Archer Aviation and Southwest Airlines are teaming up to figure out what it will take to build out a network of electric air taxis at California airports. Southwest’s customer data is at the heart of it.
The two companies signed a memorandum of understanding Friday, which sets the foundation for Archer to tap Southwest’s customer base. It also gives Archer access to data about those customers which could inform decisions like where to build vertiports, or local eVTOL stations.
This is the second U.S.-based airline that Archer has partnered with after United Airlines, suggesting the eVTOL company aims to support regional routes.
Southwest operates at 14 airports across California, and Archer’s Midnight aircraft is designed to replace 60- to 90-minute urban commutes by car with air flight that takes only 10 to 20 minutes. One of the key use cases for eVTOL networks is to transport passengers to airports, trips that are often expensive and time-consuming due to traffic. Joby Aviation, Archer’s main competitor, has a similar deal with Delta Airlines.
“We’re thinking about things like commercial integration,” Nikhil Goel, Archer’s chief commercial officer, told TechCrunch. “So when you buy a Southwest ticket, you could add on your Archer before or after your flight when you book that ticket.”
Archer is toying with other ideas, including direct integration at airports in which Southwest and United operate.
“So for example, imagine if you’re going to SFO, you could land behind security right at Terminal 2 and go directly onto your Southwest flight instead of having to…sit through TSA,” said Goel, noting that Archer has been in talks with TSA to facilitate security screening at its vertiports. “Other benefits could be potentially preferred or discounted pricing if you’re an A-list flier. It could include earning Rapid Rewards points on Archer flights or vice versa.”
The agreement with Southwest comes as Archer has conducted two significant financial transactions within the last few weeks, suggesting a need for capital as it works toward a commercial launch in 2025. Archer elected last month to draw down the remaining $55 million available to it as part of a forward purchasing agreement penned with automaker Stellantis in 2023. As part of that deal, Stellantis agreed to help build out Archer’s manufacturing facility in Georgia, where Archer is producing the Midnight aircraft.
Archer is in the process of building six conforming aircraft (pre-production aircraft that are built to the exact standards of the production models) out of its small production facility in California, according to Goel. The company hopes to scale up production at the upcoming Georgia facility to produce about 650 aircraft a year, starting in the fourth-quarter of 2024.
Archer also recently offered warrants to purchase up to 57,050 shares of Class A common stock at $0.01 per share. The startup stated in its prospectus that it won’t receive any proceeds from the issuance of those warrants as they will be used to satisfy the payments of a service provider with an aggregate value of $300,000. This suggests that Archer is using the warrants as a non-cash method to settle obligations, allowing it to preserve cash while still compensating partners.
Goel said preserving cash is “not really the motivation,” though. Rather, he says getting Tier One suppliers to take stock as payment makes them financially aligned with Archer’s success.
Either way, Archer needs the cash now if it plans to stick to the schedule and launch an eVTOL air taxi service in 2025. The company had previously said it aims to launch in Miami and San Francisco in partnership with United Airlines and fixed-based operator Atlantic next year. Goel noted that Archer is also eyeing Los Angeles and New York, and has access to over 200 locations across the country per its deal with Atlantic and a more recent deal with private terminal operator Signature.
Aside from racing to build enough Midnight aircrafts to start commercial services, Archer still needs to go through the rounds of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) certifications. In June, Archer received its Part 135 Air Carrier & Operator Certificate, which means it can start operating aircraft commercially to refine its systems and procedures in advance of launching Midnight. Archer still needs to get its Type Certification and Production Certification. The former verifies that the eVTOL’s design meets all regulatory safety standards, and the latter ensures that Archer’s production processes can reliably produce aircraft that conform to the approved design and are safe to operate.
Outside of the U.S., Archer recently announced a deal with Kakao Mobility, a South Korean ride-hailing company, to bring electric air taxi flights to the country in 2026. Archer also hopes to launch in India and Abu Dhabi that same year.
Los Angeles is notorious for its back-to-back traffic. Three events that promise to bring in millions of spectators from around the world — the 2026 World Cup, the Super Bowl in 2027 and the 2028 Olympics — have LA officials searching for a range of new mobility solutions to address its congestion problems. But they’re already behind; most of the city’s planned transportation infrastructure initiatives for the Olympics won’t be completed until after 2028.
It’s in this gap that Archer Aviation sees an opportunity.
The startup, which is developing electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles (eVTOLs), hopes to leverage the public sector’s slow pace with a private sector solution: an air taxi network in LA that will replace a two- to three-hour car journey with a 10- to 20-minute air taxi ride, starting in 2026.
Ahead of Archer’s second-quarter earnings call Thursday, the company announced the locations for its network of vertiports, or takeoff and landing locations, including Los Angeles International Airport, the University of Southern California, Santa Monica, Hollywood Burbank, Van Nuys and Long Beach in Los Angeles County, as well as Orange County.
Archer is also building a new vertiport at SoFi Stadium — which will host the World Cup, Super Bowl and some of the Olympics games — in partnership with Kroenke Sports & Entertainment and the LA Rams football team. While that vertiport won’t be operational by 2026, Archer hopes to complete it in time for the Olympics.
The LA announcement comes a few weeks after Archer signed a memorandum of understanding with Kilroy Realty Corporation, identifying Kilroy Oyster Point, a 50-acre waterfront campus in South San Francisco, as a critical hub in the company’s planned SF Bay Area urban air mobility network.
Nikhil Goel, Archer’s chief commercial officer, told TechCrunch that most of the vertiports the company announced Thursday for Los Angeles have already been built.
“LA has got, I think, the most unused aviation infrastructure in the entire country, so it’s got airports all over the city. It’s got a number of helipads on top of rooftops that just aren’t used today,” Goel, noting that all Archer has to do is set up charging infrastructure and passenger facilities.
Archer Aviation plans to launch an eVTOL air taxi network in Los Angeles in 2026.Image Credits: Archer Aviation
Archer’s team chose the locations based on data on how people move around Los Angeles today. Archer recently partnered with Southwest Airlines, a deal that includes giving Archer access to the airline’s customer data that it’s using to identify good locations for vertiports.
