Everything Apple announced this week: i Phone 17e, new Mac Books, M4 i Pad Air and more

Overview

Everything Apple announced this week: i Phone 17e, new Mac Books, M4 i Pad Air and more

The company also revealed the Studio Display XDR as well as the M5 Pro and Max chipsets.

Details

Apple has promised a “big week” for the company, which includes an in-person event for press and creators on March 4. But it didn’t exactly wait until Wednesday to get things started.

The news started on Monday with the announcements of the i Phone 17e and M4-powered i Pad Air. The company followed up on Tuesday with the reveal of the M5 Mac Book Air, the M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, Mac Book Pro models that use said chips, a refreshed Studio Display and a brand-new 27-inch Studio Display XDR.

Here’s our recap of everything Apple has announced so far this week:

Apple has spruced up this year’s entry-level i Phone with some pretty solid upgrades, though it's keeping the starting price at $599. The i Phone 17e has double the base storage of the i Phone 16e at 256GB. It also has Mag Safe support with Qi 2 wireless charging speeds of up to 15W, double that of the i Phone 16e.

Design-wise, Apple hasn't exactly rocked the boat. The i Phone 17e looks pretty much identical to its predecessor. It appears that Apple is sticking with the same 48MP Fusion camera system as it used in the i Phone 16e too.

That said, the 6.1-inch Super Retina display has Ceramic Shield 2. According to Apple, this provides “3x better scratch resistance than the previous generation and reduced glare.” The company slotted its C1X cellular modem into the i Phone 17e as well. It says this is up to two times faster than the C1 that was in the i Phone 16e. The device has the same A19 chip as the i Phone 17, so it supports Apple Intelligence AI tools, and it runs i OS 26.

In addition, the i Phone 17e has an IP68 rating for water and dust resistance, as well as the promise of "all-day battery life." It also supports satellite-powered features including Emergency SOS, Roadside Assistance, Messages and Find My.

Pre-orders for the i Phone 17e open on March 4 and it will be available in black, white and soft pink. The device will hit shelves in more than 70 countries and regions on March 11.

The latest i Pad Air boasts Apple’s M4 chip. That means the mid-range i Pad is effectively remaining a year behind the i Pad Pro. The M4 is almost two years old at this point, while the top-end model has the newer M5 chip. Still, if you only use an i Pad for casual tasks like watching shows, web browsing, email and so on, the M4 will be more than powerful enough. It will be more adept at handling resource-intensive tasks like video editing than previous i Pad Air models too.

Apple has also bumped up the RAM from 8GB from the last-gen model to 12GB. Given the sharp increase in RAM prices in recent months, it’s slightly surprising that Apple is sticking to the same prices for the i Pad Air. The 11-inch M4 i Pad Air starts at

Apple claims the M4 delivers up to 2.3 times faster performance compared with the M1 i Pad Air and "over 4x faster 3D pro rendering with ray tracing performance." Of course, the new i Pad Air runs i Pad OS 26.

Apple gave the i Pad Air other internal upgrades by including its N1 and C1X connectivity chips. As such, this is the first i Pad Air with Wi-Fi 7 support. As you might expect, 5G cellular connectivity is available as well.

The design of the M4 i Pad Air doesn't seem to have changed, as it appears to have the same LCD display Apple used in the last two iterations of the tablet. The company has stuck with the same rear-facing camera and dual-speaker setup as well.

As with the i Phone 17e, pre-orders for the M4 i Pad Air open on March 4. The tablet will hit retailers in 35 countries and regions on March 11. It will be available in blue, purple, starlight and space gray.

A year after Apple upgraded the Mac Book Air with an M4 chipset, the company pulled the same trick by swapping in an M5 chip. The company also boosted the base storage from 256GB to 512GB, with an SSD that it claimed can provide “2x faster read/write performance compared to the previous generation.” While the MBA still has 16GB or RAM as standard, Apple also upgraded the memory to have 153GB/s of bandwidth — the company said that’s a 28 percent improvement over what the M4 MBA offered.

Alas, with those upgrades comes a tradeoff. Apple has bumped the starting price of the latest Mac Book Air back up to

The latest Mac Book Air is available in sky blue, midnight, starlight and silver. You can pre-order one on March 4. It will hit stores in 33 countries and regions on March 11.

Key Takeaways

• Everything Apple announced this week: i Phone 17e, new Mac Books, M4 i Pad Air and more

• The company also revealed the Studio Display XDR as well as the M5 Pro and Max chipsets

• Apple has promised a “big week” for the company, which includes an in-person event for press and creators on March 4

• The news started on Monday with the announcements of the i Phone 17e and M4-powered i Pad Air

• Here’s our recap of everything Apple has announced so far this week: