Whenever Apple announces an event the wheels tend to start turning in every tech reporters brains just a little bit harder, although in fairness this time around most of them have been reporting on an upcoming event coming for quite some time, MacRumours even going as far as to question where the event invites are... only to have Apple post 24 hours later about the event..
Tech Review sites or Apply specific sites love to drop spoilers before the events so lets see what some of them are suggesting is coming
XDA
XDA is probably one of the better sources of information as it's not targeting any specific market, android, apple etc but here is what they thought could be coming as noted in this post.
- 5G-enabled iPhone SE 3rd Gen
- a new iPad Air
- At least one upgraded Mac model.
- Possibly a "One More Thing or two"
- iOS 15.4 public release
5G iPhone SE
A 5G iPhone SE could be possible, but it would have to be based around the iPhone 13 spec you'd imagine given the 13 didn't ship with 5 but has good batter life, the iPhone 12 has 5G and fairly meh batter life and finally the iPhone 13 which has 5G and good battery life - the iPhone SE has always been that little bit cheaper and normally based on a previous gens setup - but how does one do 5G in a cheap iPhone without shit batter life ? guess we will find out should this turn out to be true.
iPad Air 5th Gen
The iPad Air 5th Gen has to happen really, in the iPadOS ranking of tiers
- iPad
- IPad Mini
- iPad Air
- iPad Pro
As things stand however, the iPad mini which is cheaper than the iPad Air is the superior device in the none Pro models
- it has a newer chip A15 vs A14
- The mini has 5G the Air does not
- The iPad and the Mini both have 12MP Ultra Wide front cameras - the Air has a 7MP FaceTime HD camera and no Quad-LED True Tone flash on the Air - something the Mini does have and the iPad does not and of course a lack of Center Stage
- The Air weighs nearly as much as the iPad making the Air naming a little .. thin at best. (29 grams difference)
You can go through a complete comparison of the 3 none Pro iPads and see that the Mini is king and the iPad is a steal.. when compared against the Air so a new iPad Air has to happen.
New Mac Model?
I keep reading a lot about how the Mac Mini will see a redesign, I'm not sold on this argument, the Mac Mini M1 is a monster - I have the late 2012 and M1 versions and these are the last two good Mac Minis and Apply has not normally redesign so early... nor but that much effort into the Mini before...
I do that if a new Mac comes it has to be in the Desktop side of things and it's either the iMac Pro updated or the Mac Pro - of the two I would shoot for it being the iMac Pro sporting some ridicules 8k display and coming with possibly dual M1 Max Pro chips ... it's also possible we see M2 released but I'm not sure apple are done with M1 just yet - nothing has taxed M1 and I don't see many if any real world reasons a jump beyond what's available is needed but who knows (hopefully Apple)
My moneys says we see a new iMac Pro and at a massive stretch we see the return of the cheaper MacBook, possibly with M1 and a few less CPU/GPU cores.
One more what ?
XDA went into no details about what this could be, what they want it to be or what it might be - so your guess is as good as mine, but lets look back at past one more things
1999
- Apple AirPort
- 22in Apple Cinema Display
- iMac DV & iMovie
2000
2001
2002
- iMac G4
- iPod compatible with Windows
2003
- Power Mac G5
- 12in PowerBook G4
2004
- iPod mini colours
- 30in Apple Cinema Display
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
- iPod nano (with camera and speaker)
2010
- FaceTime
- Apple TV (2nd gen)
- MacBook Air
2011
2014
2015
2017
FYI if you want more info on the above list take a look at this list I "borrowed" from on MacWorld which breaks it down much much further.
So based on the list above only two things seem like they need updating so if a "One More Thing" happens then it's in my opinions it's either a Cinema Display (or whatever they call it now) as a stand alone lower end monitor because virtually nobody I know can afford the $5,000 Pro Display XDR - but a market does exist for anything 4k with HDR at the 27" range
Aside from a display, I would love to see the return of Airport, Apple dropping out of the networking business is still a weird if somewhat understood business move but it would be great to see the Airport family of products return in some way.
MacRumours
MacRumours has a similar narrative to XDA with what it's "heard" and thinks coming so lets take a look what they suggest we might see as noted in this post
- iPhone SE
- a revamped iPad Air
- at least one Mac with an Apple silicon chip, which could be the Mac mini, the 13-inch MacBook Pro, or both.
