Apple's long-awaited MacBook Air refresh expected to ship with Kaby Lake rather than Cannon Lake

Intel delays have knock-on effect on Apple MacBook releases

Apple's forthcoming MacBook Air update will run Intel's Kaby Lake refresh CPUs due to Intel's ongoing production delays on its 10nm Cannon Lake microprocessor line.

The news comes courtesy of Taiwan's Economic Daily News. It reports that the 2018 MacBook Air will bear a 13-inch screen, as expected. It will offer models running 15-watt Intel Core i5 and Core i7 CPUs with base clock speeds of between 1.6GHz and 1.9GHz, and a boost clock of between 3.4GHz and 4.2GHz.

Graphics will be driven by the integrated Intel UHD Graphics 620 and will offer up to 32GB of DDR4 or LPDDR3 RAM.

Apple's current range of MacBook Airs - launched last year - feature dated Intel Core i5 and Core i7 CPUs from 2015 and start at £799 for a model offering a paltry 128GB SSD storage and 8GB RAM.

The new MacBook Air is expected to be unveiled in a major launch in October, potentially alongside a new version of the 12-inch MacBook and an upgraded Mac Mini, which is expected to offer more powerful hardware and USB-C connections, according to The Inquirer.

It also reports plans for a refreshed iPad Pro to arrive later this year. Recent rumours point to slimmed-down bezels, Apple's octa-core A11X Bionic CPU and support for Face ID - although this reportedly won't work in landscape mode.

Cannon Lake is Intel's 10nm die shrink of the Kaby Lake microarchitecture. It had been expected in 2016, but ongoing difficulties has shifted volume production into the second half of 2019.

However, Apple is also eschewing Whiskey Lake, Intel's interim 14nm Skylake process refinement following on from Kaby Lake and Coffee Lake. Whiskey Lake series CPUs are expected to be released in the second half of this year, but that is cutting it a bit too fine for Apple's release schedules.