M3 MacBook Air & MacBook Pro may not debut until October
The focus is tightening on Apple's September iPhone 15 event, with new M3 Macs expected to debut with perhaps less fanfare in October instead.
The 2022 MacBook Air
The summer is always replete with rumors about Apple's September event. At one point in the rumor cycle every year, the single event is generally rumored to update nearly every Apple product. The full scope of the event only gets made more clear with time, generally very close to the event.
In his Sunday newsletter, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman sheds some light on what he expects to see in September, and what will launch in October perhaps as only a press release.
"The structure of the event, I'm told, will match the iPhone 14 launch: A prerecorded video will be shown online, as well as at an event at the company's headquarters," Gurman writes. "There's also another launch occurring in October -- likely for the first M3 Macs -- but it's unclear if that will be positioned as a formal event."
A press release debut of new M3 Macs isn't unprecedented. The M2 MacBook Pro, and the M2 Mac mini models didn't have an event. And, historically, most Intel MacBook Pro and iMac spec bumps after a new chassis debuted hit the street after a press release.
Over the last ten years, Apple had October events in 2013, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2021. Full events in October didn't happen in 2015, 2017, 2019, nor in 2022.
The shift over from the M2 generation to the start of the M3 is expected to start in the Fall at some point. As usual for Apple, the M3 Pro, M3 Max, and M3 Ultra launches will be further down the road.
Apple tends to make the 13-inch MacBook Pro, the 13-inch MacBook Air, and the Mac mini the first models to ship in a chip generation, and they are still good candidates this time around. The M2 Mac mini was released in January 2023, so that may still wait a bit if Apple maintains a regular cadence.
The 24-inch iMac is also awaiting an upgrade, missing out on the M2 generation, though there's less of a chance of an M3 15-inch MacBook Air since the M2 hasn't been around that long.
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Comments
I find it hard to believe they will launch M3 notebooks in the Fall. Especially the Air. It is too soon after the M2 launch. I’m betting Spring
If so, I don’t get why Apple would do that.
They’re the same computer, just a bigger screen in one of ‘em.
And, most people ready to purchase the 15” Air would wait if they saw the M3 was in the 13”; they’d know the M3 is just around the corner for the 15”.
Silly.
Some people think the M2 is brand-new. It came out in June 2022 with the MacBook Pro 13. One year later, Apple produces the 15" MacBook Air with the 1 year old M2 CPU and suddenly people think the M2 is brand-new. The Pro and Max versions took forever. Same with the Ultra. That is why no one wants to buy a Mac and Mac sales are down. No one wants to buy a Mac with a 1 year old CPU in it, wondering if they are ever going to get around to updating the line of Macs.
How did you not know that Apple would be releasing an Intel Mac when you bought your iMac G5 in late 2005? In June 2005 at WWDC, Apple said they would be switching to Intel in 2006.
The root problem is that M1 and M2 could easily be called A14X and A15X, but they are marketed as being something more than what they are (I'm not suggesting that what they are is problematic in any way, just they they are being marketed as something they are not). It’s an inaccurate portrayal of what Apple is doing. It matters because it disguises the actual transformation from A-series to M-series, which is the jump from the A/M to the M Pro/Max/Ultra.
This problem leads to confusion. The M3 will launch in October as the start of the next generation of Macs, and of course it is, but it’s also not. That transformation won’t actually happen until the M3 Pro/Max is launched.
TSMC 3nm generation processes are going to go for 3 to 4 years before moving to TSMC 2nm. So, at least 3 generations of TSMC 3nm with Apple using 2 of them. M3 SoCs in the Fall to Spring 2024 time frame, then M4 in Fall of 2025 at the earliest. M5 on the last TSMC 3nm generation on Spring of 2027. Apple might get a +20% improvement per core from M3 to M5. Hard to believe they can do 20% for each named M3->M4 and M4->M5 generation. So, 10% to 15% per named generation now.
I hope they add more CPU cores: 12+4 perf+eff for the Max at least, add hardware raytracing to the GPUs, and double RAM capacity. 32 GB for the M3 and 128 GB for the M3 Max, at least, but a doubling would be really really nice. Maximum 14 GB/s NAND storage, maybe? It may run too hot for marginal performance gains, so, 7 GB/s should be fine.