Rumors about Apple are swirling again, and this time we’ve heard leaks on the topic of what kind of Macs we’ll see in 2023.
This is all from Mark Gurman, the famous source of all things Apple.in the latest Bloomberg (opens in new tab) In the newsletter, he mentions the following (or not the following, at least this year, as you can see for the latter) regarding MacBooks, Mac Pros, and iMacs. As always, please treat rumors with the utmost caution, even if they come from more credible sources.
According to Gurman, there will be a new MacBook Pro in the first half of 2023, but it will have exactly the same design and features as the existing 14-inch and 16-inch models, with the only real upgrade being the inclusion of the M2 Pro. And the M2 Max chip. However, even on that front, Gurman claims the performance gains will be “minor”.
What’s more exciting is that Apple is apparently planning a MacBook Air 15-inch laptop. This could be the “saving grace” of the entire Mac line this year, but Gurman doesn’t say what it will pack. He said it won’t appear, or at least isn’t on the roadmap for the foreseeable future.
There’s a new Mac Pro coming in 2023, but it’s also disappointing in some ways. Gurman believes the high-end Mac Pro spin with a 48-core CPU (with 152 cores for graphics) has been cancelled, and instead Apple is simply pushing out models with the M2 Ultra chip. raises some question marks about how it compares to the Mac Studio in terms of value, notes Gurman, and the new Mac Pro will likely look similar to the 2019 version.
Even more disappointing is the obvious change that means users can’t upgrade their system RAM as the memory is soldered directly to the motherboard.
To round out the rather lackluster picture, Gurman says it seems unlikely that the larger iMac Pro that Apple was considering as a possibility will be in and out of the product roadmap. said to
As for the revamped iMac 24-inch, we won’t be moving forward until the M3 SoC is ready, so it could be 2024, or possibly the end of this year.
Analysis: A pretty dark but not unexpected rumor dump
If all of this makes for a somewhat bleak read (mostly it is) remember that this is just an informed speculation and Gurman could be wrong on some (or many) points. Even if he was right, what Apple thinks now may change in the future.
In any case, assuming the above rumors are correct, we wouldn’t be surprised to hear that the MacBook Pro won’t change much from its current incarnation. The way Gurman describes the performance gains from current models as “marginal” doesn’t necessarily evoke excitement.
We expected these updates to come in the second half of 2022, but when it became clear that they hadn’t happened, the rumored launch time was pushed to the first quarter of 2023. This indicates that there may not be a Q1 release. This is also a little disappointing.
We didn’t get to see the Apple silicon-powered Mac Pro at CES 2023 the way we expected it to, but perhaps we now know why. But the Mac Pro probably turns out Apple needs to fit it into its lineup and make it seem like a sensible proposition. It’s frustration to say the least.
Still, a 15-inch MacBook Air could still hit the market for 2023. This could make up for the rest of this year’s Mac range, which is either less different than existing models or otherwise underwhelming. It never really made an appearance, but perhaps now is the time – there are certainly some big fans of the idea of a 15-inch version of the laptop (and some, likewise, more cautious about it).
Via Apple Insider (opens in new tab)