Did I proffer any supposition?
By definition knocking down other people's evidence with a wave of the hand is offering your own opinion on matters - consensus or not. You are effectively saying that Mark Gurman and Debby Wu's story for Bloomberg is no better than some of the guesses (both educated and wild) that have seen light of day in this thread. Whether you rate the accuracy of their (or Ming Chi Kuo's) sources you can't deny that they'll have better information than what we can come up with - which basically amounts to going through previous launch dates, reading press releases, checking bench marks etc. This is precisely what I'm doing below by the way.
It's easy to dismiss any of these journalists but then you go on to quote 'irregular' launch dates for Minis in the past without contextualising as to what's going on in the background. Effectively saying a Mini could drop any time and not just October which is what I will be saying based on the track record of previous years*, availability of (6 core) CPUs, and
Some of these launches will have been coinciding with desktop and/or laptop releases. Some may have been down to delays or availability of suitable Intel CPUs. I have no doubt Apple had bigger fish to fry on some of the gap years.
I contend that Apple's launch dates are certainly not 'irregular' but are in fact semi predictable assuming they are settling on an annual update
As someone else has said, Apple won't release unannounced gear after Black Friday (late November) because it's too late for the holiday season. I will also point to the fact that Apple sometimes launch stuff right into specific quarters for accounting purposes. Sometimes projects get delayed.
* OK, so going back a few years.
From Everymac.com
2018 July - High end MacBook Pros with Touchbars
2017 December - pre-announced iMac Pro trickles onto the scene so Apple can keep launch promise
2017 June - Massive Machine update including iMacs which never got looked at in October 2016 with Kaby Lake late.
2016 October - MacBook Pros (Touchbars took all the resources), MacBooks were bumped in April
2015 October - iMacs got Skylake update
2015 March/April - MacBooks introduced in April, MBA bumped in March
2014 October -
Mac Mini 2014 - Haswell CPU still being used; iMac 5k
2014 July - MacBook Pro 13" and 15" bumped but still on Haswell as Intel lag
2014 April - MacBook Air bumped
2013 December - pre-announced 2013 Mac Pro trickles onto the scene so Apple can keep launch promise
2013 October - MacBook Pro Retina with Iris Graphics, iMac gets Haswell
2013 February - MacBook Pro Retina improved
2012 October -
Mac Mini 2012, iMac updated with Ivy Bridge CPU
2012 June - MacBook Pro Retina introduced at WWDC, Mac Pro 2012 bump model launched too
2011 October - MacBook Pro Sandy Bridge updated again
2011 July -
Mac Mini 2011, MBA
2011 May - iMac Sandy Bridge
2011 February - MacBook Pro Sandy Bridge
Note - Mac Mini in red for context. Apple have generally launched desktop hardware in October for the last six years except where Intel went and screwed up on delivery dates of required CPUs. Apple then sit tight till their next preferred release date rather than drop them immediately the CPUs become available - see the 2016 launches. Intel missed the Kaby Lake boat for an October 2016 iMac (in Europe the price went up by around 20% because of BREXIT and other exchange rate issues).
In fact despite Kaby Lake becoming more available late that year it was a further 6 months later - in June 2017 - that Skylake showed up in the June 2016 iMacs. Apple could have dropped them any time in H1 2017 but waited until a significant launch date - the engineering dept. were probably also busy handling the infamous 2016 MacBooks and Touchbars.
So from that quickly sketched list we see Intel probably to blame for late arrival of at least some of the Macs on the list due to Broadwell debacle leading Apple to hold on to three short generations of Haswell. Some of the June releases are new revolutionary tech which Apple decide to show off at WWDC so Apple were probably deliberately aiming at WWDC.
In terms of October releases, we have October releases annually going back to 2012 - only skipping October in 2017 because they had already chosen to do an early release in June that year because Skylake had missed the boat for 2016 the year before.
Coffee Lake is the biggest update in years - Apple can't afford to miss out. They have updated the MacBook Pros. Logically, October has to be the month that they also do the iMac too. And we're back at the Bloomberg story about the new Mini almost certainly coming. If they don't update the Mini they may as well discontinue it because the 2014 Mini looks awful value for money next to cheap quad core NUCs in the coming months.
Even without the Bloomberg article the logic behind a Mac mini update this year is very strong although I would have put the Mini update out to coincide with the Mac Pro 2019. The fact that it may come months before the modular Mac Pro suggests to me that it won't threaten the mMP 2019.
