'Scary Fast' Rumor Report Card: New MacBook Pros and iMac

[spcopsmac21]

I doubt companies as big as Qualcomm are reverse engineering Apple Silicon 😂

I mean it does happen but I think legitimate companies with well funded R&D divisions will be working on their own stuff.

It makes zero sense to not understand the competitions method of practice.
There is much to be learned by apple silicon design language. I can all but guarantee they have studied apple silicon and learned a lot from it.
Their newest processors technology wasn’t even thought of until AFTER apple silicon came about.
There is no doubt in my mind they tore apple silicon apart and learned how to make similar designs.

 

[spcopsmac21]

Well the newest leak is they are making an iPhone 16!
And it will have a camera!
And a new Mac mini with new ports are on the way!!!
You’ve hurrrd it here first on HackRumors.

 

[Sasparilla]

Something to add in all this for the future, the EU regs include wireless mice and keyboards, so apple has to update them to USB-C by the end of next year...

 

[Mavrick33332]

I believe M3 was originally scheduled for 2024 but rushed into 2023 for some reason

Yah, it's because I have an Intel iMac and made my family wait 914 days until I finally gave in last week to buy a new one (well an older M1) after I believed there would be no M3. Luckily it is within the return window and we will get the M3 now - but whew what a ride. You're welcome - pretty sure they were waiting for me to give in.

 

[Mavrick33332]

The timing and limited scope of this ‘Scary Fast Spec Bump’ event doesn’t make much sense unless Apple is actually feeling pressure from Qualcomm.

For iMac users, like me it may have not made sense - but thank goodness they did it!

 

[Chuckeee]

What about Gurman claim that the iMac mount and hinge was being updated for the M3 iMac?

Hard to tell but the mount and hinge appear to be unmodified.

Yet another Gurman fail?

 

[Caviar_X]

Macrumors can we stop giving these fools free advertisement to post useless rumors?

Btw you’re missing the grade for these clowns.

Its an F. Hope you are reading this Gurman.

The site is called MacRumors for a reason!

 

[GFLPraxis]

Gurman got the core counts right but attributed them wrong, didn’t he? The rumor was that the 6 performance core 6 efficiency core model would be the new M3, and it turned out to be the M3 Pro.

 

[eifelbube]

I believe M3 was originally scheduled for 2024 but rushed into 2023 for some reason

Yes, they moved M3 into 2023 so the first M4 Macs can be released in 2024, the M5 Macs in 2025, … Next year, iPhone 16 will break the sequence and be named iPhone 24, iOS 18-23 will be skipped and come out as iOS 24 next year.
😊

 

[svish]

Rumours were correct for iMac not getting M2. Also at the beginning of October, was not expecting any new MacBooks to launch this year. Was a very interesting mix of rumours!!

 

[bumblebritches5]

Does it? 30 minutes pre recorded no actual audience.

The hardware has obviously been in the works for ages but does it take months to put that out now rather than in January?

I’m glad they put it out now, and I’m glad they put out all non-Ultra variants at the same time.

 

[klasma]

Nobody talk about the most inaccurate leak was cheapest MacBook/Air will start with 12G ram?
Turns out even a M3 8G + 512G config deserve $1600 in Apple's eye.
There is absolutely 0 chance Apple will bump it's barebone ram spec to 12G let alone 16G like everyone else.

And even 12G seems a far reach for Apple, next spec bump might be 10G on 2025. They might even pay a fortune to manufactures keep produce low density ram and ssd chips.

And the iPhones are still just at 5G!

 

[Motorola68000]

The whole story massages the ego's of the rumour mongers. Its a bit like everyone giving a time prediction, then congratulating some after the event for getting it right, ignoring so many different versions the same people have given, or downgrading them.

Will there be a new Apple M4 in an iMac? YES....is that to be treated as accurate prediction or just obvious?

The articles massage the ego's of the main ones involved, and its a bit like giving them credit for lottery numbers, when they've given every combination.

There is no doubt some of them are fed by Apple, some to disinform, some snippets to inform, as Apple benefits by all predictions, wrong or right, but its not super sleuthing, its beneficial interest.

