Apple Announces New MacBook Airs with Haswell Processors and 'All-Day' Battery Life - MacRumors
Skip to Content

Apple Announces New MacBook Airs with Haswell Processors and 'All-Day' Battery Life

by

At today's WWDC keynote in San Francisco, California, Apple announced new 11-inch and 13-inch MacBook Airs, which have been designed with battery life in mind. As expected, the new Airs use Haswell processors that offer enhanced performance and significantly improved battery life, but feature no cosmetic changes.

With the new Haswell processors, The 11" MacBook Air will now have nine hours of battery life while the 13" MacBook Air will have a stunning 12 hours of battery life.

macbookairs
In addition to Haswell processors, the new MacBooks feature 802.11ac compatibility, with support for the "Gigabit WiFi" 802.11ac specification. Gigabit WiFi offers speeds up to three times as fast as existing 802.11n wireless networks.

The 11" MacBook Air starts at $999 with a 128GB hard drive and the 13" MacBook Air with a 128GB hard drive starts at $1099. Apple's MacBook Airs are available today from Apple's Online Store and at retail locations.

Related Roundup: MacBook Air
Buyer's Guide: MacBook Air (Buy Now)
Related Forum: MacBook Air

Popular Stories

Apple Event Logo

Apple to Launch These 15+ New Products Later This Year

Friday March 27, 2026 2:03 pm PDT by
March has been an incredibly busy month for Apple, with the company unveiling more than 10 new products and accessories. We said hello to the MacBook Neo at the start of the month, and we bid farewell to the Mac Pro at the end of it. Nevertheless, there is still a lot more to come this year. Beyond the usual annual updates to iPhones and Apple Watches, Apple's all-new smart home hub is...
Read Full Article • 63 comments
iOS 26

iOS 26.4 Adds Two New Features to CarPlay

Tuesday March 24, 2026 1:55 pm PDT by
iOS 26.4 was released today, and it includes a couple of new features for CarPlay: an Ambient Music widget and support for voice-based chatbot apps. To update your iPhone 11 or newer to iOS 26.4, open the Settings app and tap on General → Software Update. CarPlay will automatically offer the new features so long as the iPhone connected to your vehicle is running iOS 26.4 or later....
Read Full Article • 30 comments
Mac Pro Feature Teal

Apple Confirms Mac Pro Is Dead, No Future Models Planned

Thursday March 26, 2026 2:04 pm PDT by
Apple has discontinued the Mac Pro and has removed the machine from its website, reports 9to5Mac. Apple said it does not plan to design a new version of the Mac Pro, and no new model will be coming in the future. The Mac Pro was last updated in 2023, which was when Apple added an M2 Ultra Apple silicon chip, but the chassis has not been refreshed since 2019. Apple redesigned the Mac Pro to...
Read Full Article • 539 comments

Top Rated Comments

KylePowers Avatar
KylePowers
167 months ago
Very disappointed with such minor updates! :-(
Almost twice the battery life, almost twice the graphics power, and 802.11ac? I wouldn't call that necessarily minor. What were you expecting? Built-in coffee maker?

EDIT: For some reason I considered almost 50% being twice the graphics power; but nonetheless, quite the improvement! Especially compared to my Sandy Bridge GPU.
Score: 32 Votes (Like | Disagree)
D
DisplacedMic
167 months ago
Very disappointed with such minor updates! :-(

are you serious? this is one of the largest jumps in battery life i've ever seen.
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
S
Saturn1217
167 months ago
So intel wasn't joking about the battery-life

Seriously this is one of the largest single generation jumps in battery-life we've ever seen and on Apple's ultraportable line where you need all the battery-life you can get. I was expecting 10hrs for the 13-inch and that was my optimistic guess. I'm a little disappointed that it appears 8gb is still only a BTO option but considering a redesign was not expected I think this update is fantastic.

Now I'm wondering if I should sell my current MBA while I can still get a good price or just stick with it since I just bought it 6-months ago...hmmm...

Also for all the retina whiners. The fact that apple just dropped the price (again) for the MBAs basically killed any hope of retina coming to this machine as it is currently branded. They will continue to make the rMBPs thinner and lighter and if you want retina buy those machines.
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
C
Chub
167 months ago
Almost twice the battery life, almost twice the graphics power, and 802.11ac? I wouldn't call that necessarily minor. What were you expecting? Built-in coffee maker?

Twice the graphics power I don't think so and who is going to be using that 1GBps wireless connection anytime soon? I was truly looking forward to this and let's be honest it was a let down.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
D
DisplacedMic
167 months ago
What an anti climax.

We knew Haswell would be in, but that is it, better battery life.

tut

that's all many of us wanted. look at the battery size differences between the classic and retina macbooks... it's an ultralight. if you want high-res get the 13" retina.

i don't understand the complaint - seems like a no brainer to me
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
E
extradryny
167 months ago
do you think there will be a BTO to upgrade the display to 1080p. This is very sad if it is still the old display resolutions. That is like so ancient by today's terms.

I'll take the battery life over the retina display any day. Great design decision.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Read All Comments