before the arrival of iPhone 12, was a game-changer. It allowed people to charge their Macs without fear of them being dragged across the room when someone caught the cable with a foot — often a child or an animal. USB-C, the current charging solution, doesn't offer the same level of protection and it's no doubt broken more than a few notebooks as a result.
The current MacBook Air is the best Mac for most people and a refreshed model will surely be no different. Existing rumors have that machine ditching the tapered design for something more squared-off, although the same impossibly thin shape is expected to be part of the new look.