There's no such thing as bad publicity, so they say, and predictions stoke up interest, true, but even the wrong ones are likely to have been planted! When you give toys and gifts to 'influencers' then that conclusion seems fairly safe.

 

[Pruus]

A disappointing new releases, touchbar gone, it was the best and you have to find out if more than one monitor cancels used, for that Priceline. Selling old colors as new. And so on. I won’t buy a new mac this and next year. Too less innovation. To much yelling, too much marketing.

 

[Floop]

I predict that M4 chips will NOT be released next year.

I also predict that M4 chips WILL be released next year.

Thank me when I'm proved correct.

 

[Monkeyat]

As to an October 2023 event to announce new Macs, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman doesn’t believe there will be an event this month or even this year. Instead, Gurman believes that Apple will announce new Macs via press releases when they are ready. He told the MacRumors Podcast listeners…

Rumors... rumors... rumors... changing as the wind 😂

 

[DanVM]

I do not buy that Apple “feels” pressured by Qualcomm. When presumably laptops with these new QC chips hit the market they’ll be running Windows, not macOS. And they’ll need a few OEMs (Dell, HP etc) making them they are threatening Intel foremost and then AMD, not Apple

Qualcomm already have a list of OEMs that will release Snapdragon X Elite devices, including Dell, HP, Lenovo, Microsoft, Acer and Asus.

These 9 PC makers could launch Windows PCs with Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite chips - Liliputing

These 9 PC makers could launch Windows PCs with Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite chips

liliputing.com

 

[szw-mapple fan]

Macrumors can we stop giving these fools free advertisement to post useless rumors?

Btw you’re missing the grade for these clowns.

Its an F. Hope you are reading this Gurman.

Half of the fun of coming here is to speculate on the accurate or inaccurate rumors.

 

[AVEGA]

A 6/10 event (to be generous) overall. Just could have been a press release. Updates are minor and not really enticing.

 

[patent10021]

They wanted to get M3 out there after Qualcomms Snapdragon event last week I think

Yes. In fact, this is the only reason. Nuvia/ex-Apple'ers who said, "It's been a slice Timmy!"

And the addition of the black MBP was also a last minute decision to make up for the lackluster release of M3's that are only on average 15% more performant than M2 (± depending on the spec).

A bit too coincidental that after 10 years of MBPs the only time they release a new color is when they had to rush out M3's. Can you imagine how boring it would've been without some additional jazz like the Halloween black cat MBPs? I guarantee you at least half the purchasers are Intel hold-outs who were heavily influenced by the new color with M3 and not solely the M3.

And you know no one gives a F about 24" iMacs.

 

[StuBeck]

My boy Ming Chi Kuo slippin!

He's doing well in the "state every possibly outcome, one of them will be right" department.

 

[Saturn007]

Say, didn’t his round-up leave out Gurman's earlier statement that there wouldn't be an event in October?!

Found it.

“Gurman: Apple Event This October Remains Unlikely, No Touch ID for iPhone 15​

Sunday October 2, 2022 6:41 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple is developing new iPad Pro, Mac, and Apple TV models, and at least some of these products will be released in October, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. However, Gurman continues to believe that Apple is unlikely to hold an event this month.”

Gurman: Apple Event This October Remains Unlikely, No Touch ID for iPhone 15

Apple is developing new iPad Pro, Mac, and Apple TV models, and at least some of these products will be released in October, according to...

www.macrumors.com

Note that the link's name is even “Gurman Doubles Down on no October event”. It's pretty easy to predict an October 30 event when one gets an early invitation to it, a direct leak from Apple, or an Apple insider tip.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

So... Why did they change the event time, if there were no announcements concerning Japan or the Eastern countries anyway?

WE made up the idea that this was about AAA gaming and Japan & Asia. We also made up a whole bunch of other possibilities to be launched there. I saw ideas for M3 Ultra somehow jammed into a MB, an Apple Game Console, an AppleTV Pro with M3, iPad Mini 7, new iPad Airs, etc.

Basically we went from collective "no new anything for 2023" to expecting new everything and then some over about 7-8 days.

Now to your question: maybe somebody thought about the black color and the general timing and wanted the Halloween link for "a fun idea."

