Apple to Launch Cost-Effective MacBook Powered by iPhone Processor

Apple’s current entry-level laptop is the $999 MacBook Air, but analyst Ming-Chi Kuo believes that Apple is planning to introduce an even more budget-friendly model soon.

He mentions on X that Apple is set to begin production in late 2025 or early 2026 for a new MacBook model that will utilize the A18 Pro chip instead of an M-series processor. This chip is the same one found in the iPhone 16 Pro series. The laptop may come in vibrant casing colors, such as silver, pink, and yellow.

Kuo indicates that the more affordable MacBook will maintain the same 13-inch display size as the existing MacBook Air, implying that the chip might be the only specification where users will notice a difference.

Unfortunately, it remains uncertain how much cheaper this model will actually be. Kuo states that Apple aims to produce between 5-7 million units in 2026, which would account for a significant share of total Mac laptop shipments. This hints at a notably lower price point to entice such a high volume of sales.

While all Apple Silicon Macs released so far have utilized the more powerful M-series chips, an iPhone chip is certainly robust enough to effectively run a mobile Mac desktop experience.

On Geekbench, the A18 Pro chip’s single-core performance scores around ~3500, only slightly behind the M4 chip found in the Mac mini. There is a more considerable difference in multicore performance (~8780 for A18 Pro vs ~15000 for M4), but for a lower-end device, an average Mac user might not even perceive the difference. Many fundamental computing tasks are primarily single-core bound. The A18’s multicore score is roughly comparable to the original M1 chip from 2020, which many users still rely on today with satisfactory performance.

The success of the new MacBook will hinge on its pricing and how much lower it is than the Air to justify the performance disparity. Apple has never gone below the $999 starting price of the Air, making this a new frontier for both customers and the company.