The planned LA launch in 2026 will be gradual, according to Goel. He said the first year would probably look “like a handful of aircraft” operating one or two routes that offer the most value while Archer learns how to implement its tech effectively, build good customer service and integrate with communities in which it operates.
Archer wants to launch commercially in limited pilots starting as early as 2025 in six cities: San Francisco, Miami, Los Angeles, New York City, Abu Dhabi and Dubai. In the meantime, the company is racing to build out enough of its Midnight aircraft to launch a service and get the necessary certifications from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
The Midnight eVTOL is a piloted, four-passenger electric aircraft that travels up to 150 miles per hour and is designed for back-to-back flights of 20 to 50 miles. The company has said that charging in between rides takes less than 10 minutes.
Archer is working with automaker Stellantis to build out its Georgia production facility, where it’s on track to build 650 aircraft a year, starting in the fourth quarter of 2024. The startup is also building six pre-production aircraft out of its small production factory in California.
Archer also needs to get Type Certification and Production Certification from the FAA before it can go to market. The former verifies that the eVTOL’s design meets all regulatory safety standards, and the latter ensures that Archer’s production processes can reliably produce aircraft that conform to the approved design and are safe to operate.
“All of this is becoming very, very real. The aircraft is flying nearly every day,” said Goel. “Not only did we do our first transition flight, but we’ve done 233 flights to date, and so that puts us well on track to exceed 400 flights for the year. Everything is starting to come together. This is no longer Blade Runner. This is about making it real, launching as soon as 2026, and then scaling up from there.”
Los Angeles is notorious for its back-to-back traffic. Three events that promise to bring in millions of spectators from around the world — the 2026 World Cup, the Super Bowl in 2027 and the 2028 Olympics — have LA officials searching for a range of new mobility solutions to address its congestion problems. But they’re already behind; most of the city’s planned transportation infrastructure initiatives for the Olympics won’t be completed until after 2028.
It’s in this gap that Archer Aviation sees an opportunity.
The startup, which is developing electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles (eVTOLs), hopes to leverage the public sector’s slow pace with a private sector solution: an air taxi network in LA that will replace a two- to three-hour car journey with a 10- to 20-minute air taxi ride, starting in 2026.
Ahead of Archer’s second-quarter earnings call Thursday, the company announced the locations for its network of vertiports, or takeoff and landing locations, including Los Angeles International Airport, the University of Southern California, Santa Monica, Hollywood Burbank, Van Nuys and Long Beach in Los Angeles County, as well as Orange County.
Archer is also building a new vertiport at SoFi Stadium — which will host the World Cup, Super Bowl and some of the Olympics games — in partnership with Kroenke Sports & Entertainment and the LA Rams football team. While that vertiport won’t be operational by 2026, Archer hopes to complete it in time for the Olympics.
The LA announcement comes a few weeks after Archer signed a memorandum of understanding with Kilroy Realty Corporation, identifying Kilroy Oyster Point, a 50-acre waterfront campus in South San Francisco, as a critical hub in the company’s planned SF Bay Area urban air mobility network.
Nikhil Goel, Archer’s chief commercial officer, told TechCrunch that most of the vertiports the company announced Thursday for Los Angeles have already been built.
“LA has got, I think, the most unused aviation infrastructure in the entire country, so it’s got airports all over the city. It’s got a number of helipads on top of rooftops that just aren’t used today,” Goel, noting that all Archer has to do is set up charging infrastructure and passenger facilities.
Archer Aviation plans to launch an eVTOL air taxi network in Los Angeles in 2026.Image Credits: Archer Aviation
Archer’s team chose the locations based on data on how people move around Los Angeles today. Archer recently partnered with Southwest Airlines, a deal that includes giving Archer access to the airline’s customer data that it’s using to identify good locations for vertiports.
The planned LA launch in 2026 will be gradual, according to Goel. He said the first year would probably look “like a handful of aircraft” operating one or two routes that offer the most value while Archer learns how to implement its tech effectively, build good customer service and integrate with communities in which it operates.
Archer wants to launch commercially in limited pilots starting as early as 2025 in six cities: San Francisco, Miami, Los Angeles, New York City, Abu Dhabi and Dubai. In the meantime, the company is racing to build out enough of its Midnight aircraft to launch a service and get the necessary certifications from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
The Midnight eVTOL is a piloted, four-passenger electric aircraft that travels up to 150 miles per hour and is designed for back-to-back flights of 20 to 50 miles. The company has said that charging in between rides takes less than 10 minutes.
Archer is working with automaker Stellantis to build out its Georgia production facility, where it’s on track to build 650 aircraft a year, starting in the fourth quarter of 2024. The startup is also building six pre-production aircraft out of its small production factory in California.
Archer also needs to get Type Certification and Production Certification from the FAA before it can go to market. The former verifies that the eVTOL’s design meets all regulatory safety standards, and the latter ensures that Archer’s production processes can reliably produce aircraft that conform to the approved design and are safe to operate.
“All of this is becoming very, very real. The aircraft is flying nearly every day,” said Goel. “Not only did we do our first transition flight, but we’ve done 233 flights to date, and so that puts us well on track to exceed 400 flights for the year. Everything is starting to come together. This is no longer Blade Runner. This is about making it real, launching as soon as 2026, and then scaling up from there.”
Archer Aviation and Southwest Airlines are teaming up to figure out what it will take to build out a network of electric air taxis at California airports. Southwest’s customer data is at the heart of it.
The two companies signed a memorandum of understanding Friday, which sets the foundation for Archer to tap Southwest’s customer base. It also gives Archer access to data about those customers which could inform decisions like where to build vertiports, or local eVTOL stations.
This is the second U.S.-based airline that Archer has partnered with after United Airlines, suggesting the eVTOL company aims to support regional routes.
Southwest operates at 14 airports across California, and Archer’s Midnight aircraft is designed to replace 60- to 90-minute urban commutes by car with air flight that takes only 10 to 20 minutes. One of the key use cases for eVTOL networks is to transport passengers to airports, trips that are often expensive and time-consuming due to traffic. Joby Aviation, Archer’s main competitor, has a similar deal with Delta Airlines.
