Update: This report has now been confirmed. On Tuesday, Apple invited the world to watch a product event on October 30. The theme is “scary fast.”
Fresh MacBooks and an iMac might be the highlights of an Apple event the last week of October, according to a high-profile tipster.
Exactly what’s on the agenda isn’t yet clear, but there are a number of strong possibilities, including some potential surprises.
October 2023 Apple Mac event might be on
Apple traditionally introduces new Macs in the fall. For example, M1 MacBooks and Mac mini hit the market in November 2020, while new MacBook Pro models came in October 2021. But there were no new Macs in autumn 2022 — the follow up macOS notebooks came in January 2023.
There supposedly won’t be a repeat this autumn.
“The company is likely planning a Mac related launch event at the end of this month,” Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman reported Sunday. “I believe the Mac announcement will take place on either the 30th or 31st of this month.”
Note that this seems to contradict a prediction from analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, another reliable Apple tipster, that no M3 MacBooks would be out before 2024. Also, Kuo said recently that the next iMac wouldn’t launch until next year.
2023 iMac and MacBook Pro?
None of Gurman’s sources were able to leak him the agenda for this event though. The best he can say is:
“Apple retail stores are in short supply of the iMac, as well as the 13-inch MacBook Pro and high-end MacBook Pro — two other models that may be due for a refresh. If you try to order the products from Apple’s website, several configurations won’t arrive until mid-November. That several-week delay is a clear sign that something is about to happen.”
Apple’s all-in-one iMac desktop hasn’t been updated since 2021 when it got a slim design and an M1 processor. The next model is supposedly another 24-inch one, with a 32-inch iteration not coming before 2024 or 2025.
Beyond the desktop, the Bloomberg reporter says that speed-increased high-end MacBook Pro models are also a possibility for the Apple October 2023 event.
“The company has made headway on new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros. You’ll recall that Apple just released MacBook Pros in January, so an additional update the same year would be unusual, but not inconceivable,” said Gurman.
And he’s not the first to say this. DigiTimes made essentially the same prediction several weeks ago.
The tipster didn’t have any insight about the processors these potential upcoming Macs will run. The Apple M3 series is expected soon, though. The 2023 iMac might use the M3 while the MacBook Pro models could use the M3 Pro and M3 Max. That said, introducing the Pro and Max versions of a processor family at the same time as the entry-level version would be an unprecedented move for Apple.
No new iPads, though
The Apple October 2023 event will apparently be all about Mac. No new iPads are expected before March. Multiple leaks point to Apple upgrading the next iPad Pro with an OLED display in 2024. It will include a slightly larger 13-inch version as well and the usual 11-inch one. And the tablets will run the upcoming Apple M3 processor. And 2024 will also probably bring the budget iPad 11.
If any fresh tablets were coming this year, they likely would have been unveiled at the same time as the Apple Pencil (USB-C), which launched all by itself last week.
