Apple's New MacBook Air Release Date 2015, Price, Features, Retina Display Rumors

The forthcoming 12-inch MacBook Air, widely rumored to be available for unveiling on Steve Jobs' birthday of February 24, may already include a high-resolution Retina display, a vastly-reduced I/O, a Touch ID sensor above its trackpad, and an updated Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad with enhanced biometric functionality according to sources cited by Apple Insider. The upgrades, if true, could be a prelude to making Apple Pay available for payments on the web, according to the tech site, which would put Apple Pay in direct competition with PayPal, Amazon and other web checkout providers while also opening a major new market. At present, Apple Pay is limited only for in-store transactions via NFC or as part of the checkout process for iOS apps.

The upcoming all-new MacBook Air will reportedly come with a radically new design that foregoes standards such as full-sized USB ports, MagSafe connectors, and SD card slots in favor of a markedly thinner and lighter body with a higher-resolution display according to 9to5Mac. At 12-inch, the next upgrade to Apple's notebook computers will be considerably smaller than the current 13-inch version, yet also slightly narrower than the 11-inch model. The new 12-inch version is approximately a quarter-of-an-inch narrower than the 11-inch version, yet it is also a quarter-of-an-inch taller in order to accommodate the slightly larger display. In order to fit the larger screen into a footprint about the size of the current 11-inch model, the bezels on the display have been reduced on all sides, says the tech site. The upcoming MacBook Air model is so thin that Apple employees are said to refer to the device as the "MacBook Stealth" internally, the site adds.

The upcoming ultra slim MacBook will likely also include many of the features that have been already incorporated in previous Macs over the course of the last year, like 802.11ac Wi-Fi, fast PCI e-based flash storage, and Thunderbolt 2 ports. It is rumored that it will be debuting with the new reversible USB Type C connector, which allows a USB cable to be inserted into a notebook in any orientation. The next edition of the MacBook is speculated to be price at around $1,099 USD, according to T-Gaap which also says it will be released on February 27 instead of February 24.