“We’re thinking about things like commercial integration,” Nikhil Goel, Archer’s chief commercial officer, told TechCrunch. “So when you buy a Southwest ticket, you could add on your Archer before or after your flight when you book that ticket.”
Archer is toying with other ideas, including direct integration at airports in which Southwest and United operate.
“So for example, imagine if you’re going to SFO, you could land behind security right at Terminal 2 and go directly onto your Southwest flight instead of having to…sit through TSA,” said Goel, noting that Archer has been in talks with TSA to facilitate security screening at its vertiports. “Other benefits could be potentially preferred or discounted pricing if you’re an A-list flier. It could include earning Rapid Rewards points on Archer flights or vice versa.”
The agreement with Southwest comes as Archer has conducted two significant financial transactions within the last few weeks, suggesting a need for capital as it works toward a commercial launch in 2025. Archer elected last month to draw down the remaining $55 million available to it as part of a forward purchasing agreement penned with automaker Stellantis in 2023. As part of that deal, Stellantis agreed to help build out Archer’s manufacturing facility in Georgia, where Archer is producing the Midnight aircraft.
Archer is in the process of building six conforming aircraft (pre-production aircraft that are built to the exact standards of the production models) out of its small production facility in California, according to Goel. The company hopes to scale up production at the upcoming Georgia facility to produce about 650 aircraft a year, starting in the fourth-quarter of 2024.
Archer also recently offered warrants to purchase up to 57,050 shares of Class A common stock at $0.01 per share. The startup stated in its prospectus that it won’t receive any proceeds from the issuance of those warrants as they will be used to satisfy the payments of a service provider with an aggregate value of $300,000. This suggests that Archer is using the warrants as a non-cash method to settle obligations, allowing it to preserve cash while still compensating partners.
Goel said preserving cash is “not really the motivation,” though. Rather, he says getting Tier One suppliers to take stock as payment makes them financially aligned with Archer’s success.
Either way, Archer needs the cash now if it plans to stick to the schedule and launch an eVTOL air taxi service in 2025. The company had previously said it aims to launch in Miami and San Francisco in partnership with United Airlines and fixed-based operator Atlantic next year. Goel noted that Archer is also eyeing Los Angeles and New York, and has access to over 200 locations across the country per its deal with Atlantic and a more recent deal with private terminal operator Signature.
Aside from racing to build enough Midnight aircrafts to start commercial services, Archer still needs to go through the rounds of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) certifications. In June, Archer received its Part 135 Air Carrier & Operator Certificate, which means it can start operating aircraft commercially to refine its systems and procedures in advance of launching Midnight. Archer still needs to get its Type Certification and Production Certification. The former verifies that the eVTOL’s design meets all regulatory safety standards, and the latter ensures that Archer’s production processes can reliably produce aircraft that conform to the approved design and are safe to operate.
Outside of the U.S., Archer recently announced a deal with Kakao Mobility, a South Korean ride-hailing company, to bring electric air taxi flights to the country in 2026. Archer also hopes to launch in India and Abu Dhabi that same year.
Supernal, the advanced air mobility company under Hyundai Motor Group, took the wraps off its latest iteration of an electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft called the S-A2 that executives say is designed to shuttle passengers by 2028.
The S-A2 is essentially a more fully baked version of what it intends to launch commercially and confirms that, at least for now, Hyundai is still intent on getting into the yet-to-exist electric air taxi business.
That timeline, which was announced Tuesday during CES 2024, has come down to earth in the three years since it revealed its vision concept, also known as S-A1. At that time, Hyundai announced a partnership with Uber Elevate — a company that was gobbled up by Joby Aviation — to develop and potentially mass-produce air taxis for a future aerial rideshare network. Uber Elevate said it would start flight demos in 2020 and offer commercial rides in 2023.
With the eVTOL industry still lacking a single commercial operator, Hyundai’s Supernal came back to CES 2024 with more grounded plans.
Image Credits: Kirsten Korosec
And it’s certainly throwing resources at the project to get there — although Hyundai has never disclosed its exact investment. Supernal has grown to a 600-person team and is also using technical and business capabilities of Hyundai Motor Group and aviation suppliers around the world as it works toward a commercial launch, according to Jaiwon Shin, Hyundai Motor Group president and CEO of Supernal.
There is still quite a bit of work to be done before that can happen, Supernal CTO Ben Diachun noted on the sidelines of the event.
The S-A2 will have to go through a lengthy Type 1 certification process with the Federal Aviation Administration before it can fly commercially. The company will begin testing this year in California its so-called technology demonstrator vehicles, Diachun said. Supernal will also submit this year its application to the FAA. In 2025, Supernal will submit to the FAA its proposal for means of compliance, he added.
The nuts and bolts
The aircraft shown Tuesday is a V-tail with a distributed electric propulsion architecture and eight all-tilting rotors. The S-A2 is loaded with the kind of redundant components like the powertrain, flight controls and avionics — all of the safety critical systems required for commercial aviation.
The aircraft is designed to cruise 120 miles-per-hour at a 1,500-foot altitude. This is meant to be for suburban into inner city travel, with trips falling between 25 and 40 miles, initially.
Diachun said onstage that the aircraft would operate at about 65 decibels as it takes off and lands and 45 decibels while cruising, about the same as a dishwasher, he claimed.
The company’s designers and engineers also made the interior modular, including the ability to replace the battery as technology improves.
A new audio brand spun out of Japan’s NTT is showing off some personal audio tech at CES 2024 that is remarkable not for what it has, but what it doesn’t have — in both cases, literally anything between you and the rest of the world. There’s nothing there!
Nwm (short for New Wave Maker and pronounced “noom,” a representative told me) makes headphones that use a similar technique to noise canceling, but kind of turned inside-out. Instead of canceling out noise coming into your ear, the headphones cancel any noise they make that isn’t going toward you.
The principles are similar: Sound waves can cancel each other out if you tune them carefully in what’s called destructive interference. That’s usually not a problem with earbuds or closed-back headphones, which physically contain the sound they produce. But nwm’s whole thing is that their headphones are more like a pair of small speakers right by your ears.
