Power. It’s in the Air.
Our thinnest, lightest notebook, completely transformed by the Apple M1 chip. CPU speeds up to 3.5x faster. GPU speeds up to 5x faster. Our most advanced Neural Engine for up to 9x faster machine learning. The longest battery life ever in a MacBook Air. And a silent, fanless design. This much power has never been this ready to go.
M1 Small chip. Giant leap.
It’s here. Our first chip designed specifically for Mac. Packed with an astonishing 16 billion transistors, the Apple M1 system on a chip (SoC) integrates the CPU, GPU, Neural Engine, I/O and so much more onto a single tiny chip. With incredible performance, custom technologies and industry-leading power efficiency,2 M1 is not just a next step for Mac — it’s another level entirely.
Biggest collection of apps ever.
Run powerful apps built for M1. All your existing apps work thanks to Rosetta 2. And for the first time, you can use your favourite iPhone and iPad apps directly on macOS Big Sur. Altogether, you’ll have access to the biggest collection of apps ever for Mac.
Speed and responsiveness.
The M1 chip and macOS Big Sur work together to make the entire system snappier. MacBook Air wakes instantly from sleep. Everyday tasks from flipping through photos to browsing Safari are faster. And your hardest-working apps all have access to the power they need.
Serious performance. Unbelievable battery life.
M1 extends battery life even while bringing a massive increase in performance. But the chip itself is only part of this incredible power efficiency story. macOS Big Sur features advanced power management that intelligently allocates tasks between the M1 performance and efficiency cores — automatically optimising for lightweight tasks like reading a note or performance‑intensive tasks like playing the latest game. The result is the best battery life ever on a Mac.
An entire system. On a single chip.
Until now, a Mac needed multiple chips to deliver all of its features — including the processor, I/O, security and memory. With M1, these technologies are combined into a single system on a chip (SoC), delivering a new level of integration for more simplicity, more efficiency and amazing performance. And with incredibly small transistors measured at an atomic scale, M1 is remarkably complex — packing the largest number of transistors we’ve ever put into a single chip. It’s also the first personal computer chip built using industry‑leading 5‑nanometre process technology.
Unified memory. Shared across the entire system.
M1 also features our unified memory architecture, or UMA. M1 unifies its high‑bandwidth, low‑latency memory into a single pool within a custom package. As a result, all of the technologies in the SoC can access the same data without copying it between multiple pools of memory. This dramatically improves performance and power efficiency. Video apps are snappier. Games are richer and more detailed. Image processing is lightning fast. And your entire system is more responsive.
8-core CPU Devours tasks. Sips battery.
M1 has the fastest CPU we’ve ever made. With that kind of processing speed, MacBook Air can take on new extraordinarily intensive tasks like professional-quality editing and action-packed gaming. But the 8‑core CPU on M1 isn’t just up to 3.5x faster than the previous generation3— it balances high-performance cores with efficiency cores that can still crush everyday jobs while using just a tenth of the power.
The next generation of machine learning.
M1 features our latest Neural Engine. Its 16‑core design is capable of executing a massive 11 trillion operations per second. In fact, with a powerful 8‑core GPU, machine learning accelerators and the Neural Engine, the entire M1 chip is designed to excel at machine learning. Final Cut Pro can intelligently frame a clip in a fraction of the time. Pixelmator Pro can magically increase sharpness and detail at incredible speeds. And every app with ML‑powered features benefits from performance never before seen on Mac.
Magic Keyboard. Get down to it. Write away.
When a keyboard types like a dream and still does a whole lot more: that’s magic. With new pre-programmed shortcuts, useful features are even easier to access. Get help from Siri, switch keyboard languages, respond with the perfect emoji, find documents with Spotlight — there’s so much you can do with just a tap. And the backlit keys with ambient light sensor help you type in low‑light settings.
Touch ID.
One touch is all it takes to lock or unlock MacBook Air. Use your fingerprint to rent a movie, buy an app, or access things like secure documents or system settings without having to re-enter your password. And when you shop online with Apple Pay, Touch ID fills in your shipping and billing information without sharing your card details.
