M2 13-inch MacBook Pro may land in March with unchanged design

AppleInsider · February 15, 2022 12:40PM

The updated 13-inch MacBook Pro with an "M2" chip is expected to arrive in March, but Apple is rumored to keep the same design as the existing M1 model, instead of a revamp to bring it closer to the 14-inch and 16-inch models.

Apple is widely believed to be preparing a special event for March, with a new Mac expected alongside an updated iPhone SE. In new rumors, it is proposed that the new 13-inch MacBook Pro will look just like the old one, with the refresh being more a specifications bump than anything.

The new model will allegedly retain the same notch-less display design, one that also apparently won't have ProMotion support. It will also have the Touch Bar, an element that was removed from the 14-inch MacBook Pro and 16-inch MacBook Pro.

While the external styling will apparently stay the same, the internals will be different, with the use of the M2 chip instead of the M1 being the main upgrade.

The claims from MacRumors stem from information provided by a leaker who previously correctly revealed the existence of the notch on the 14-inch and 16-inch models, and that it didn't have Face ID support.

Previously, a February 06 report said the new entry-level MacBook Pro would lose the Touch Bar, but wouldn't have a ProMotion or mini LED display, to save costs. There has also been some speculation in January that Apple could instead introduce a new 14-inch model with M2 to become the new base model option.

As a potential sign of new Mac models on the horizon, a trio of Macs appeared in EEC regulatory filings on February 14. There have also been reports Apple's suppliers have paid staff to skip the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday to maintain production and meet deadlines, which could be to prepare for the new Macbook Pro model launch.

The M2 is thought to be an improvement over the M1, with the same eight CPU core count but at higher clock speeds, as well as boosting the GPU core count from 7-core and 8-core options to 9-core and 10-core.

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blastdoor · February 15, 2022 1:34PM

I wonder if apple just has a bunch of Touch Bar’s lying around that they need to get rid of.

caladanian · February 15, 2022 2:49PM

A new MacBook with Touch Bar is really crazy. Either it’s dead or it’s not. But this chaos is like having both lightning and usb-C in iPads

muthuk_vanalingam · February 15, 2022 2:53PM

caladanian said:

A new MacBook with Touch Bar is really crazy. Either it’s dead or it’s not. But this chaos is like having both lightning and usb-C in iPads

I guess @blastdoor nailed it in post #1. Please read it.

9secondkox2 · February 15, 2022 2:57PM

Pretty sure It will be just “MacBook.”

Otherwise it’s a marketing mess.

Keeping the Touch Bar seems a bit foolish.

But as someone’s already mentioned, this model could just be bait to do an inventory drain snd minimize losses on unsold touchbar components.

A shame Apple couldn’t figure a way to make the Touch Bar more practically impactful. Was a brilliant idea in theory.

charlesn · February 15, 2022 3:58PM

9secondkox2 said:
A shame Apple couldn’t figure a way to make the Touch Bar more practically impactful. Was a brilliant idea in theory.

MANY would disagree that Touch Bar was "a brilliant idea," but leaving that debate aside--Apple needs third parties to support these innovations in their apps to make them truly useful and that never happened with Touch Bar. The iPhone's 3-D Press tech suffered a similar fate of insufficient support from third parties in their apps.

aderutter · February 15, 2022 4:06PM

Personally I would be inclined to expect a new 13” MBP with refreshed design like the 14”/16” but still with the M1 chip.

I can’t see any point in the same MBP but M2 instead of an M1. The M1 is still really capable - I use the cheapest M1 Mini with 8GB Ram for coding, video conversion and some 3d work!

blastdoor · February 15, 2022 4:35PM

mike54 said:

Will the M2 chip be ARMv9 or not?

I’m guessing ‘not’ and also quite possibly ’never’.

I also think there’s a good chance apple will do the practical equivalent of forking ARM, and exposing new functionality only through apple APIs.

In ten years, ARM might be totally gone from apple SOCs, replaced by a black box

hypoluxa · February 15, 2022 5:04PM

blastdoor said:

I wonder if apple just has a bunch of Touch Bar’s lying around that they need to get rid of.

