It has long been rumored that the MacBook Air 2022 will have a radical new design when it arrives next year, but we have a new peek at what may be the final design, courtesy of a leaker named LeaksApplePro.

The images are purportedly from CAD files allegedly obtained directly from Apple, but there is no way to confirm this. And even if they are 100% legitimate, they may not be the final design. Nevertheless, this could be an interesting clue as to what the next MacBook Air will look like.

In any case, most of the features on display date back to Jon Prosser and Ian Zelbo's renderings released in May, and seem to be largely consistent with what we have seen so far. [The design language follows the flat look of the recent MacBook Pro, with the MagSafe and Thunderbolt ports on the left side and the 3.5mm headphone jack and another Thunderbolt port on the right side. The colored version, along with the white screen bezel and keyboard, replicates the colorful look promised by Prosser and Zerbo.

Of course, Prosser and Zerbo modestly updated their renderings last month based on the word of a trusted leaker, Dylandkt, which included the addition of a notch. This leaker said at the time that he could not confirm whether there was a notch, so Prosser and Zerbo added a notch just in case. Here is a reminder to compare and contrast:

Based on the new CAD-based renderings, it appears that talk of notch adoption was indeed premature. Alternatively, it may have been considered at one point before being scaled back due to the general hostility to the notch on the MacBook Pro.

Apple, for its part, continues to defend the notch as an eyesore and indeed desirable. Apple's Pro Mac product line manager, Shruti Haldea, described it as "a really smart way to give more space to content," adding that it looks "great" and is "seamless." It will be something to keep in mind when Apple phases it out in a few years.

Perhaps a moot point for the MacBook Air. The CAD renderings seem to suggest that the MacBook Air will not appear. However, it is worth remembering that the idea of a notch on the MacBook Pro began to surface only a few days before the laptop was officially announced. While this CAD rendering looks convincing, there is still a chance that the notch will return as an encore on the inexpensive MacBook series in 2022.

Furthermore, the notch could appear on the next iPad Pro alongside the MacBook Air in 2022.