14 DAY TRIAL // In case you’re disappointed by the rumored new products launching on Thursday, prepare to take another blow. According to sources in the tech industry, the Retina MacBook Air originally planned for unveiling at Apple’s October 16 event is not happening. At least not yet.
A supposedly all-new version of the notebook, the MacBook Air with Retina display, would have been either a replacement of the entry-level 11-inch MBA or a filler option between the low- and high-end versions of the notebook. The biggest one is a 13-inch model. The Retina version would have sported a 12-inch screen (measured on the diagonal).
What’s in the cards for October 16
As you may already know, Apple plans to hold an event on Thursday at its Town Hall auditorium in the Cupertino, California campus. It’s said to be a more intimate affair than the iPhone 6 launch on September 9, mainly because these announcements to come are the remainder of Apple’s calendar 2014.
The lineup includes a new iPad Air with faster chips, more RAM, and slight design alterations, a Retina-enabled iMac (the 27-inch model), a potential Apple TV announcement, and the public launch of OS X Yosemite.
These are not confirmed, mind you, but they’re very likely to go down as rumored. And we wouldn’t be surprised if other stuff showed up that we didn’t know anything about. Apple has a way of concealing some things very well ahead of a planned event.
However, one particular product that was said to also come out on October 16 was the 12-inch Retina MacBook Air.
Retina MacBook Air reportedly on hold
Sources close to both Apple and re/code (spawned by former WSJ journalists known to have solid ties in the industry) are saying that “Apple may well have a new MacBook Air with Retina Display in the pipeline, but it’s not going to unveil it this week.”
According to these people, “the company’s latest reimagining of the ultralight laptop won’t be shown off at its Thursday event,” John Paczkowski reports.
For those of you who were planning to get one for school, work, or just for convenience, it seems you’ll have to wait a little longer. Not much longer, we hope.
We hear that the 13-inch iPad Pro (or iPad Plus) is also on hold because of manufacturing bottlenecks. Retina display devices usually incur manufacturing hurdles because these high-resolution screens are hard to make in bulk quantities. Another reason for the Retina MacBook Air’s delay is said to be the incredibly thin chassis that Foxconn has been commissioned to build / assemble. All in all, it seems we’re looking at an early 2015 launch.