They never released in that order, no? That would mean perfecting the highly integrated M4 Pro and Max before releasing a regular M4 laptop.
There will be a regular M4 MacBook Pro I assume, just like how there’s a regular M3 MacBook Pro now. They did this same release order last year (Pros in the fall and Air this spring)
You were right.
Seems weird to stagger it like that, unless they have a huge amount of M3 Air stock they're hoping to shift over the holidays.
The M3 airs came out in March of this year, so it’s a bit soon.
The release cycle is the same every year, aside from occasional refresh omissions and delays. It would be weird if they actually did release the M4 Air tomorrow.