Report: Apple Preparing New Slim 12” MacBook, MacBook Air Updates Soon

macbook_air

In a post to Chinese forum WeiPhone, a member has revealed that Apple is planning to refresh their MacBook line soon. The forum member has leaked legitimate photos and information regarding unreleased Apple products in the past.

MacRumors provides a summary of the original post:

1. MacBook Air updates are coming soon; MacBook Pro updates won’t occur until September.

2. He discusses a new 12 inch notebook without fan assembly. It comes with a new trackpad design that doesn’t include the mechanical button, as we do on current MacBooks.

3. An Apple watch device does exist but still in prototype stage, so its announcement won’t come anytime soon.

The post mentions a 12-inch MacBook that does away with the fan, which will probably be removed to decrease the thickness of the notebook. In addition, the new model will feature a new trackpad design that removes the current mechanical click button component. A recent patent shows that Apple could replace the click button assembly with force and optical sensors to detect user input.

In October 2013, KGI analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said the device would feature a Retina display and said, “The offering will likely be lighter and slimmer than the existing MacBook Air.” Kuo’s predictions line up with the forum post on WeiPhone.

The member of the forum says that the MacBook Air lineup will be refreshed “soon,” but the MacBook Pro lineup will not see a refresh until later this year.

Finally, the author of the post also confirms that Apple is working on a smartwatch, but an announcement is not expected until later this year since the “iWatch” is reportedly still in the prototyping phase.

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