The most exciting MacBook of 2022 goes up for preorder on Friday, and the M2 MacBook Air is likely to sell out quickly. You need do some early prep work if you want to get your hands on this beautifully redesigned notebook as soon as possible.
Here’s how to be completely ready to put in a preorder.
M2 MacBook Air is so sleek and swift
The 2022 MacBook Air dumps the wedge design to become much slimmer than its predecessor. It is just 11.3 millimeters thick — under half an inch — and it weighs 2.7 pounds. But there’s still room for a larger screen: 13.6 inches. And a MagSafe charging port.
At its heart is the second generation of Apple’s M-series chips, which are known for power efficiency and their unified memory architecture. The M2 processor offers a jump in performance over the M1.
You aren’t going to want to wait for this one.
Set your clock
Apple will start taking preorders for the M2 MacBook Air at 5 a.m. PDT (8 a.m. EDT) on Friday, July 8. The first orders placed will arrive on Friday, July 15.
There’s a good chance that the demand for the notebook will quickly exceed the supply of units that Apple has ready to deliver on July 15. COVID-19 lockdowns in China have pushed wait times for other MacBooks out weeks. The Air is almost certainly being assembled at the same Shanghai plant, so a huge prerelease supply is unlikely.
Putting in an order as soon as possible is therefore very important. Sleep a couple of hours past the the start of preorders and you might not get your M2 MacBook Air until some time in August.
So go set your clock now. Whether it’s for 5 a.m. PDT or 8 a.m. or whatever is appropriate.
Get the Apple Store app
The next step is to download the official Apple Store app to your iPhone. It’s less likely to crash from huge numbers of people all trying to buy at once. At the very least, it gives you a send option is the website is jammed.
Now that you have it installed, open app and tap on your image in the upper-right corner to open your account info. Scroll down to Primary Payment and check that it shows the right credit card info. Because the middle of placing your order Friday morning is a bad time to realize your credit card deets are out of date.
Also, check that your shipping address is correct. That’s not something you want to be typing in when you’re in a hurry and/or drowsy. You can find it under Primary Shipping.
Choose your exact M2 MacBook Air configuration now
Screenshot: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac
Next, it’s time to decide on the exact specs of the MacBook Air you want to preorder. Both the Apple Store app and Apple.com will let you choose a configuration then add it to Saved Items. On July 8, you can quickly pull the configuration up again and place your order.
In the app, tap on your image in the upper-right corner to open your account info, then go to Saved Items. On the Apple website, tap on the shopping bag in the upper-right corner, then choose Saved Items.
On either option, hit Show more to review the exact specs you’ve chosen, then Continue to start the ordering process.
The base price for the 2022 MacBook Air is $1,199. That gets you the M2 version with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. The cost goes up considerably from there, based on the additional features you pick. Go to 16GB of RAM and the price rises $200, for example.. Switching to a 1TB SSD adds $400. Max the hardware out and you’re looking at a bill for $2,499.
Place your order
When your alarm clock goes off on Friday, open the Apple Store app or go to Apple.com and place your order. If you’ve done your prep work and added your desired configuration to Saved Items, everything will speed by.
It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes. And if you’ve been quick enough, you can look forward to getting your M2 MacBook Air on July 15.