The idea is that you can hear your music or call, but also the real world, so you don’t have to pop your AirPods out every time someone says something and make them repeat it. Great for walking around the city, too. Of course, the flip side to this is that the music or call is being broadcast to the world — unless, as nwm’s headphones do, they also transmit a destructive sound wave to cancel out any escaping noise. They call it a “personal sound zone.”
Image Credits: nwm
The company has put out a few small earbud-type headphones, but at CES they showed off two pretty remarkable new audio options. One is a chair with speakers built into the wings by your head, where the sound of music is perfectly clear when you lean back, but muffled and quiet even a few inches away. The chair is pretty normal looking for a gamer-type one, and you wouldn’t know it had speakers hidden in it.
In that case, you’ll have to both like the chair enough to make it your main seating option, and also have a leaned-back stance whenever you want to hear audio, which is definitely not me (hunched over and leaning forwards, occasionally remembering to straighten up, like right now). That’s why I was attracted to their other new product, the MBH001.
The striking design looks like a normal on-ear or over-ear headphone set that had everything but the very middle and edge taken out. There’s just nothing there!
I was skeptical, but I got to try out these early versions, and while it was difficult to evaluate the sound quality on the noisy show floor (especially since there was nothing stopping it from getting in), I could certainly hear the sound clearly while wearing them, and not at all when they were off my head.
The silicone gasket that served as padding wasn’t much for comfort, but otherwise the headphones were quite light and manageable — nothing fancy, just a straightforward design except for missing about 75% of their mass.
The company said that the MBH001 is for sure their next shipping product, but it won’t be for a few months at least. I’ll keep in touch with them and try out the final product when they make it available.
Supernal, the advanced air mobility company under Hyundai Motor Group, took the wraps off its latest iteration of an electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft called the S-A2 that executives say is designed to shuttle passengers by 2028.
The S-A2 is essentially a more fully baked version of what it intends to launch commercially and confirms that, at least for now, Hyundai is still intent on getting into the yet-to-exist electric air taxi business.
That timeline, which was announced Tuesday during CES 2024, has come down to earth in the three years since it revealed its vision concept, also known as S-A1. At that time, Hyundai announced a partnership with Uber Elevate — a company that was gobbled up by Joby Aviation — to develop and potentially mass-produce air taxis for a future aerial rideshare network. Uber Elevate said it would start flight demos in 2020 and offer commercial rides in 2023.
With the eVTOL industry still lacking a single commercial operator, Hyundai’s Supernal came back to CES 2024 with more grounded plans.
Image Credits: Kirsten Korosec
And it’s certainly throwing resources at the project to get there — although Hyundai has never disclosed its exact investment. Supernal has grown to a 600-person team and is also using technical and business capabilities of Hyundai Motor Group and aviation suppliers around the world as it works toward a commercial launch, according to Jaiwon Shin, Hyundai Motor Group president and CEO of Supernal.
There is still quite a bit of work to be done before that can happen, Supernal CTO Ben Diachun noted on the sidelines of the event.
The S-A2 will have to go through a lengthy Type 1 certification process with the Federal Aviation Administration before it can fly commercially. The company will begin testing this year in California its so-called technology demonstrator vehicles, Diachun said. Supernal will also submit this year its application to the FAA. In 2025, Supernal will submit to the FAA its proposal for means of compliance, he added.
The nuts and bolts
The aircraft shown Tuesday is a V-tail with a distributed electric propulsion architecture and eight all-tilting rotors. The S-A2 is loaded with the kind of redundant components like the powertrain, flight controls and avionics — all of the safety critical systems required for commercial aviation.
The aircraft is designed to cruise 120 miles-per-hour at a 1,500-foot altitude. This is meant to be for suburban into inner city travel, with trips falling between 25 and 40 miles, initially.
Diachun said onstage that the aircraft would operate at about 65 decibels as it takes off and lands and 45 decibels while cruising, about the same as a dishwasher, he claimed.
The company’s designers and engineers also made the interior modular, including the ability to replace the battery as technology improves.
A new audio brand spun out of Japan’s NTT is showing off some personal audio tech at CES 2024 that is remarkable not for what it has, but what it doesn’t have — in both cases, literally anything between you and the rest of the world. There’s nothing there!
Nwm (short for New Wave Maker and pronounced “noom,” a representative told me) makes headphones that use a similar technique to noise canceling, but kind of turned inside-out. Instead of canceling out noise coming into your ear, the headphones cancel any noise they make that isn’t going toward you.
The principles are similar: Sound waves can cancel each other out if you tune them carefully in what’s called destructive interference. That’s usually not a problem with earbuds or closed-back headphones, which physically contain the sound they produce. But nwm’s whole thing is that their headphones are more like a pair of small speakers right by your ears.
The idea is that you can hear your music or call, but also the real world, so you don’t have to pop your AirPods out every time someone says something and make them repeat it. Great for walking around the city, too. Of course, the flip side to this is that the music or call is being broadcast to the world — unless, as nwm’s headphones do, they also transmit a destructive sound wave to cancel out any escaping noise. They call it a “personal sound zone.”
Image Credits: nwm
The company has put out a few small earbud-type headphones, but at CES they showed off two pretty remarkable new audio options. One is a chair with speakers built into the wings by your head, where the sound of music is perfectly clear when you lean back, but muffled and quiet even a few inches away. The chair is pretty normal looking for a gamer-type one, and you wouldn’t know it had speakers hidden in it.
In that case, you’ll have to both like the chair enough to make it your main seating option, and also have a leaned-back stance whenever you want to hear audio, which is definitely not me (hunched over and leaning forwards, occasionally remembering to straighten up, like right now). That’s why I was attracted to their other new product, the MBH001.
The striking design looks like a normal on-ear or over-ear headphone set that had everything but the very middle and edge taken out. There’s just nothing there!
I was skeptical, but I got to try out these early versions, and while it was difficult to evaluate the sound quality on the noisy show floor (especially since there was nothing stopping it from getting in), I could certainly hear the sound clearly while wearing them, and not at all when they were off my head.
The silicone gasket that served as padding wasn’t much for comfort, but otherwise the headphones were quite light and manageable — nothing fancy, just a straightforward design except for missing about 75% of their mass.
The company said that the MBH001 is for sure their next shipping product, but it won’t be for a few months at least. I’ll keep in touch with them and try out the final product when they make it available.
Before we go any further, a question: What makes a computer an AI computer? Is it simply the ability to execute AI-powered tasks? To run LLMs locally? Is it something deeper? Is any computer that is capable of running any form of artificial intelligence/machine learning fundamentally an AI computer?
It’s a simple question on the face of it. But the truth is, we’ll probably never have a satisfying answer. Still, it’s important to calibrate as we head deeper into the year of “AI everything.”
If you’ve been playing along at home, you weren’t too surprised when Apple humbly crowned the new M3 MacBook Air as the “World’s Best Consumer Laptop for AI” in a recent press release. The qualifications “laptop” and “consumer” are primarily meant to distinguish the new notebooks from other Apple products, which one assumes are the best AI desktop and laptop, respectively.
It’s not so much that there’s anything inherent to this update that makes the new 13- and 15-inch MacBook Air an AI powerhouse, per Apple’s description. Rather, it’s the implication that the building blocks have been there the whole time — specifically in the form of the Neural Engine. This element has been a fixture of Mac silicon for years but often gets overshadowed by the CPU and GPU, which are generally easier for both consumers and reviewers to wrap their brains around.
The feature is harder to quantify in terms of real-world performance versus, say, a graphics chip but is perhaps best understood as something along the lines of a GPU targeting machine learning. It’s been clear for some time that this will be an increasingly essential aspect of day-to-day computing, a fact that the arrival of ChatGPT and its ilk has brought into sharp focus for many consumers.
So, what is an “AI laptop” anyway?
Image Credits: Brian Heater
Apple is leaning so heavily into the concept for the same reason Samsung positioned the S24 as the industry’s first “AI phone” and why Google referred to the Pixel 8 Pro as “the first smartphone with AI built in” last year: zeitgeist. These are marketing concepts to a large extent, but they’re a good barometer for where the industry’s collective head is at.
The sudden explosion of generative AI has transformed artificial intelligence from abstract and theoretical to concrete and tangible for many. Naturally, everyone wants a piece of it. You can expect Apple to lean into the notion even more heavily when the iPhone 16 launches later this year. After all, machine learning has been an important aspect of features like computational photography for some time.
As of right now, however, Apple can’t tell exactly the story it wants to tell. The company’s generative AI narrative is — at the moment — one of delayed gratification. During Apple’s most recent quarterly earnings call, Tim Cook promised “groundbreaking innovation” in the generative AI field, adding, “We continue to spend a tremendous amount of time and effort and we’re excited to share the details of our ongoing work in that space later this year.”
Image Credits: Brian Heater
Apple is no doubt investing boatloads into the category, even funneling members of its ill-fated automotive team into the space. Given the head start currently enjoyed by the competition, however, hardware is something Apple can point to in the here and now. Some of this also likely stems from the fact that the new Airs aren’t fundamentally new pieces of hardware. Rather, they’re refreshes with new(ish) silicon.
That’s to be expected. The Mac line has seen a LOT of change over the past four years. All of that work came together in a brilliant way with last year’s Air models. I don’t hesitate to call them the best consumer laptop Apple has ever made. Depending on where your operating system allegiances lie, it’s not a stretch to call them the best laptops for most people, full stop. They’re not perfect — sacrificing certain “Pro” features for the sake of weight and size has been a longtime feature of the line — but many or most of them are things the average consumer won’t realize are missing.
Mainstreaming the Air
Image Credits: Brian Heater
The 2023 Air benefited greatly from Apple’s work on first-party silicon through the M line of chips, coupled with learning from past stumbles like faulty keyboards and the largely DOA Touch Bar. The end product felt like precisely the MacBook so many of us wanted for so long: lightweight and powerful, with great battery life and a reasonable (in Mac terms) price point, starting at $1,099 for the 13- and $1,299 for the 15-inch. If anything, the line has cemented the Pro as a niche product by comparison, as the Air has replaced the standard MacBook as the model for most.
As a professional writer, I consider myself to be in a fairly creative field. I record and edit podcasts every week, along with the occasional video. I get to test all sorts of laptops for this gig, and I keep coming back to the Air. Certainly my frequent work travel plays a considerable role in the tech I choose, along with some newfound degenerative back problems.
For my money, the 15-inch model gracefully balances the line between screen size and portability. At 3.3 pounds, it never felt like a burden carrying on my back all last week at Mobile World Congress and (don’t tell the Delta flight attendant), it sits comfortably in the seatback pocket.
Image Credits: Brian Heater
There are really only two things that make me miss the Pro at all. The first is the port problem. Both Air models have a pair of USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 ports next to the MagSafe connector. There are times when things get bunched up over there, making me miss the 16-inch Pro’s three ports. That in itself isn’t enough to get me to switch. Nor, for that matter, are the times I miss having an SD slot. Dongles are a pain, but they’re very much part of the modern condition in Apple land. If I was constantly shooting with an SLR, however, I would likely be telling a different story.
Now, the port math changes considerably depending on your home/office setup. I’m lucky (or, perhaps, foolish) enough to have a desktop system at home. Much like the Pro models, this is probably overkill for many or most, especially when factoring in (1) cost and (2) the fact that the M3 chip has support for two external monitors.
Image Credits: Brian Heater
The iPad may have eaten into Mac’s market share among more casual users, but as the laptop line has gotten more powerful, it’s supplanted the need for a devoted desktop for many. There’s great versatility in a device you can travel the world with, take home and dock into a pair of external monitors. In the case of the Studio Display, the process is as simple as connecting to the Thunderbolt port and closing the laptop hood. Not much configuration is needed beyond that, and suddenly you’ve got a ton of screen real estate and an array of freed up ports on the backs of the monitors.
Given the power and performance of even the standard M3, there really is not a compelling reason not to. This is one of the great paradoxes of Apple silicon: The more powerful it becomes at the base, the more niche the high-end devices become for most users.
The only real caveat to all of this is gaming. Apple would never have admitted it, but the $300 billion-odd industry has been an afterthought for most of the Mac’s life. In spite of an early advantage, Apple was lapped and ultimately left behind by the industry. For decades, gaming on the Mac seemed like a lost cause. If you wanted to play anything much more complicated than solitaire, you bought a Windows machine or console. This isn’t to say that Apple’s caught up by any meaningful metric (the gaming library still can’t hold a candle to Windows), but a combination of first-party silicon, Metal and development for the iPhone has, at the very least, put the company back in the conversation for those who want to move beyond mobile.
