Report: 15-inch MacBook Air coming at WWDC, new Mac Studios will arrive eventually

We're generally fans of Apple's now-year-old Mac Studio desktop--and skeptical about its now-year-late Apple Silicon Mac Pro refresh. The Studio addresses many of the needs of the Mac Pro's intended audience in a smaller device that costs less money, while the Apple Silicon Mac Pro seems likely to dispense with at least some of the upgradeability and versatility of past generations.

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Reports have suggested that Apple could skip an M2-powered Mac Studio refresh to make that planned Mac Pro more appealing to potential buyers when it arrives. But that doesn't mean the Mac Studio is going away; Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says that a pair of Mac Studio updates are being "planned," though he doesn't know when they'll be out. (We would assume that the difference between the two models comes down to which processor they use; the M1 Mac and M1 Ultra versions of the Studio have several differences aside from raw CPU and GPU speed.)

That nugget is one of several in a summary of Apple's plans for its Worldwide Developers Conference in June. Gurman adds small details to several stories he has reported in the recent past; the most interesting for Mac users is the 15-inch MacBook Air, which he said late last week would likely include an M2 processor and the same 3024x1964 screen resolution as the 14-inch MacBook Pro. Gurman now says Apple plans to announce the new Air at WWDC.

Macs with newer M3 processors, including updated versions of the 13-inch MacBook Air and Pro, could come "this year or in 2024." Gurman believes any laptops announced during WWDC will continue to use M2 processors, and the other MacBook models mentioned already include the M2.

Apple's biggest announcement at WWDC is still expected to be a new VR and AR headset, along with an operating system referred to internally as "xrOS." The headset project has reportedly been divisive inside Apple, going back to its inception in 2015. A New York Times report from March highlighted continuing internal "skepticism" about the product, from its features to its design to its release timing to its price (supposedly "roughly $3,000").

There will still be plenty of software announcements at WWDC, but Gurman expects most of them to be low-key. He says this year's iOS, iPadOS, and macOS updates will be relatively minor, though iOS and iPadOS could be modified to allow app sideloading to comply with new European Union regulations.

The exception is watchOS, which Gurman says is getting its "biggest update... since the first version was introduced in 2015." The evolution of watchOS and the Apple Watch has been gradual; originally pitched as a sort of do-everything extension of your phone, its focus slowly shifted away from general-purpose apps to health and fitness. While Gurman isn't specific about what this update entails, it will reportedly feature "an updated interface."