Rumors about Apple are swirling again, and this time we’re hearing word about what the Mac will be launching in 2023 — and brace yourself for some disappointment.
It all comes from Mark Gurman, a well-known person at Apple.in his latest Bloomberg (opens in a new tab) In the newsletter, he talks about what’s next for the MacBook, Mac Pro, and iMac (or not the next — at least not this year — in the latter case, as you’ll see). As always, be cautious with rumors, even those from more reliable sources.
According to Gurman, we’ll see new MacBook Pros in the first half of 2023, but they’ll have the exact same design and features as the existing 14-inch and 16-inch models, with the only real upgrades being the inclusion of the M2 Pro and M2 Max chip. Even here, however, Gurman asserts, the performance gains will be “negligible.”
Even more exciting is Apple’s apparent plans for a MacBook Air 15-inch laptop, which could be the lifesaver for this year’s entire Mac lineup, though Gurman didn’t say what it would be packing. He also told us that the previously rumored 12-inch MacBook won’t be coming out, or at least won’t be on the roadmap anytime soon.
There will be a new Mac Pro in 2023, but it will also disappoint in some ways. Gurman believes that the high-end Mac Pro with a 48-core CPU (152 cores in the graphics processor) has been canceled, and Apple is simply launching a model with an M2 Ultra chip. Gurman noted that this raises some questions about its value compared to Mac Studio, and presumably the new Mac Pro will also look identical to the 2019 version.
There’s one more noticeable change that adds to the disappointment, meaning system RAM won’t be user-upgradeable, as the memory will be soldered directly to the motherboard.
To put an end to a rather tedious state of affairs, Apple had considered the possibility of a larger iMac Pro — which, according to Gurman, would come and go on product roadmaps — now looks unlikely. Gurman observes: “If it comes in 2023, I’d be surprised at this point.”
As for the revamped 24-inch iMac, that apparently won’t launch until the M3 SoC is ready, so it’s likely 2024 or the end of this year.
Analysis: Pretty bleak but not unexpected rumor dump
If all of this makes for a bleak read—and it mostly does—then we have to remember that this is just educated guesswork, and Gurman could be wrong on some (or many) counts. Even if he’s right, Apple’s thinking now may change in the future.
In any case, assuming the aforementioned rumors are correct, it wouldn’t be surprising to hear that the MacBook Pro won’t change much from the current version. Although the way Gurman describes the performance gains of the current model as “marginal” doesn’t get people excited.
If you recall, we originally expected these updates to arrive later in 2022, and when it became apparent that the rumored release timeline was changed to Q1 2023. Now, Gurman is talking about the first half of the year, which seems to suggest that a Q1 launch might not happen — yet another minor disappointment.
We didn’t see an Apple silicon-powered Mac Pro at CES 2023 as we’d hoped, and maybe we now know why — and maybe the situation with this machine is still up in the air. Regardless of how the Mac Pro turns out, presumably Apple has to make it fit into its own lineup, and it looks like a sensible proposition — though mentioning a possible step back in terms of non-upgradeable RAM is an unpopular idea. For a PC as expensive as this, the limitations on component upgrades are frustrating to say the least.
Still, we do have a 15-inch MacBook Air still likely to arrive in 2023, which could make up for most of the rest of the Mac lineup hitting shelves this year that differs from existing models or otherwise underperforms good. A larger MacBook Air has long been rumored but never actually materialized, but maybe now is the time — there are certainly some loyal fans in favor of a 15-inch version of the laptop (again, some are wary of the MacBook Air ).
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