Apple is rumored to be readying at least three product announcements between now and the end of April. Apple is rumored to be preparing announcements for a 15-inch MacBook Air, a new Mac Pro, and a “sunshiny” new iPhone 14 color option. (As reported by MacRumors)
Apple has been known to announce new products at an event, as well as announcements via press releases on the company’s “Newsroom” website. The company has also announced new products in April, most recently in April 2021, when it unveiled a new iMac, iPad Pro, Apple TV, and the AirTag, as well as a new Purple color option for the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini.
In February, display industry analyst Ross Young said Apple’s supply chain had started production of display panels for a new 15.5-inch MacBook Air. Young has an above-average record when it comes to predictions about Apple products.
Young said he expects the new MacBook Air to launch in “early April” as display production is now underway. However, it is possible that an announcement and pre-orders could come sooner.
A 15.5-inch display size option would be the largest available screen ever for the MacBook Air and would likely be offered alongside the existing 13-inch model. The current 13-inch MacBook Air with the M2 chip was released in July 2022. Apple says the M2 chip boasts up to an 18% faster CPU, up to a 35% faster GPU, and up to a 40% faster Neural Engine when compared to the M1 chip.
Young did not indicate whether the new MacBook Air would be equipped with the M2 chip or the next-generation 3nm-based M3 chip.
If the new MacBook Air does boast a 15-inch display, it would be the largest display ever used for a MacBook Air. The current MacBook Air sports a 13.6-inch display and previous models have also had an 11-inch display. No matter the size of the display, the new MacBook Air is expected to use an LCD panel for the display, as the first model boasting an OLED display panel is not expected to debut until 2024.
In January, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman tweeted that Apple is testing a new version of the Mac Pro running macOS 13.3. macOS Ventura 13.3 will likely be released sometime in the spring, meaning the new Mac Pro could also debut during the same timeframe, possibly at a spring media event.
This means that it is possible that Apple could release both the Mac Pro and macOS 13.3 in the March or April timeframe, but there is still no definitive timeframe for the computer’s release this year. This means there is a chance that the new Mac Pro will be announced at WWDC 2023 in June or later this year.
While the new Mac Pro is expected to feature Apple’s new M2 Ultra chip, a more powerful “M2 Extreme” chip was reportedly canceled. An M2 Ultra-powered Mac Pro would make it the fastest Mac Pro ever, says Gurman.
Gurman expects the new Mac Pro to have the same design as the 2019 model, but he says it will lack user-upgradeable RAM.
Apple traditionally releases at least one new iPhone color in March or April, and a recent rumor in a Weibo post shared by Japanese blog Mac Otakara suggests that the new iPhone color tradition could continue this year.
Mac Otakara says Apple has plans to unveil the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus in a yellow color option this spring. Apple last offered a Yellow color option for the iPhone with the iPhone 11 in 2019 and the iPhone XR in 2018. It is not certain whether a new color will also be made available for the iPhone 14 Pro models.
Other colors have been made available for various iPhones in recent years, including a new Alpine Green color for the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max, and a new Green color for the iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 mini. In April 2021, Apple unveiled iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini models that were available in Purple.