MacRumors Notes Considerable Wait for M2 MacBook Air

15 AUGUST 2022 - If you want a new MacBook Air from Apple tomorrow, you probably should have ordered a few weeks ago. MacRumors ended the week last week pointing out that waits are still kind of long for Apple’s latest laptop. Running through the baseline configurations for M2 MacBook Airs in all four colors shows a wait time of two-to-three weeks. Changing nothing shows most deliveries hitting between 30 August and 7 September - one week into our bah-di-yah-ing.

The situation may be a bit fluid. The MacRumors piece says configurations besides the baseline - changing up memory or storage options for example - brings delivery up to one-to-two weeks away. It’s possible I missed those configurations, or maybe there was a rush in the past couple of days. No poking around I did brought earlier delivery. In fact, the only changes I saw pushed delivery out a few days, not closer in.

A question raised by MacRumors: Are the waits thanks to lack of supply or abundance of demand? While indications are that Mac demand has been high, Apple said on the June-quarter earnings call that it could not say exactly how high demand was since the company had nothing like the supply to meet orders. That was thanks to supply chain disruptions tied to COVID lockdowns in China. Mac revenue got the tar beaten out of it last quarter as a result, though things seem to be looking up on that front. Apple execs said on the call that they expected supply constraints to be lower this quarter than last. Apple CEO Tim Cook also expressed a belief that the company has “a very strong offering for the back to school season,” expected to be a time of high demand, which brings us back to the question a moment ago: Are the waits for the M2 MacBook Air thanks to lack of supply or abundance of demand?

It’ll likely be October before we get a solid indication. That’s when Apple should report earnings for the fourth-quarter of fiscal year 2022.