M2 MacBook Air delivery dates are already slipping

Macbook Air With M2 Chip In Person Wwdc (Image credit: Gerald Lynch / iMore)

What you need to know

Delivery dates for Apple's redesigned MacBook Air are already slipping into late July and early August.
The next-generation notebook was originally unveiled at WWDC 2022.
The new MacBook Air features the company's new M2 processor, a new display, and MagSafe charging.

If you've been planning on preordering the new MacBook Air, you might want to get on that.

Preorders for the new MacBook Air are now live and, according to the Apple Store website, delivery dates for the next-generation notebook are already slipping into late July and early August.

While those who were quick about placing their orders were able to get delivery dates of next week, others will have to wait a little while longer. Some configurations won't come any sooner than August 1, with the upgraded 10-core GPU version especially suffering right now. As ever, adding customizations to your order could see it ship later than you'd like, too. Adding more memory and increasing the SSD storage can add weeks to delivery times across all of Apple's Macs and the new MacBook Air is no exception.

The color chosen does seem to have a degree of impact on the delivery estimates, however. Choosing a Space Gray MacBook Air could get your machine in-hand two weeks earlier than another color, depending on the specification.

The new notebook will be officially released on Friday, July 15 both online and in-store and, while some lucky customers got their preorder in with a delivery date that matches release day, the rest of us are going to have a longer wait to get that redesign in our hands.

Macbook Air M2 Hands On Keyboard Wwdc (Image credit: Gerald Lynch / iMore)

It's not a surprise that Apple is experiencing shipping delays for its new MacBook Air. The Air hasn't seen a major redesign since 2018 when Apple finally updated the first generation of the notebook with a Retina Display, USB-C, and a small update to the design. With this year's generation, we're experiencing the biggest upgrade to the Air's design...well, ever.

The new MacBook Air features a completely new design that matches the design language of the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro and includes a larger display, M2 processor, and MagSafe charging. It's also the first MacBook Air that can be upgraded with 24GB of memory. But again, do that and you're likely to face a longer wait than most in terms of delivery.

Preorders for the new MacBook Air with M2 chip are open now. The notebook will officially release on Friday, July 15, but is unlikely to feature in the Prime Day MacBook deals given how new it is. Look out for some older models though!

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Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.