During today’s event where Apple unveiled the new MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models, there was a mention of a new image signal processor for the camera, which brings some improvements to camera quality.
Apple did not, however, add new camera hardware to the two machines, and the technical specifications pages continue to list the same 720p camera used in prior-generation models.
Camera quality, especially in the MacBook Air, has been something that Mac owners have complained about for years now. Apple has gone through many generations of the MacBook Air without adding any new camera hardware.
Apple says the M1 chip improves MacBook camera quality with better noise reduction, greater dynamic range, improved auto white balance, and ML-enhanced face detection so users “look their best during video calls,” but we’ll need to wait to see the camera tested out to see if there’s a notable difference between this model and the prior model.