Blog

Apple finally stopped selling the M1 MacBook Air earlier this year. With the price drop of the M2 MacBook Air and the introduction of the M3, I was finally ready to stop recommending it.

But fast forward to this week’s WWDC announcements, and suddenly the M1 MacBook Air is a lot more appealing. That’s thanks to new Apple Intelligence features that stretch back several generations, all the way to the M1 Mac.

The M1 MacBook comes back to life

Like every year, the introduction of a new version of macOS means an adjustment to which older Macs are compatible with the new version. But with the latest release, macOS Sequoia, Apple has taken a more aggressive leap. MacOS Sonoma has been compatible with Macs since 2018, while Sequoia moved that to 2020. But this change is for a very good reason. The M1 chips were the first Macs to receive the Neural Engine, the in-device artificial intelligence accelerator responsible for powering much of Apple’s new Intelligence features.

So while some may be disappointed that macOS Sequoia doesn’t go back that far, the fact that Apple was able to enable AI features on four-year-old laptops is pretty impressive. This is especially notable when compared to Microsoft’s launch of Copilot+, which reserved the device’s AI features for new laptops only.

Of course, the AI ​​features don’t suddenly make the M1 MacBook Air as fast as the M3 model — especially in terms of graphics. Nor does it make the device as thin and modern as the newer MacBook Air models. But considering how fast and long-lasting the M1 MacBook Air already was, these new AI features do a lot to keep those old laptops feeling fresh. The difference in CPU performance between the M2 and M1 isn’t even big enough to be noticed in most tasks that the MacBook Air is designed for anyway.

There’s still the bigger question, of course, how the performance of these AI features will compare on the M1 MacBook Air versus the M3 MacBook Air. According to Apple, the M3’s neural engine is 60% faster than the M1’s. Of course, this should account for some of the performance difference.

However, the price difference will make these M1 MacBook Airs particularly attractive again. You can buy

updated M1 MacBook Air

for under $500 right now. Knowing that you can get the latest AI features in a MacBook so cheaply is mind-blowing.

But why?

You might be wondering why Apple would even enable these features to begin with. After all, it would be an easy way to sell some new devices.

One problem is that Apple doesn’t really have any new MacBooks to sell. The M4 came in the iPad Pro, but it probably won’t be until 2025 when we get the M4 MacBook Air. Apple could have limited the features to just the M3 MacBooks, but we all know that the real jump in AI performance comes with the M4, not the M3.

There’s a bigger reason for Apple’s more generous approach, though. After all, Apple doesn’t appear to be introducing AI to laptop sales this quarter, as Microsoft is. It’s investing in the long-term future of the Mac and proving it’s not far behind.

So far, the result of Apple’s announcements has been a resounding success. After Apple’s announcements, its shares have already risen above Microsoft, allowing it to regain its title as the most valuable company in the world. All the while, Microsoft has faced backlash with its own new AI features, including being forced to make changes to Recall, its most ambitious new feature.

After all, turning the M1 MacBook Air into a proper AI computer was only possible because Apple is actually ahead in AI, not backwards. Despite marketing hype, Apple has invested more in accelerating AI than Microsoft or any of its partners for years. This long-term investment is what allows it to go back in time and give new capabilities to these old devices in a way that Windows machines simply cannot. That’s not to say Windows devices won’t have AI features, but they’ll lack the new Copilot+ features and be powered primarily by the cloud rather than the device.

I’m not saying that everyone should necessarily buy an M1 MacBook Air. There are reasons to choose one of Apple’s newer MacBooks or even one of the new Windows Copilot+ devices. But for now, it looks like the M1 MacBook Air just regained a lot of value, which is an increasingly rare thing in tech.

Editors’ recommendations