Apple has 380,000 updated MacBook Airs for late June launch

WWDC last week was all about the software with no new hardware in sight. Today we’ve seen an unlocked version of the iPhone 4 GSM become available in Apple Stores, but that doesn’t count as a new Apple hardware release. However, before the end of June we may have one.

Taiwan’s Economic Daily newspaper has stated that Quanta Computer, Apple‘s manufacturing partner, is readying a shipment of 460,000 MacBook Airs. However, 380,000 of those are updated models ready to cover demand for a late June launch.
The validity of this report has not been verified, and looks less convincing when the same newspaper is also reporting the iPad 3 will appear before the end of this year with 6x the resolution of the iPad 2. Still, we are due for a MacBook Air update soon, and June has already been pegged as the month it will happen.
Such an update would most likely see a move to Intel’s Sandy Bridge processors alongside the introduction of a Thunderbolt port. Apple also started shipping some existing MacBook Airs with faster Samsung SSDs. We may also see those parts become the default on new models.