Yes, Apple may have just held a big event in September to announce the
Tim Cook and friends plan to show off a new wave of product announcements at 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET on Monday, Oct. 18. This one’s most likely gonna be a little bit leaner and less explosive than the average iPhone announcement stream, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t anything to watch out for. When Apple does two fall events, the second one tends to be Mac-focused, and that’s what we expect to see this time.
Without wasting any more time, here’s what we think Apple will show off on Monday.
New MacBook Pros
It’s a virtual certainty that Apple will show off new MacBook Pro laptops on Monday. This is what most expect the event to be centered around, actually.
Other potential changes include 1080p webcams, three Thunderbolt ports for connecting to external monitors and other accessories, and the removal of the touch bar atop the keyboard.
New Mac Mini
Less certain but still pretty likely is the inclusion of a new Mac Mini announcement. Stop us if you’ve heard this before:
Aside from whatever performance enhancements come from M1X, the new Mac Mini has a few areas where it could use upgrades from the 2020 release. The M1 model’s USB-C situation was relatively dire, with just two ports. Apple leaker
There’s enough circumstantial evidence and reporting to say that the new Mac Mini is pretty likely to show up on Monday.
macOS 12 Monterey
Last but not least in the “it’d be surprising not to see this” category is some kind of update (most likely a launch date) for
As for what Monterey actually brings to the table, it doesn’t look like it’ll make quite as many big changes as Big Sur. There are some really neat-sounding new features, like “Universal Control,” which lets users wirelessly connect multiple Apple devices like an iMac and an iPad together, so they can move the mouse cursor back and forth, drag and drop files between devices, and so on.
Aside from that, Monterey brings a new version of Safari with standard fare from other browsers like tab groups and a new shortcuts feature that lets users group multiple apps together into one-click macros to open up a work setup with little effort. Again, this is is more of an iterative macOS upgrade, but those features still sound pretty handy. Monterey could go hand-in-hand with new MacBook Pros and a Mac Mini.
Unlikely but worth mentioning: New AirPods
Since this is a Mac-focused event, it’s unreasonable to expect anything other than Mac or Mac-adjacent reveals on Monday. However, we need to pay lip service to the fact that we’ve been hearing
The new entry-level AirPods are said to look more like
It’s worth reiterating that new AirPods are probably not going to be at the Oct. 18 Apple event, but they’re so overdue for a reveal that you should keep them in mind until Apple finally does pull the curtain off of them. As for what we do expect to see, this is probably going to be a Mac event through and through. Sorry, you won’t get two new iPhone events in one season, as exciting as that might be.
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