If you do your daily computing on a MacBook but it’s feeling a little long in the tooth, there’s something coming this week that might make your laptop feel even more outdated.
Not content with only announcing the iPhone 16 series and the seventh-generation iPad mini this autumn, Apple has confirmed that it’s also about to unveil new Macs this week after the firm’s SVP Marketing Greg Joswiak posted on X that there is about to be “an exciting week of announcements ahead, starting on Monday morning”.
The implication here is that there will be multiple announcements over multiple days, so we are expecting at least two new Macs or MacBooks to be announced. Looking at the existing hints, leaks and rumours, we can paint a picture of what is about to be launched.
Apple unusually chose to debut its powerful M4 chipset in the latest iPad Pro lineup, so we now expect there to be a new MacBook Pro announced with this chip. Before this year, Apple had always first used a new generation of M chip in a Mac.
Though a new MacBook Pro is always an exciting prospect for Mac fans, rumours suggest there won’t be much difference over the M3 MacBook Pro beyond the internal spec bump. Then again, a Russian YouTube video allegedly showing a new 14-inch base model MacBook Pro surfaced, showing a computer with the base M4 chip, 16GB RAM and three Thunderbolt ports in a slick space black colour. The current cheapest M3 MacBook Pro costs £1,699, but there’s no indication if this will change for the potential new model.
It seems unlikely Apple will choose to upgrade the cheaper MacBook Air to the M4 this week, but nothing is certain yet. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reckons we’ll see them in the spring, but this week could see a redesigned, smaller Mac mini with M4 though, and would mark the first real change in the standalone computer’s looks since 2010. It’ll supposedly be about as small as the Apple TV box.
Gurman also reported that new Mac Pro and Mac Studio models won’t see the light of day until next year.
If we do see MacBooks and a new Mac mini this week, Apple will likely use it as an opportunity to introduce an M4 Pro and possibly M4 Max chip. At present, the iPad Pro runs the regular M4 but more powerful variations, as seen in previous generations, are reserved for high-end Macs.
Either way, Apple is promising a “week” of announcements, so we could be treated to more than the rumours suggest. The Macs are expected to be launched either solely with press releases or with additional pre-recorded video presentations.