That would be my guess too! Weird, but ok.

9secondkox2 · February 15, 2022 5:28PM

charlesn said:

9secondkox2 said:
A shame Apple couldn’t figure a way to make the Touch Bar more practically impactful. Was a brilliant idea in theory.

MANY would disagree that Touch Bar was "a brilliant idea," but leaving that debate aside--Apple needs third parties to support these innovations in their apps to make them truly useful and that never happened with Touch Bar. The iPhone's 3-D Press tech suffered a similar fate of insufficient support from third parties in their apps.

And MANY have stated it was a great idea. But most recognize that it was not executed well in the long run. Nevertheless, it really was a "brilliant IDEA." Now that's out of the way, it looks like you agree that nothing was really done with the premise of the Touch Bar with Apple or third parties. Apple had a decent enough start but never followed through. third parties mostly ignored it. That was kind of the whole point of mentioning this. Again, it was a brilliant idea that was not developed enough to be more practical execution.

cia · February 15, 2022 5:30PM

This thing should just be called the MacBook.

libertyandfree · February 15, 2022 5:31PM

hypoluxa said:

blastdoor said:

I wonder if apple just has a bunch of Touch Bar’s lying around that they need to get rid of.

That would be my guess too! Weird, but ok.

Doesn’t really make much sense to include the Touch Bar since Apple removed it from all the other laptops. It’s a dead end technology and will not be supported by 3rd party so why include it. I would imagine the Touch Bar is gone in the update. Hopefully they update the display to 14” that would be sweet.

aderutter · February 15, 2022 8:08PM

I’ve said it before but the TouchBar tech should eventually become TouchKeys - so physical keys which can each have changeable icons on them. So in Photshop you have the photoshop shortcut icons on the keys for example. Best of both worlds.

dewme · February 15, 2022 9:41PM

This is shaping up to be a MacBook Pro SE.

digitol · February 15, 2022 10:52PM

I will probably never purchase a notch version of any Apple product. Hideous.

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pascal007 · February 16, 2022 12:25AM

digitol said:

I will probably never purchase a notch version of any Apple product. Hideous.
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That’s because you never used a MacBook Pro. After 10 minutes, you’d have said : what notch ?

k2kw · February 16, 2022 3:31AM

blastdoor said:

I wonder if apple just has a bunch of Touch Bar’s lying around that they need to get rid of.

Probably but also it’s probably more difficult with COVID to design , engineer and manufacture ever thing so redesigning this is lower in the list than finishing the Transition to M series chips. They probably have enough thermal headroom that drop in upgrades will be easier for them in the future.

wood1208 · February 16, 2022 1:51PM

Apple is smart to bring lower cost Macbook Pro which is a welcome news for many but without that looser touch bar. The touch bar is dead,dead,dead.

tenthousandthings · February 16, 2022 2:29PM

Pretty much everything about this rumor is unexpected. That somehow makes it feel like it has to be accurate. It’s not hard to imagine how pandemic issues could cause them to extend production of this model and do a simple refresh.

The most interesting thing about this rumor is the M2 refresh, so soon. If true, then combined with the recent EEC filings, this means the new laptop model number is an M2 Air, and at least one of the desktop model numbers is an M2 Mini.

aknabi · February 16, 2022 2:31PM

When in doubt assume the rumor with the smallest incremental change... it's how Tim "Supply Chain" Apple rolls.

techconc · February 16, 2022 3:09PM

mike54 said:

Will the M2 chip be ARMv9 or not?

Good question. I'm going to speculate and assume it won't. If the M2 came out later this fall, I think it would have had a chance. It seems too early for it now. I'd be surprised if the ARMv9 was not first debuted on an iPhone, presumably the A16. I suppose there is no reason they couldn't do it now. However, they haven't finished rolling out the M1 based Macs, so I'm assuming if an M2 comes out next month it will be based on the A15 technology.

M2 13-inch MacBook Pro may land in March with unchanged design

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