Would a Macbook Air with A18 Pro Chip be in Support-Tier 1?

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Hello,

Rumors say early next year Apple might release a low cost Macbook Air with the A18 Pro Chip from 2024’s iPhone 16 Pro models (Report: Low-Cost iPhone, iPad, MacBook Coming Early 2026 | MacRumors Forums).

Would the Julia support level for this machine be Tier 1, like the M-Series chips?

The Julia Support Site (Supported platforms) states that macOS on ARMv8 is Support Tier 1.

Wikipedia states, the M4 and the A18 Pro have the same “instruction set” ARMv9.2-A (Apple M4 - Wikipedia and Apple A18 - Wikipedia).

My naive intuition says: Since the chip architecture is the same, the support will probably be the same. But since I am a total noob and have no knowledge whatsoever of the Julia language, computer architecture and other factors that might influence the support tiers, I kindly ask you this question.

The background of my question:
I want to buy an Apple Laptop, which among other things I will use to learn programming, particularly the Julia language. I am deciding between the M4 Macbook Air and the rumored cheaper version. I would prefer the latter, the reasons being nice colors, a slightly smaller form factor and a potentially cheaper price. However, if it is already forseeable that it would not be Tier 1, I might buy the more powerful M4 Air right now, since it is currently -27% on sale (here in Germany).

Thank you.

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It’s impossible to say until such a device exists and can be tested.

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As Oscar said, it is impossible to say. However, I really think that Apple will not release something that will require a great low-level change because it will need to maintain two versions of macOS (for the A18 and the M-series). Hence, IMHO, there is a huge probability that the binaries for the M-series will run as is in the A18 chip.

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You don’t need a high-end computer to learn programming. Anything mid-range and above from the last 10 years would likely be fine. These days, Europe is swimming in old business machines from Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc. Such machines cost peanuts and are still perfectly capable.

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