Many companies and retailers offer huge discounts on many consumer electronics around this time of the year because of the much awaited Black Friday shopping event. A majority of them extend their promotion to the following "Cyber Monday" and even up to the Christmas holidays.

One of those who slash huge chunks off the prices of its products is Apple, including its line of MacBook laptops. Some tech observers see this as a sign that the company is preparing for the arrival of the next-generation MacBook Air and MacBook Pro.

In a recent report on Latinos Post, the company is predicted to launch the MacBook Air 2016 on Black Friday. However, now that the biggest shopping day of the year has passed and no Air laptop appeared, a release window set during the Christmas season has also been suggested.

A tech blog called Pike's Universum came across a new Mac code "AAPLJ951" in El Capitan OS. The author take this to mean that the MacBook 2016 lineup will be launching soon, which might happen before this year ends.

The blog post mentioned that the "data is identical to that of the late 2015 (iMac17 1 in the same file) so it may as well be a remnant of the new iMac, but the strange thing is that the XHCI data for the late 2015 iMac is also there, which is why I believe that this is not/was not added for the/a new iMac but another Mac."

This finding fueled speculation that the new MacBook air may land on stores sometime in December. The 2016 iteration of the thin Apple laptop may arrive powered by the Skylake-U chipset from Intel in an even sleeker form factor. It is also expected to run the latest OS X El Capitan and sport the new Force Touch technology from Apple.

The larger, more jam-packed MacBook Pro 2016 is also rumored to be delayed. According to the Australia News Network, the release of the device might be moved to spring next year as Apple reportedly encountered issues with the production of Intel's Skylake-U processors.

Amidst all of these speculations, there are also reports hinting that the MacBook Air series may be in the process of being axed by the tech giant. When the latest MacBook was unveiled on March 9, some analysts suspect that its thinner Air counterparts may not stick around for long.

Jan Dawson, chief analyst at Jackdaw Research, commented about the current-generation MacBook and told MacWorld, "This wasn't the MacBook Air, but instead leaped past the Air. They kept 'the MacBook Air' around just as they do with older iPhones, but the MacBook is now in the same position as the newest iPhone. That makes me wonder if the Air will go away over time."

The analyst's view on Apple's MacBook Air was echoed by other experts in the industry who forecast that Apple is going to reduce the number of entries in the company's successful MacBook range.