If gaming is your number one raison d’être, a Mac probably isn’t on your list. If, however, AAA gaming is a slice of your overall computer needs, you can reasonably have that itch scratched. It’s true that the macOS library still pales in comparison to Windows, but Apple has begun remedying that with some day and date releases from big-name studios.
Erring on the side of Air
Image Credits: Apple
The M3 arrived last year as part of Apple’s “Scary Fast” (it was the day before Halloween, mind) event. The company bucked its standard silicon release cadence by introducing three versions at once: the M3, M3 Pro and M3 Max. One gets the sense that ramping up production, coupled with the ongoing supply chain issues of the past four years, has done a number on the release road map.
A refreshed 24-inch iMac was the recipient of the base M3, while new MacBook Pros got the M3, Pro and Max. The base M3 features an 8-core CPU, 8-core GPU (upgradable to 10-core) and 16-core neural engine. Both the 13- and 15-inch models have 8GB of RAM by default, configurable up to 24GB. Likewise, the 256GB of storage goes up to 2TB.
Image Credits: Brian Heater
In fact, beyond display size (technically 13.6- and 15.3-inch, respectively) and starting price, there’s not much in the way of distinction between the two machines. This much was clear last year, when the 15-inch model was announced several months after the 13-inch, sporting the same M2 chip. This joint announcement puts the two models on the same refresh cycle, where they should be.
Even more pronounced is the very narrow gulf between the base 15-inch Air and 14-inch Pro. The specs are near-identical across the board, save for stated 22 hours of battery to the Air models’ 18 hours (you have more room to navigate with a thicker, heavier machine). The Pro also sports a Liquid Retina XDR display, which packs 3024 x 1964 pixels into less screen real estate than the Air’s 2880 x 1864.
It’s hard to recommend the base Pro over the Air. The math changes if you feel the need to upgrade to the M3 Pro, however. At that point you’ll also want to factor in the fact that (somewhat ironically) the Airs are fanless, meaning there’s going to be a thermal bottleneck when you really start pushing the machine. That said, Apple loves to point out how difficult it is to trigger the fan during daily use, meaning most Air users won’t be bothered by its absence most of the time.
Still the best MacBook for most
Image Credits: Brian Heater
When it arrived last year, we declared the 13-inch the best MacBook for most. Since then, it only saw a true challenger in the form of the 15-inch model, which has since become my daily driver. The Air inherited the throne of true mainstream devices from the standard MacBook, and as they’ve flourished, Pro models have increasingly shifted to the margin. The only major change here is the upgraded chip, making the 2024 model little more than a refresh.
In the world of consumer electronics, that’s to be expected. Apple created the best-ever MacBook with the 2023 Air. It was a perfect storm of powerful silicon, great industrial design and lessons learned from recent hardware stumbles. Given all that, it’s ultimately for the best that the company stuck to the formula here. As for the whole “World’s Best Consumer Laptop for AI” bit — that’s pure marketing. Intel made the same claim at the end of last year with its new Meteor Lake chips.
As far as generative AI’s current consumer reach, most modern laptops and phones are — at very least — serviceable. For now, the conversation largely centers on future-proofing systems for the great leaps to come. It’s certainly something top of mind for Apple, as the company looks to make its first major announcements on the subject later this year (June’s WWDC seems as good a time as any).
Great strides have been made in bringing generative AI to consumers. The day-to-day usefulness of such platforms is another question entirely, but getting the most out of them will require capable machines, and the new Airs fit the bill. There’s novelty in the ability to run large language models (LLMs) locally, though most consumers will continue to rely on cloud-based processing when they use these models.
Programmers who really want to dive in will likely be eyeing Pro models and other high-end machines. For most consumers, however, the Air continues to be the best MacBook — and it’s not even close.
Apple devoted a full event to iPad last Tuesday, roughly a month out from WWDC. From the invite artwork to the polarizing ad spot, Apple was clear — the event was all about iPads. Most of the rumors proved true: Apple introduced a new iPad Pro (with a new M4 chip), iPad Air, the Pencil Pro and an upgraded keyboard case.
The iPad event came at an awkward time for the tablet, which peaked more than a decade ago. Three years after Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPad, sales reached an all-time high. According to Canalys, iPad shipments hit 26 million in the last quarter of 2013. With those numbers, Apple secured more than one-third of the tablet market. As a category, tablets represented a hair under 50% of the entire PC market for the holiday quarter. Two years later, reporters began asking whether we had reached peak iPad.
As we barrel toward 2024’s halfway mark, the question remains. Apple’s tablets haven’t recaptured that high-water mark in the intervening decade plus. In fact, in Q4 2023, iPad shipments came in more than 10 million units shy of their top-selling quarter.
Hence, Apple’s decision to devote a full event to iPad last Tuesday, roughly a month out from WWDC. From the invite artwork to the polarizing ad spot, Apple was clear — the event was all about iPads. Most of the rumors proved true: Apple introduced a new iPad Pro (with a new M4 chip), iPad Air, the Pencil Pro and an upgraded keyboard case.
It’s not just an Apple phenomenon. Interest in tablets is down across the board. Shipments for the final quarter of last year were down 11% for the category as a whole.
The most notable aspect of the whole thing, however, was the M4 launch. For the first time since the company started producing its own desktop silicon, the latest chip wasn’t debuting on a Mac. There were no MacBooks or iMacs to be had. The message was clear: iPads are more than an afterthought.
Image Credits: Brian Heater
Not much has changed about the iPad over the years. The form factor, the App Store — much about the product remains familiar. During that time, however, the company has worked to shift the device’s place in its broader ecosystem. At launch, Jobs referred to the iPad as a “third category of device,” after laptop and smartphone. In more recent years, however, the company has increasingly positioned it as a laptop replacement.
Whether the slate can truly fill that role ultimately comes down to the needs of the individual, but the combination of the iPad Pro and Magic Keyboard have made the argument more plausible. While Apple has no interest in cannibalizing notebook sales altogether, giving the Pro an M4 chip ahead of every member of the Mac family certainly makes a statement.
