'Scary Fast' Rumor Report Card: New MacBook Pros and iMac

Apple announced three new devices during its “Scary Fast” event on Monday, including updated 14-inch MacBook Pro, 16-inch MacBook Pro, and 24-inch iMac models, all with M3 series chips. Apple did not announce any other products during the 30-minute event, which was likely the company’s final presentation this year.

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Below, our latest rumor report card provides a look at which rumors were right and wrong or a mix of both following Apple’s event.

Table of Contents

Accurate

Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman said that Apple would likely hold a Mac launch event on October 30 or October 31.

Gurman said the new 24-inch iMac would skip the M2 chip and go right to the M3 chip.

Gurman revealed several accurate CPU core counts, GPU core counts, and RAM amounts for the M3 Pro and M3 Max chips in the new MacBook Pro models.

Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo and Gurman both ruled out new iPads for the rest of 2023, and this event indeed lacked any iPad announcements.

The box for the new MacBook Pro leaked on Chinese social media website Weibo.

Inaccurate

MacRumors discovered that an Apple supplier resubmitted a sixth-generation iPad mini battery filing in a Chinese regulatory database last week, and speculated about the possibility of a seventh-generation iPad mini using the same battery being announced at the event, but this did not happen.

Gurman reported that Apple would likely announce updated versions of the Magic Keyboard, Magic Mouse, and Magic Trackpad for the Mac with USB-C ports for charging, but the accessories are still equipped with Lightning.

Japanese blog Mac Otakara believed that the next 24-inch iMac would be equipped with M2 and M2 Pro chips, but it has the M3 chip.

Mixed

Kuo initially claimed that new MacBooks with M3 series chips were unlikely to launch this year, but he later reversed course and said new MacBook Pro models with M3 series chips would be announced at the event.

Gurman initially claimed that new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models were on track to launch in early to spring 2024, but he later reversed course and said that the laptops would be announced at the event.

MacRumors published a report speculating that Apple’s event would likely have an emphasis on high-end gaming on the Mac. The new M3 series chips for the Mac do feature hardware-accelerated ray tracing for improved graphics rendering in games, as the report mentioned, but the unconfirmed tip that we mentioned about the event having a Japanese developer tie-in was inaccurate.