Rumors Suggest M3 MacBooks May be Delayed to October

September is usually the time when Apple lays out all its latest offerings in time for the holiday shopping season. It is expected that the company will launch a new iPhone 15, a next-generation Apple Watch, and a redesigned iPad Pro.

However, rumors suggest that the announcement of new M3 Macbooks may be delayed by at least a few weeks.

According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, writing in his weekly Power On Newsletter, Apple will be delaying the launch of the M3 MacBook Air and MacBook Pro until at least October, with its official announcement coming in a simple press release rather than a slickly produced keynote style event.

Image Credit – Apple

“There’s also another launch occurring in October — likely for the first M3 Macs.” Gurman wrote. “But it’s unclear if that will be positioned as a formal event.”

Many are speculating that Apple will instead opt for a simple press release, much like was done with the M2 MacBook Pro and the M2 Mac Mini in June of 2022.

AppleInsider adds that it’s traditionally been that when Apple offers a simple feature upgrade with “spec bumps” instead of a complete chassis redesign, the company opts for a more muted debut via an official press release, rather than a huge event.

Mockup of M3

Since the introduction of the Apple Silicon processor, Macs have undergone a steady, yet modest performance increase they’ve gone from M1 to M1 Max/Pro, M2, and M2 Max/Pro. So it stands to reason that the same will happen with the M3.

Already, speculation is that come October, Apple will announce a 13-inch MacBook Pro and a 13-inch MacBook Air. A 24-inch iMac is also overdue for an update, having been passed over in the M2 generation, and leading many to wonder if Apple is going to discontinue the model in favor of a larger iMac Pro.

Gurman has heard from his inside sources that Apple is testing higher-end M3 chips for 2024 which will be stacked with 12 CPU cores (6 high-performance cores and 6 efficiency cores), 18 GPU cores, and up to 36GB of unified memory.

Gurman believes that the M3 will be based on Apple’s new 3 nanometer process, by TSMC, giving them a higher performance boost over the 5 nm chips found in the M2 line. As such, users shouldn’t expect an announcement until next year. Apple has reportedly bought and hoarded the entire one year run of 3nm chips from TSMC with an eye for rolling them out next year.

In the meantime, there’s little known about the 13” MacBook Pro, and it could be that this stock M3 will be the last 5 nm laptop Apple will release, alongside the M3 MacBook Air.

Only time will, with insiders seeming to agree that September 14th will likely be the next Apple event, with the MacBook Pro announcement coming a few weeks later in October.

[source: Apple Insider, Mark Gurman Power On]

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