With each passing year, iPads get more MacBook-like, and vice versa. At the very least, the laptop represents a far better target market for the iPad. The ship has sailed on any suggestion that it might come within spitting distance of challenging the iPhone’s dominance.
The 2024 iPad lineup
Image Credits: Brian Heater
Here’s where the iPad lineup stands as of May 2024:
iPad: 10.9-inch display, A14 Bionic chip, starts at $349 (down from $449)iPad Mini: 8.3-inch display, A15 Bionic chip, starts at $499iPad Air (New): 11- and 13-inch displays, M2 chip, starts at $599 and $799, respectivelyiPad Pro (New): 11- and 13-inch displays, M4 chip, starts at $999 and $1,299, respectively
The lineup encompasses a wide range of performance and prices. Certain lines, however, have only gotten fuzzier. For one thing, the new Pros are actually lighter than the new Airs. Perhaps one day the iPad Air will replace the standard iPad outright, much as the MacBook Air did with the standard MacBook. For now, however, the iPad Pro and iPad Air share a relationship similar to that of the iPhone Pro and standard iPhone.
Here’s what Hardware SVP John Ternus had to say on the matter: “iPad Air is designed to deliver advanced features pioneered on iPad Pro and make them available and even more affordable.” In other words, the Pro is for the early adopter, while the Air is for those who don’t mind waiting a bit for a lower price point. How long that will be, however, is up in the air (so to speak), given the line’s inconsistent refresh cycle.
The high price of Pro
Image Credits: Brian Heater
Apple sent us the two new 13-inch iPads for review. These devices sport the largest screen in the whole of the line and are the most premium slates Apple offers. Even so, there’s a large gulf with regard to pricing.
The 13-inch Air starts at $799 for the Wi-Fi model and $949 for 5G cellular. The 13-inch Pro, meanwhile, starts at $1,299 and $1,499, respectively. We’re talking about a $500 price gap between these devices. You can buy a tenth-generation iPad with a cellular connection for the difference in price between the 13-inch Air and Pro. And that’s just for the baseline models.
If you configure a model to match what Apple sent along for review, the damage is $2,200, pre-tax. That’s courtesy of the 1TB of storage — an added $600. If you’re really feeling it, you can opt for a 2TB model, which will run you $1,000 over the base model. You’ll also need to add the aforementioned $200 for cellular connectivity and another $100 for nano-textured glass, which reduces glare from the tablet’s glossy screen.
During the checkout process, Apple notes, “both the standard glass and nano-texture glass options of iPad Pro are engineered for extremely low reflectivity, it helps to consider your work environment when deciding which one is right for you.” Honestly, the $100 premium is less than I would have anticipated. On the Studio Display, the feature adds another $300 to the base price — though, granted, it’s a much larger screen at 27 inches.
The nano-texture glass brings an extra level of tactility to the table. The add-on does not give the Apple Pencil a paper-like experience, but it does add a touch of welcome friction to the otherwise entirely smooth experience.
Something worth considering when pricing this out: The 13-inch M3 MacBook Air starts at $1,099. The 15-inch starts at $1,299. As others have pointed out, we’re firmly in Apple laptop territory when talking price — oh, and for good measure, toss in another $299 for the Magic Keyboard — you’re going to want it if you expect to get any writing done.
As much as I’ve enjoyed using the iPad Pro these past several days, my hard-earned money seems far better invested in a MacBook Air. I write for a living, and I still much prefer doing so on a machine specifically built for it. And as much as Apple has continued building out iPadOS, I’ll still go with MacOS for work 10 times out of 10.
I’ll be the first to admit that the “Pro” distinction for products often means something more along the lines of “premium” or “pricey.” With the iPad, however, the Pro model does feel exclusively tailored to professionals. Pricing is part of that, certainly, but the really high-end feature set is absolutely designed for creative pros who absolutely need these features for work — things that a majority of users really don’t require.
When is an Air not an Air?
Image Credits: Brian Heater
More confusing is the “Air” distinction. While I appreciate that Apple deems it necessary to distinguish the brand for the standard iPad, the mind reels at the fact that it’s thicker and heavier than the Pro. The 13-inch Pro is 5.1mm thick to the Air’s 6.1mm, while weighing 1.28 pounds to the Air’s 1.36 pounds. It’s not a huge difference, but portability is kind of the whole reason the “Air” distinction exists in the first place.
I’m sure a lot of very heated discussions were had behind closed doors at One Apple Park. Good branding is a key pillar to Apple’s decades-long success and this one’s a bit of a headscratcher.
The 13-inch Pro and Air have the same 264 ppi pixel density as the 10-inch iPad. There’s a slight difference in resolution, with the Pro sporting 2752 x 2064 to the Air’s 2732 x 2048. There’s a key difference, however, in the underlying tech. Apple’s new Ultra Retina XDR is powered by a “tandem OLED” setup, which uses a pair of OLED panels (right here the price gap starts making a bit more sense). Stacking the panels up gets the system to 1,000 nits of brightness and a peak of 1,600 nits when looking at HDR.
Apple elaborates, “Tandem OLED technology enables sub-millisecond control over the color and luminance of each pixel, taking XDR precision further than ever. Specular highlights in photos and video appear even brighter, and there’s more detail in shadows and low light than ever before on iPad — all while delivering even more responsiveness to content in motion.”
The Pro is, in fact, notably brighter placed up against the Air. For a majority of users, however, it’s absolutely not worth that extra $500. With my iPad, I watch movies on the road, read PDFs and answer emails. I suspect that a lot of people are the same, with the possible addition of playing mobile games.
However, if you’re a professional who relies on having the most accurate color gamut possible, you’re also likely willing to get the best tech money can offer.
A good rule of thumb is to think of the Pro as the first model to get new technology. Over time, it filters down into the Air and then, ultimately, the iPad. Technologies like these tend to cost a lot upfront due to all of the R&D expended. However, the more you scale manufacturing for a component, the more the cost to produce it tends to come down.
