Kuo: 'M3 Series MacBook Pro' to Be Focus of Apple's October 30 Event

[TGM85]

I’m wondering if the M3 Pro will be worth upgrading from an M1 Pro MBP 16”.

 

[Allen_Wentz]

Considering Qualcomm's announcement of the Snapdragon X Elite SoC for Windows today, Apple needed to mention something. Hopefully, they'll have a substantial difference in performance, and not just efficiency.

IMO Apple has no need to chase Snapdragon performance because most Apple buyers could care less. Long term of course, how well Apple competes in the chip wars matters. But Qualcomm's PR announcements do not make Apple need to chase Snapdragon.

 

[smulji]

IMO Apple has no need to chase Snapdragon performance because most Apple buyers could care less. Long term of course, how well Apple competes in the chip wars matters. But Qualcomm's PR announcements do not make Apple need to chase Snapdragon.

Caveat being "Yet". If Windows on Snapdragon / ARM starts gaining momentum and potentially eats into Mac sales, Apple will need to pay attention.

 

[groove-agent]

That’s hardcore gaming, not casual gaming 😆

They are going in the right direction but it will be a long while before they compete with the power/customization/developer support of PC platform. I’d choose PC or games console over Mac for games any day. Even a switch!

It’s not always about raw power.

What I meant is, even if the M3 can put out serious GPU power, at best I'll be able to casually game with the titles currently available on MacOS. You can't be a hard core gamer on the Mac currently because the titles aren't there, regardless of the horsepower. I can pick a few cool titles that are available (ex. Baldur's Gate 3, No Man's Sky) and play them when I have time. However, I truly believe that once Apple has a competitive GPU (and I don't necessarily mean a NVIDIA killer) we'll see more (but not all) big titles come to MacOS.

 

[PBMB]

Big surprise here. I have ordered a M2 MBP 14-inch and the delivery is scheduled for 3-9 November. If the event concerns the 14-inch model as well, is there going to be any issue with my order? I am asking because my employer is paying for this machine and any change, especially a price hike, is going to create a small chaos on their end.

 

[rb2112]

The MacBook Air M2 is a superior laptop for the 13" crowd. Lighter weight, bigger display, better Facetime camera, Bluetooth 5.3, and, despite all this, cheaper, and with a thinner case

compared to the Macbook Pro 13 with a longer battery life and Touchbar which shortens common workflows w/BTT . And *subjectively* more comfortable carrying shape vs the 'slab' MBA M2 For my uses MBP 13 wins and MBA was not 'superior' enough to buy and definitely not superior enough to switch to! Weight difference unnoticeable, never use Facetime, BT still connects to everything I own. Coupla extra hours battery life...noice.

 

[User 6502]

IMO Apple has no need to chase Snapdragon performance because most Apple buyers could care less. Long term of course, how well Apple competes in the chip wars matters. But Qualcomm's PR announcements do not make Apple need to chase Snapdragon.

Apple definitely needs to pay a lot of attention because now that they design their own chips they need to keep innovate. People will not want to pay a premium for slower chips, which is why they had to switch from custom IBM processors to Intel.

 

[ikir]

There are users that specifically want this model for active cooling and touchbar. I work for a hundred of consumers and few company and 13” MBP is still requested (a lot)

 

[ikir]

Damn, I just bought an M2 Max a couple weeks ago because I didn’t expect they’d be updating it in less than a year. What’s the best options here? I also already traded in my original laptop, so I can’t even go back to that temporarily.

Just enjoy it it is a incredible machine

 

[svish]

Looks like both M3 and Pro/Max variants will be announced. But MacBook Air will not be getting refreshed most likely.

 

[User 6502]

Just enjoy it it is a incredible machine

There is hardly anything incredible about the M2 family. They were underwhelming in any way, definitely a generation to skip if you had already an M1 machine.

 

[Eorlas]

How are we on the 3rd iteration (and likely a small refresh) of the M-series MacBook Pros but we are still on the 2 year old M1 iMac?

iMacs probably dont see new purchase/upgrades enough for them to spend time doing a refresh, rather than sell available inventory.

for how powerful and efficient these machines are, the upgrade paths at least can be very easily unnecessary for many. my m1 max 16" mbp still just screams with power

 

[depeschiezero]

IMO Apple has no need to chase Snapdragon performance because most Apple buyers could care less. Long term of course, how well Apple competes in the chip wars matters. But Qualcomm's PR announcements do not make Apple need to chase Snapdragon.

