While Apple certainly didn’t exclude Macs from their WWDC announcements, with the unveiling of a gorgeous new Mac Pro and lightning-fast MacBook Air with far better battery life, many have been left wondering about the Macs Apple didn’t mention. Both the iMac and the Retina MacBook Pro are due for an update – and KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo staked her bets on new iMacs to be released this summer.
So where are these new Macs? The answer may lie in production delays, a desire to straddle Mac launches to prevent backlogs and shortages, or some other factor – nobody knows for certain, of course. According to information we’ve received, however, we’ll find out soon enough – at Apple’s fall iPhone event in August or September.
According to our source, Apple is planning to unveil updated iMacs, Mac Minis, and new Retina MacBook Pros at (or perhaps alongside) their next-gen iPhone launch event. The new Macs are expected to include Intel’s latest Haswell processors, PCI Express SSDs like Apple added to the new MacBook Air, and 802.11ac WiFi.
Further, Apple is also expected to reveal the pricing and release date of their new Mac Pro at the event, as well as release dates for both OS X Mavericks and iOS 7, and of course the expected announcement of new iPhone and iPad hardware. We’ve also heard that Apple may be preparing a Retina version of their Thunderbolt display, although our source stopped short of claiming it would be revealed at the same time.
Apple has announced new Mac hardware at their iOS events in the past – such as last year, when they unveiled the Retina MacBook Pro and new iMacs alongside the iPad mini and 4th-gen iPad. The event would be an ideal time to launch the hardware, allowing Apple to efficiently plan numerous product launches on the same day. It would also help Apple avoid lost sales versus announcing the updates at their WWDC keynote.
Rene Ritchie of iMore has previously noted that Apple is planning an August event to unveil new iOS devices. The August event claim has also been echoed by analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, although the exact timing is subject to change depending on factors such as production delays, or Apple deciding to push the event back for some other reason.
We’ve also heard thatApple might separate the announcements into two separate events, although it’s unclear which products would be announced at one event versus another.
It sounds like Apple may have quite a treat in store for us this fall – new iPhones, new iPads, updates to iOS and OS X, and great new Mac hardware all in one massive debut. Let’s hope it will all be worth the wait!
