If you’ve been tweaking your IT budgets in anticipation of a new Apple iPhone this fall, you may also want to keep in mind the other highlight of this year’s product roadmap: the highly anticipated powered MacBook Pro. by M.
The files are in
We were hoping Apple would introduce new business grade laptops year round.
Ahead of WWDC 2021, many industry watchers were very hopeful that the company would make these Macs the highlight of the show – especially since Apple had tagged its main YouTube presentation with a metatag m1x macbook pro.
This, as we know, did not happen.
Since then, we’ve heard from senior Apple officials discussing the impact of component shortages on their business, which has generated speculation that the company may have been forced to delay the release of these new Macs.
Ready for fall?
But the scene now looks set for a fall release of these new products, as new documents have surfaced on the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) website that may suggest the release. The EEC is a regulatory body that requires Apple and other electronics manufacturers to pre-register certain data regarding new products before they are shipped.
As reported by Apple’s French site, Consomac, the case deals with two new systems running macOS Monterey with model numbers A2442 and A2485. We don’t know these two model numbers represent the new MacBook Pros, but many Apple watchers seem to be hoping they are.
Bloomberg reports that the 14 and 16-inch MacBook Pro models will ship this fall, possibly followed by updated Mac mini models.
It may be interesting to note that when Apple was planning to introduce the first Mac M1s last year, similar repositories appeared online in mid-October. The products were then announced four weeks later.
Speculation is still brilliant, of course, but September looks even more interesting based on this. While there’s really no guarantee that Apple will ship these machines anytime soon, it does seem possible.
What to expect
The new M1X processor will deliver more cores, energy efficiency and power than the already hugely impressive M1 chips inside the entry-level iMac, Mac mini, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro.
We also recently learned that Apple appears to be set to introduce an even more sophisticated Apple Silicon chip inside the Mac Pro, although it won’t appear until 2H 2022.
We’ve already looked at what to expect from new business laptops, though all of these claims are speculative at this point:
- 2 GHz chip with 16 GB of memory (up to 64 GB supported) and up to 32 cores.
- 15 hour battery life.
- 1080p FaceTime Camera
- No touch bar, SD drive, 3x USB-C, updated MagSafe port, amazing speakers, built-in mic for podcasting and HDMI.
- Maybe a switch to mini LED screens.
What really matters, of course, is that Apple knows that the MacBook Air M1 already delivers the kind of performance you expect from systems that cost a lot more.
These Macs will redefine business computing
With that in mind, the M1X-powered MacBook Pros should bring Apple’s already leading business laptop brand into a whole new league. It seems plausible to expect these Macs to deliver performance and power consumption equivalent to even the fastest chips from Intel and AMD.
Coupled with Apple’s “full widget” approach to developing macOS and the hardware it builds, even the most complex compute tasks should be faster (and quieter) than ever. In real terms, consider this: Adobe recently told us that Apple’s existing M1 chip cuts the time it takes to create transcript and captions for a 5-minute video by 75%. The M1X will exceed that. Adobe also told us that Photoshop on the M1 chips is 1.5 times faster. The M1X will likely overtake that, too.
Apple always says it ships products when it’s ready, but as macOS Monterey heads for the departure gate to be a dynamic companion to these new machines, no matter when the company chooses to ship those new Macs. .
What matters is what they mean – and I would say what these Macs mean is a redefinition of what to expect from business computing.
The world’s fastest and most powerful portable video production or data analysis workstation with one day battery life will be a compelling proposition for many users, especially C suite A-listers who control material budgets.
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