Apple has confirmed the date of what’s likely to be its final ‘special event’ of the year, at which it seems all but certain to announce new MacBook Pro models.
18 October is the date to stick in your calendar, with the so-called “Unleashed” event kicking off at 10am PDT.
Rumours suggest that there could be 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros, possibly with a MagSafe charger, more Thunderbolt ports, an HDMI port and an SD card slot. There’s speculation that the Touch Bar, which you’ll find on the current generation of MBPs, will be dropped.
Given that these are designed as ‘pro’ machines, it seems inevitable that we’ll see an upgrade on the M1 chip that resides in the MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, Mac mini, iMac and iPad Pro, possibly known as the M1X. Expect more processing and graphics cores, and better performance.
We’d also expect these new machines to be able to accommodate more RAM. The M1 Macs top out at 16GB, but there’s speculation that the new MacBook Pros could let you install up to 64GB.
One further rumour surrounding next week’s event is that Apple could announce the next-generation AirPods. Word has it that these could inherit some features from the AirPods Pro, though whether this will stretch to active noise cancellation remains to be seen.
We’ll bring you all the details on the announcements next week.