That said, I’m certainly not going to hold my breath in hopes that tandem OLED will be arriving on the Air in the next year or two. Apple’s iPad release cadence has slowed to a point that’s made it difficult to predict. While last week’s announcements prove the iPad has life in it yet, you can’t convincingly argue that it’s a top priority.
M4’s a crowd
Image Credits: Apple
The arrival of the M4 wasn’t a surprise (the rumor mill saw to that), but it was a disruption of Apple’s status quo. Over the past several years, decisions like these have come down to supply chain constraints — that’s believed to be the reason Apple went ahead and announced several M chips in one go toward the end of last year.
There’s a strong likelihood we’ll get a peek at more advanced versions of the M4 at WWDC in June as Apple quadruples down on talk of its NPU (neural processing unit) amid bold proclamations of its commitment to leveraging AI. While release cycles have shifted, one thing we can count on is Apple to fully refresh its desktop silicon line. Given that WWDC is less than a month away, it’s a pretty safe bet that we’re going to be getting M4 MacBooks in the very near future.
Notably, the M4 does present an upgrade in the number of cores with both the CPU and GPU. For the former, it jumps from the M2 and M3’s eight-core design to either nine or 10 cores. With the latter, it now defaults to 10 cores, whereas the previous two models came in eight, nine and 10-core varieties. The cores increase on each line, when you factor in the Pro, Max and Ultra versions of the chips, but none of those factor in on the iPad side of the fence.
Given that the last iPad Pro was announced in 2022, Apple’s been able to make some sizable performance claims with this model. As of this writing, the M3 still hasn’t landed on an iPad, leaving the M2 as the most logical point of comparison.
All told, Apple promises up to a 50% speed increase over the M2 chip. The M4 iPad Pro scored 3,721 on Geekbench 6’s single-core test and 14,565 on multi-core. That’s a nice bump over the M3 Air, which scored a bit over 3,000 and 12,000, on average. Of course, you also need to factor in different elements like system architecture, which doesn’t give you a one-to-one comparison between form factors.
We can see a far more pronounced performance gain placed up against the M2 iPad Air. The more affordable system hit 2,618 on the single-core and 10,047 on Geekbench’s multicore test. It’s not quite 50%, but it’s a sizable performance boost. The system also represents a solid graphical boost, per Geekbench. The iPad Pro hit 53,597 the on Metal Benchmark, versus the iPad Air’s 41,827.
The AI elephant in the room
Despite some forward thinking on the silicon side, the common perception is that Apple is falling behind the competition on AI.
Image Credits: Apple
In fact, Tim Cook has been on the offensive over the past year. He’s promised to “break new ground” in the generative AI wars later this year. The likeliest scenario, however, seems to be partnerships with existing platforms like Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s GPT, rather than developing its own foundational models from the ground up. Given that Gemini is on a very clear path to Android device ubiquity, one wonders how Apple will truly set itself apart. A large part of the answer will likely come down to the hardware foundation the company has been laying down for several years.
During last week’s presentation, Apple was quick to note that it’s been in the neural engine game for longer than much of the competition. In fact, it’s been seven years since the company introduced its first one as part of the iPhone 8’s A11 Bionic chip. The addition was designed to work with priority features, including Face ID and Animoji.
Apple didn’t have a lot to say about the NPU (neural processing unit/AI accelerator) core count at the event last week, likely owing to the fact that it is at 16 the same number found in the M2 and M3. But that only tells a part of the story. According to the company, the unit is capable of performing 38 trillion operators per second (TOPS) and is 60x faster than the aforementioned A11 bionic.
The new Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite, meanwhile, promises up to 45 TOPS. And the competition is about to get even stiffer, courtesy of Microsoft’s entry in the space. Ultimately, however, what’s most important is how Apple implements AI. Expect more information on that at next month’s WWDC.
Apple is also talking up the new chip’s thinness (which, in turn, can lead to thinner devices) and power savings.
“The power-efficient performance of M4, along with its new display engine, makes the thin design and game-changing display of iPad Pro possible, while fundamental improvements to the CPU, GPU, Neural Engine and memory system make M4 extremely well-suited for the latest applications leveraging AI,” Ternus stated during the presentation.
Here, power efficiency is primarily aimed at maintaining the battery status quo. The 13-inch Pro is rated at the same 10 hours on Wi-Fi and nine hours on cellular as the 13-inch Air. That’s in spite of a thinner design and the tandem OLED tech.
The rest
Image Credits: Brian Heater
Moving the front-facing camera from portrait to landscape placement was a no-brainer. We’ve seen this play out before — Apple insists it’s doing things right, refusing to change. Eventually, however, there’s just no way around it — most folks mostly use their tablets in landscape mode. It’s the best way to watch video, type and game. Portrait has its pluses — reading for one (though that entirely comes down to personal preference). At the end of the day, however, an iPad isn’t an iPhone. Embrace that.
The front camera is 12-megapixel on both (as well as the standard iPad), along with 2x zoom. The Pro sets itself apart with the TrueDepth feature, which allows for Face ID unlock, whereas both the iPad Air and iPad still rely on a fingerprint scanner built into the power button.
All three models feature a 12-megapixel wide-angle camera capable of shooting 4K video. The Pro is the only one of the three that shoots in the ProRes compression format, however. It’s also the only one of the three to utilize lidar, which brings added augmented reality functionality to the system by giving the tablet a better sense of depth.
The USB-C connector on the Pro, meanwhile, supports Thunderbolt and USB 4 (like its predecessor), for much faster transfer speeds. Both systems support Wi-Fi 6E and are compatible with the new Magic Keyboard, Apple Pencil and Pencil Pro.
In a world where money is no object, I’m going with the Pro every time. In addition to a better screen, Face ID and a faster chip, it’s thinner and lighter. Money, however, is very much an object for me these days (fairly certain I’m not alone in this), so I’m eyeing the iPad Air.
It’s disappointing that Apple opted not to pop an M3 chip in there, but the company is no doubt interested in maintaining a distance between models. It’s a distance that’s going to add an extra $500 to the bottom line. That, perhaps, can be considered an investment for those creative pros who need the best of the best. For the rest of us, however, the Air will do just fine.
For many of even the most dedicated Apple fans, paying MacBook prices for an iPad is a bridge too far.