Else, why do we see breakfast food commercials in evening prime time (about the farthest time of day from breakfast and when those very foods are not even currently for sale from those places)? Marketing often tries new ideas to gauge if they seem to do any better than old ideas. Sometimes they do and that leads to change.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

When this rumor first surfaced and people suggested it was Nintendo, I was quite dismissive of the idea. But that was because people were talking about (real) Nintendo games on Macs or Apple acquiring Nintendo, neither of which will happen.

But it just occurred to me that there could be a very different angle here that I don’t think anyone else has said - Nintendo’s Switch Successor could use Apple’s M3.

This would be a major win-win for both companies. The Switch received a ton of third party games (unlike the Wii U). Presuming developers go through the effort of making their games run on the Switch’s successor, it’d be pretty easy to also get the game to run on Mac since it’s the same CPU - so there’s a win for Apple.

And it’s a win for Nintendo. Everything that makes Apple silicon (and ARM) great for iOS and MacBooks will also be fantastic for a portable gaming system.

There may be some… unease… in this marriage. Apple might fear Nintendo’s console stealing sales from their iPad, and Vice versa. But I think it can work. The fact Apple’s devices lack great physical controls hampers them in comparison with Nintendo’s consoles. And Nintendo’s Switch console lacked a ton of the apps that you’d normally find on a mobile device. I wonder if the two might sign a non-compete agreement - Apple won’t make an official game controller, and Nintendo won’t have a web browser.

… or the partnership could go deeper. Maybe Safari ends up being the browser for Nintendo’s console, and Nintendo makes an official controller for Apple devices?

IDK. That prior paragraph is extraordinarily unlikely. But M3 for a Nintendo console… sounds pretty plausible to me.

That's some good speculation right there. If the Apple versions of the same games had to be sold through the Apple App Store (not direct from Nintendo), Apple could preserve their big 30% cut right off the top. And/or as part of this hypothetical deal, allow the game to be purchased via Nintendo but Apple still gets their cut (because it is fulfilled through the Apple store- possibly behind the scenes- to account for every transaction).

This would also "prove" Silicon for gamers/gaming with Nintendo doing towards all of the work (and covering nearly all of the software dev cost) to deliver that proof. It would create a steady stream of new games to show in any kind of soft push for gaming on Silicon. And it would make third party devs develop for Silicon because they want to sell their games on the new Nintendo Silicon Switch... which might inspire a few of them to also code a few games direct for Mac too.

The catch: would Nintendo like to sign away 30% right off the top to NOT develop their own core SOC and/or source it from other players that don't want first big bite at the revenue table? 30% of the gross is a LOT. There are many companies in the world without the 30% to offer Apple because their margin is not big enough to scalp off such a large amount of every sale.

Maybe Apple sees a big win:win here and cuts a special deal with Nintendo where Apple demands LESS to then get the benefits that Nintendo would be bringing to the platform? That seems logical but given how hard Apple is battling Epic, I don't see such considerations on Apple's radar at all: the first big (30%) cut of gross seems paramount above all other considerations.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Something to add in all this for the future, the EU regs include wireless mice and keyboards, so apple has to update them to USB-C by the end of next year...

I'm beyond 100% confident that Lightning inventory will sell down and quietly be replaced with USB-C inventory long before the EU deadline. I wouldn't be surprised if Mouse or Keyboard or Trackpad are already USB-C before end of 2023.

It isn't a world shaking event in need of a major announcement to change ports on some accessories. As the last of the Lightning stuff sells out the first of the USB-C replacements will come into stock: one customer will buy the last of the Lightning something, the next guy will buy the first of the USB-C version of the same something. Neither may know or care since both will work as expected right out of the box.

There is no big problem here, no mismanagement, no crisis: just simply inventory management any company would execute if they were not pressed to immediately change something and potentially be stuck with a bunch of units of "old" versions that may not sell.

Personally, I already have a USB-C keyboard (third party) and Apple's Lightning Mouse. I'm very much in the "one cable to rule them all" camp. However, if Apple rolled out USB-C Mouse today, I'd just keep using the Lightning one until it fails since I already have it and cables to charge it. I feel no urgency for USB-C accessories and will instead own them when the existing ones conk. I have to think I'm not the only one who thinks like this.