But these Snapdragon X devices are aavailable mid/end 2024 earliest. And then it is still Windows 🤣

 

[Mr. 123]

Well Apple being Apple, while your scenario could play out, the other is keeping the relatively new M2 Air at the same price and roll out the "new improved" M3 Air at an even higher price.

Yeah thats right. This has been done many times but as the Air is their entry level computer wouldn’t it kind of screw up the lineup to raise the price again Of the air?

 

[Fuzzball84]

That doesn't even make sense.

Yeah, it does actually. Because Apple prioritizes certain markets itself. Just because you are in one of the first markets it releases devices, you forget about it.

 

[patent10021]

I hope for Apple's sake the M3 Max is faster than the M2 Ultra.

 

[Zest28]

To be fair, my 16" M1 Max MacBook Pro and M2 MacBook Air will remain good enough and I won't upgrade it for a long time. Maybe at M5 or M6 I will consider upgrading.

This has been the year of the Apple Watch Ultra 2 and iPhone 15 Pro Max for me.

 

[JustAnExpat]

My opinion:

I will be completely stunned if this is the M3s being released, and everyone expecting M3s will be disappointed. I believe it's going to be M2s for the iMacs, and maybe an iMac Pro with an M2 Pro chip that everyone's been dreaming about - it'll be "screaming fast".

 

[Reelmower]

Redesign it, make it a 13" MacBook Air with the M3 chip (air can keep the M2, air users don't need insane performance of m3), give it an extra USB-C port or make the ports Thunderbolt 4, and put it at $1500. Fills the gap in price between the $1100 air and the $2000 pro. They could just rename it to "MacBook" with no suffix even. But that would be too crazy for them to do.

MacBook Air users, at least this one, would like support for two external monitors. Hopefully the m3 brings that. Right now I’m using displaylink, which works fine. Still it’s eating up more resources than built in support for a second processor would take.

 

[Floop]

I'm going to guess that they held off on the M3 Mac releases until the new version of Resident Evil was pretty much code complete.

I'm guessing we will see them announce the M3 Pro and Max in MBP's and demo them running Resident Evil natively, with 'scary fast' performance.

Hmm, this is actually a credible take, and I"m surprised that it has taken 24 hours for someone to suggest it. You could be on to something!

 

[antonrg]

That's pretty obvious they'll be releasing new 14"&16" MacBook Pro.
In Europe base configurations of the 16" are backordered for 2-3 weeks.

What's strange is that on the French Apple store, MacBook Pros 14" and 16" are still shown as new today.

 

[Floop]

Big surprise here. I have ordered a M2 MBP 14-inch and the delivery is scheduled for 3-9 November. If the event concerns the 14-inch model as well, is there going to be any issue with my order? I am asking because my employer is paying for this machine and any change, especially a price hike, is going to create a small chaos on their end.

This was me too, as of 48 hours ago. And BOOM my order shipped yesterday for delivery today. I suspect yours will too.

 

[antonrg]

Damn, I just bought an M2 Max a couple weeks ago because I didn’t expect they’d be updating it in less than a year. What’s the best options here? I also already traded in my original laptop, so I can’t even go back to that temporarily.

Same, but hey, the M2 Pro and M2 Max are insanely fast already, so Im happy with it. M3 was rumoured to come out in Jan 2024 and you'd still have to wait a while to get these ones , especially if you configure them. Im happy with my purchase

 

[antonrg]

This was me too, as of 48 hours ago. And BOOM my order shipped yesterday for delivery today. I suspect yours will too.

Mine (BTO) was delivered 6 days after placing my order, although scheduled to arrive about 2-3 weeks later.

 

[PBMB]

What's strange is that on the French Apple store, MacBook Pros 14" and 16" are still shown as new today.

Very interesting. It could mean that there are not going to be new MacBook Pros next week.

This was me too, as of 48 hours ago. And BOOM my order shipped yesterday for delivery today. I suspect yours will too.

Thank you. As of now, my status has not changed. I am very curious to see the outcome. It is my first time to place an order and to have this kind of event just a few days ahead, potentially affecting the machine I just ordered.