Apple’s next major product event is officially scheduled for Oct. 18, the company confirmed in an invite sent out today.
The event, dubbed “Unleashed,” is scheduled to take place at 10 a.m. Pacific Time/1 p.m. Eastern, and it will broadcast on Apple.com from Apple Park in Cupertino.
The chief suspects for the announcement are updated MacBooks and possibly new AirPods. Apple already announced new iPhones, iPads, and Apple Watches during a previous event in September, which leaves its PCs and audio equipment as the stragglers.
Apple’s M1-based MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, Mac mini, and iMac have made a splash in the past year. The 16-inch version of the MacBook Pro didn’t make the leap to the new in-house hardware, though, so we could be looking at an update to that product line.
The desktop Mac Pro is also not running on Apple’s system-on-chip. Powerful though the M1 chip has been, Apple may need something mightier to go into a desktop tasked with the professional workloads the Mac Pro is targeting. But, that may be what Apple is suggesting with the “Unleashed” event title, which suggests unconstrained power.
That extra power for these new laptops and computers could come in the form of the rumored M1X or M2 chipset, which reportedly began mass production as early as April. It may show up in an updated 16-inch MacBook Pro and a new 14-inch MacBook Pro, MacRumors suggests.
Those larger screens could also see bumped-up resolutions. The updated macOS Monterey has hinted at support for some new resolutions, and these are believed to be linked to upcoming MacBooks. It’s also been suggested these new models will see the MacBook Pro get more port variety with an HDMI port and SD card reader added.
Finally, a third-generation of AirPods is also highly anticipated. There were expectations we’d see a new design during the iPhone launch event. They didn’t turn up in September, though, so Apple may have saved them for October, just in time for the holidays. They’re rumored to get a visual redesign that shortens the stem to be more akin to the AirPods Pro, MacRumors suggests.
We won’t have to wait long to find out.
