It’s almost time for the Apple September event, and while many people are gearing up to take a first look at the rumored iPhone 15 and a new line of Apple watches, those of us holding out for a peek at a new MacBook Pro or MacBook Air might be in for a wait.
Mark Gurman's latest ‘Power on’ newsletter suggests the September show will be the first time we lay eyes on the new iPhone range and the Apple Watch Series 9, but also notes that “there’s another launch occurring in October” which will likely be dedicated to the first M3 Macs. Gurman is a well-known Apple leaker, so it’s always worth paying attention to what he says about the Cupertino company’s future plans.
At TechRadar, we’ve been buzzing about the M3 MacBooks since rumors began to pop up, as the M3 chip should offer a significant power upgrade that’ll boost performance and capabilities across the new devices.
Specifically, it will apparently offer higher core density. Gurman has shared in his newsletters that the M3 Pro chip could come with 12 CPU cores, 18 GPU cores and up to 36GB of unified memory, offering two more CPU and GPU cores than the M2 Pro chip. Some have speculated that the higher-end M3 chip could even have up to 40 CPU cores, an astounding amount of computing power for an Apple MacBook.
Not only could the M3 chip have more cores, but it’s rumored that it’ll also be the first chip made using a 3-nanometer process. This will be smaller than the enhanced 5-nanometer process used for the M2 chip. More cores on a smaller chip would mean a higher density, which should lead to far better efficiency, so we could get better performance and longer battery lives, amongst other improvements.
Where’s my MacBook, Apple?
In the newsletter, Gurman speculates that the October showcase might not be as flashy or big as the September event we expect for the iPhone and Apple Watch. Instead, he suggests that Apple could simply announce the upgrades in a press release and forgo having a dedicated event.
If this is the case, it would be incredibly disappointing for Mac fans eager to know more about the new hardware, with rumors suggesting the upcoming M3-powered MacBooks could fundamentally change the game for Apple laptops.
With the significant change in performance power, it would be unusual for Apple to pump out a simple press release and call it a day, especially as at a dedicated event the company can really show off the improvements and explain the technology to an eager audience.
The lack of enthusiasm for the MacBook launch could suggest that Apple is once again falling out of love with Macs and MacBooks. Since the M1 chip launch in 2020, it seemed like Apple was finally investing time and effort into it’s own laptop line instead of focusing solely on iPhones and iPads.
We’re expecting (and hoping) that the M3 MacBook Air and MacBook Pro will dominate our list of best MacBooks, so it’s a shame to see Apple not putting as much backing into the devices as everyone else seems to be.
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