New Apple MacBooks and more set to launch next week

Apple surprised everyone when it launched the M4 iPad Pro earlier this year. A new M-series chipset usually launches with the brand’s MacBooks series of laptops, and yet it debuted on an iPad Pro. While the chipset did bring a ton of performance boosts to the new iPads, many await Apple’s next-gen Macs, which will invariably come with the M4 chipset.

That time is now almost here. Apple has just announced a week of new announcements, strongly hinting at some new Macs and MacBooks on the horizon. Apple’s Senior VP of Worldwide Marketing Greg Joswiak’s newest post on X (formerly Twitter) asks everyone to ‘Mac’ their calendars – and indicates multiple announcements starting October 28.

Apple MacBook M4: What to expect?

The launch is expected to give us the new MacBook Pro series, powered by the M4 chip, and perhaps its more powerful variants (like the M4 Pro or M4 Max). We expect the brand to launch 14-inch and 16-inch variants of the same. However, that’s not all.

The new laptops will also likely get more RAM to power all the current and future Apple Intelligence features.

ALSO READ: What is Apple Intelligence, Apple’s very own take on AI?

Apple will likely also launch an all-new Mac mini with M4 series chipsets at the core, as well as an upgraded iMac with the new chip. Rumours have suggested that the products will only get the M4 boost, and no new design upgrades are expected.

However, this isn’t true for the Mac mini, which is expected to undergo a complete design revamp and launch in a much more compact form factor. It may just be Apple’s smallest desktop computer ever.

What about the M4 MacBook Air laptops?

The announcements are not expected to include the next MacBook Air lineup, which Apple usually launches separately. As per a Bloomberg report, that is going to be sometime in early 2025.

This also matches the launch timeline of the M3 MacBook Air, which launched In March 2024. We expect Apple to launch a 13-inch variant and a larger 15-inch variant just like last time, although with quite some time left, a surprise size change isn’t entirely off the cards.

What other announcements to expect next week?

The post by Joswiak mentioned multiple announcements, and apart from the new M4-powered hardware, we expect Apple to finally release the iOS 18.1 software update for iPhones.

This update will bring the much-awaited Apple Intelligence features to iPhones (at least the ones set to English-US) and include the new AI-powered Siri too. We also expect iPadOS 18.1 on the same day, which will bring these same features to supported iPads.

We will go deep into all the new features of iOS 18.1 next week after the update is out, so stay tuned to Unboxed by Croma for all the tips and tricks.