MacRumours didn't really sell the narrative of "what we might see" but "this is what's coming" going as far as to confirm that the iPhone SE will have 5G, it will retain touch ID and the same design but beef up to the A15 and be incredibly cheap - given both XDA and MacRumours have suggestion this is the case.. it's hard to disagree or they have the same sources...
A revamped iPad Air as discussed above seems like it would be dumb not to have this given its current status in the iPad lineup.
Then we have the Macs that will see an update and MacRumours is leaning towards the Mac Mini or the 13" MacBook Pro - my concern for the Mac Mini is Apple will do the unthinkable and turn it into some stupid cube that you can carry around like a shrunk down G4 Cube or worse an AppleTV - the size in my opinion of the Mac mini is perfectly fine - add more ports not a reduction of size
I also see no reason the 13" iPad pro needs an update, it's sat quite nicely where it is and I still think the MacBook needs to make a return with maybe next year a bump being given to the 13" Pro as right now it does not need it.
The theory is the 13" of all things will be the one to debut the M2 chip and it will offer
9 and 10-core GPU options, up from the 7 and 8-core GPU options available with the original M1 chip.
If I was to debut a whole new beast it would not be on the most affordable in the Pro range, iMac Pro would be suited for this should they go down that road or perhaps the Mac Pro but it would need more than a single standard chip even if it is the M2 - M2 Max Pro Ultra Supreme Unicorn .. maybe?
That's all MacRumours has on the table, which falls in line with what XDA.. without the one more thing and with a lot more assertion to what we will see..
9to5Mac
9to5Mac has a nice what to expect section its event announcement post so this should be easy!
- 5G iPhone SE 3 with A15 Bionic
- iPad Air 5th Gen also with A15 Bionic and better camera
- They suggested it was "mirky" on the MacOS front but suspect that "A MacBook Pro as well as a more powerful Mac mini with the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips"
- Finally they added that (iOS, Watch, Pad, Mac, TV)OS will all go public
9to5Mac seemed to be more in the realms of confidence with the iPhone SE3 and the iPad Air while not so sure on the MacOS front - although it's now seemingly agreed that yes new iPhone SE and iPad Air but with MacOS .. not quite so clear
Although concerning to see the Mac Mini brought up again but I did like the idea of a Mac Mini with an M1 Max rather than a redesign of something I'm fond of, the entry level MacBook pro would obviously be the 13" MacBook Pro which currently comes with only an M1 option.
MacWorld
MacWorld has a whole post dedicated to expectations so not just a section or a footer tagged in, a whole post - what does that mean ? two posts are better for SEO that's what!
So what do they think we will see?
- iPhone SE with 5G
- IPad Air 5th Gen
- Mac Mini updates
- iMac with larger than 24" display
So iPhone SE (with 5G) has been confirmed by them all so this is probably happening, the iPad Air has to happen from a business stance who would order the most powerful iPad in price only for it to be not as good as the middle or low end version?
They did phrase the Mac Mini segment as an update - so my thinking is possibly a Mac Mini Pro - paint the bitch black "slate grey" stick in a M1 Pro Max Unicorn and call it a day, no need to redesign anything 😛
iMac with larger than 24" display is curious as I suspect a display may come into it and I also thought that we may see an iMac Pro something nobody has thrown up sadly but a larger display on the base iMac? Maybe but how much can a single M1 output ? iMac Pro seems like it could be a thing, although Apple are dumb enough with naming to release it as the iMac Max...
MacWorld wroteBut the tagline suggests more. It’s been nearly 16 months since Apple released the M1 chip, its first Apple-made processor for Macs, so that could mean it’s time for an update with the rumoured M2.
MacWorld also then wrote the above, which made me laugh out loud, just a little
![Giphy - guru studio lol GIF by True and the Rainbow Kingdom]
(
These clowns have been pandering to SEO and readers by suggesting M2 was on the way since M1 was released
It's not like any of the other Mac/tech related websites are innocent of this "its right around the corner" mentality either.
As a consumer the best thing you can do is get the facts from official sources, MacRumours, 9to5Mac, MacWorld and XDA are all fantastic amazing websites with so, so much information coming out on many overlapping and underlapping subjects that it can be daunting figuring out when to pull the trigger and spend that hard earned cash on a new system that may see you through the next 9 years..
I swapped out a Mac Mini Late 2012 for the M1 Mac and it was only done because sites like the above mentioned ones offered great benchmarks, insights into what was offered for what I could afford and had an active community to debate or confirm what was being published.