Colorful MacBook Air tipped to lead M2 charge: What's left for M1X?

The next MacBook Air was tipped this week to bring on the next generation in Apple-designed processors in 2022. The MacBook Air 2022 will likely appear with a variety of colorful casing options, somewhat along the lines of the colorful iMac machines on the market today. It's expected that the M1X processor will be released first, ready to roll with the next MacBook Pro, while the M2 will begin to appear in 2022.

The average consumer looking for a new notebook will likely pay the most attention to the color. The colors of the MacBook Air 2022 will likely run along the same lines as the iMac. This is not the first time Apple's expanded their normally 1, 2, or 3-color option computers to a full rainbow.

The difference between the processors with rumored names are tipped to be similar to those of the baseline power release (first half of the year), and overpowered release (second half of the year) schedule sometimes followed by gaming GPU manufacturers elsewhere in the industry. The M1X would likely appear with M1 cores, but more CPU and GPU cores.

Potential M1X, M2 processor cores as such:

M1: 4 power, 4 efficiency cores

M1X: 8 power, 2 efficiency cores

M2: 4+4 (next-gen cores)

If the M1X was released with a MacBook Pro later this year, 2021, it'd potentially have an overpowered processor with less focus on power efficiency. The M2 would then potentially lead the charge with the MacBook Air (2022) with a more balanced approach to the whole computing experience.

It's unlikely the next MacBook Pro will be released with a wild variety of colors – though we wouldn't mind if Apple decided to release a new MacBook Pro with a casing that's far darker, near-black, maybe gunmetal?

Take a peek at the timeline below for more information on the MacBook Air, the MacBook Pro, and what's coming next from Apple later this year and in the first part of 2022.