MacBook Air and Ultrabooks with Intel Ivy Bridge may be delayed

Reports suggest that much awaited MacBook Air and Ultrabooks with Intel Ivy Bridge may be delayed.

Ivy Bridge is lined up for launch and the first batch of Ivy Bridge chips for ultrabooks will hit the market this Monday. The next batch will come out in June which would include the Ivy Bridge chip for MacBook Air models and ultrabooks.

The information was revealed by Intel CEO. He stated that Ivy Bridge chips for laptops like the MacBook Air, the Dell XPS 13 ultrabook, and HP Envy series will come in a second wave after the Monday launch.

As per reports by Seeking Alpha, Otellini said, “The first versions of Ivy Bridge that we’re shipping are quad cores, and then bulk of those is going into desktops. And then the second launch of the products is in the dual core, which is the mainstream notebook. So I think that helps put a profile over the course of quarter as well.”

Otellini said, “Intel pushed the Ivy Bridge launch back by three weeks in order to “make sure that there was enough inventory in the pipeline.”

Otellini also informed that some of the second batch of ultrabooks with Ivy Bridge chip would sport touch screens, targeting at Windows 8.

His statement was, “The biggest change, and the one that we’re really focused on, is trying to make sure that we intercept the Windows 8 launch with sufficient quantities of ultrabooks that have touch enabled.”

He further updated the number of ultrabook design are on the way from previously mentioned 75 to 100.

He also threw some light on the range of cost of the ultrabooks and said, “I’m not a subscriber that it takes mainstream price points to get us to high volume. I think…that just helps. And what you’re going to see is an incredible amount of differentiation from US$699 to US$1,299.”

Despite Otellini’s statement that a bulk of the chips are destined for desktops right now, Apple has the potential to, and analysts are hoping for, obtain enough inventory for initial MacBook Pro shipments.

The MacBook Pro versions, both 15-inch and 17-inch ones, use have a quad-core Intel processor. The 13-inch model of MacBook Pro has a dual-core processor powering it.

It was reported in AppleInsider in February that Apple was planning a slimmed-down version of its 15-inch MacBook Pro. The design would be drawn from MacBook Air. Another similar slimmer redesign of the 17-inch MacBook Pro is supposed to be out by later in 2012.

Tags: Apple, MacBook, Laptop, Ivy Bridge