Something to look forward to: Apple has just announced a new product event that will take place on October 30th at 8pm ET / 5pm PT. The Cupertino company will be livestreaming “Scary Fast,” where it’s expected to reveal updates to the iMac and MacBook Pro line.
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman wrote in his Power On letter this week that Apple iMacs and MacBook Pros are in short supply, suggesting a refresh is on the way. The all-in-one iMac was last updated in April 2021 when the M1-powered version arrived.
All three sizes of MacBook Pro have also seen their inventories shrink, suggesting the laptops are due for a refresh. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo believes that the devices will pack Apple’s next-gen M3 chips, which could explain the event’s Scary Fast name.
The new MacBook Pros will be arriving just 11 months after the refreshed M2 Macs, which launched in January. But based on the announcement video’s URL, those models were likely meant to arrive in late 2022 before being delayed slightly.
It’s expected that the M3 chips – probably standard, Pro, and Max versions – will be built on the same 3nm TSMC process as Apple’s A17 Pro chip used in the iPhone 15 Pro. Packing more CPU and GPU cores into the SoCs than the previous generations is also a likelihood.
Elsewhere, Kuo and Gurman both believe that Apple will be going against tradition by not revealing any new iPads this October. Apple is hoping an overhaul of the iPad Pro will help boost tablet sales that have been sluggish since the pandemic, but the analysts think the first major update won’t come until next year when the M3-powered MacBook Air is also rumored to launch.
It’s been a busy second half of 2023 for Apple. The Wonderlust event in September unveiled the iPhone 15/Pro series, the first iPhones to feature USB-C ports. And it was only a few weeks ago when Cupertino released its first new Apple pencil in five years, one that adds USB-C but sacrifices some features.
