Predicting Apple’s Mac Announcements

Another round of Apple devices is about to arrive. After launching new iPhones, Apple Watches, and AirPods in September and a new iPad earlier this month, Apple is now gearing up to launch updated Macs. After weeks of rumors and speculation, Apple SVP Greg Joswiak came out and directly teased the arrival of new computers to be announced during the final week of October.

We’re expecting a fresh round of chip upgrades, at least one redesign, and maybe an October surprise or two (the good kind). Since there was no hyped-up save-the-date sent out for an in-person or livestream event, we’re expecting a series of early morning press releases — in the past, Apple has tended to drop them around 9AM ET.

Joswiak’s teaser mentioned a “week” of announcements, so nobody knows for certain right now if the news will be spread out over several days or if we’re going to be inundated by a mountain of Macs on Monday morning. Regardless of how it happens, here’s what we think will get updated and what might not make the cut.

Apple Intelligence is set to launch “this fall” across compatible iPhones, iPads, and Macs, with the first features arriving in October. The end of October has nearly arrived, and Apple has confirmed it’s coming some time next week.

First up, we’re expecting Apple’s Writing Tools for rewriting, proofreading, and summarizing, plus a newly designed Siri, new Photos app features such as Clean Up (akin to Google’s Magic Eraser), and live transcriptions of phone calls and voice memos. Other features like ChatGPT search integrations, Genmoji custom emoji, Image Playground generative art, and Visual Intelligence image searching are expected to “roll out later this year and in the months following,” according to Apple.

We first saw these features demoed back at WWDC 2024, but so far, you’ve had to install one of Apple’s developer or public betas to experience them. For iPhones, the features are coming to the 15 Pro / Pro Max and the whole iPhone 16 line. On iPads and Macs, Apple Intelligence will launch on models with M1-generation processors or newer.

The 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro. Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Last year’s October event had a big focus on the MacBook Pro line. The 14-inch and 16-inch models both saw chip bumps, and Apple introduced a new stripped-down 14-inch model that finally killed off the Touch Bar. We don’t expect most of the lineup to change beyond a bump to the M4 generation, but Apple may have bigger plans for that entry-level 14-inch Pro. Recent leaks seem to show a space black 14-inch Pro with a base M4 chip, 16GB of RAM, and a third Thunderbolt port, which would neatly address most of our complaints with the M3 version. Even a chip bump is welcome, though, especially if you’re a bargain hunter looking to pounce on some closeout sales of soon-to-be last-gen hardware.

As for the MacBook Air line, the latest rumors indicate they won’t make the jump from M3 to M4 chips until early in the new year.

The M2 Mac Mini could be the last with this long-running design. Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

We’re expecting a big redesign of Apple’s smallest desktop computer — likely to make it even smaller. In addition to including new M4 and M4 Pro chips, the new Mac Mini is rumored to shed its USB-A ports and be about as tiny as an Apple TV streaming box. It would be the first major redesign to come to the Mini in about 14 years (longer than The Verge has even been around).

The current Mac Mini with M2 and M2 Pro chips has been with us since the early days of 2023, so a new model does feel timely. A few of us here are Mac Mini stans, in part because it offers a great value proposition for its performance — at least, if you already have a monitor, keyboard, and mouse.

I’m excited to see what a refreshed Mini could look like and just how much an M4 Pro model leapfrogs the current M2 Pro, but potentially having fewer ports gives me pause. It also sounds unlikely that a smaller Mini will have the one thing I’ve really wanted in mine: a speedy built-in SD card slot like the Mac Studio.

The colorful iMacs are currently on the M3 generation. Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

The iMac has been on autopilot ever since the machine received its colorful glow-up in 2021. If next week’s announcements bring changes to Apple’s all-in-one computer, it’s likely we’ll just see a bump from last year’s M3 model to a fresh M4 version.

The real highlight may be refreshed versions of Apple’s Magic Mouse, Magic Trackpad, and Magic Keyboard that use USB-C instead of Lightning. They’re among the final Apple devices to still use the Lightning port and feel sorely out of place now that the iPhone has switched over (and as the EU’s deadline to move to USB-C creeps closer).

I’m still holding out hope for a bigger iMac refresh sometime down the road. Somebody wake me when we finally get the long-rumored 32-inch iMac or a resurrection of the iMac Pro.

The new iPad Mini looks a whole lot like the old one. Photo: David Pierce / The Verge

A new iPad Mini was expected to launch around the same time as the upcoming Macs, but it came to us a couple weeks early via a press release announcement. The refreshed 8.3-inch tablet was upgraded to the A17 Pro chip originally found in the iPhone 15 Pro and given support for the Apple Pencil Pro stylus. There’s really not a whole lot more to say in this update, which is maybe why our own David Pierce thought it was just mostly okay.

There There were also rumblings that Apple could update the entry-level 10.9-inch iPad to a new 11th-gen model, but at this point it seems like an early next year announcement — especially considering the Mini’s early arrival. The current 10th-gen model launched at a pricey $449, but Apple course-corrected by slashing its starting price to $349 earlier this year. An 11th-gen model will likely look very similar, though it might be an opportunity for Apple to clean up and update its messy accessories situation.

The current Mac Studio is from 2023 and on the M2 generation. Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

The M4 processor debuted five months ago in the latest iPad Pros, and as mentioned above, Apple is expected to announce its latest chips are finally making the jump to most Macs in the coming weeks.

But will we see any M4 Max or M4 Ultra chips debut in refreshes of the Mac Studio and Mac Pro? Those pro-oriented machines are still on the M2 Max and M2 Ultra, so they’re due for an upgrade. But rumors of new models have been pretty nonexistent so far. Plus, getting new chips across the entire line of Macs all at once may be too much of a long shot — Apple has a track record of spacing things out.

Update, October 24th: Updated to reflect the latest announcements and Apple’s event teaser.

Credit: www.theverge.com