Apple To Reveal Surprise In 30th October ‘Scary Fest’

Rumour and speculation have been buzzing amongst Apple fans and the tech press for a week or so now since Apple’s main Events page on its site announced a live event at 5pm Pacific Time tonight; 1am on 31st October in Spain.

Other than time and place, Apple has given no information about the event but there has been a lot of speculation that the only other thing on the page, a black Apple logo that morphs into a stylised Mac Finder icon, points to the big reveal being a new, faster, M3 chip for Macs. 

Apple upgraded the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models with an M2 Pro and ‌M2‌ Max chip in January 2023 so, if speculation is correct, it is a rare twice-in-a-year upgrade. The standard M3 Pro chip will have a 12-core CPU and 18-core GPU, though an upgraded 14-core CPU and 20-core GPU option will be available. The standard M3 Max chip will have a 16-core GPU and a 32-core GPU, plus an upgrade option to a 40-core GPU.

There have also been rumours that the Macbook and Macbook Pro models will get new power-efficient miniLED displays in this upgrade. The new chips would give the Macbooks a significant performance upgrade and, if the rumours about the display are correct, a big improvement to battery life. 

In addition, there’s speculation that the iMac, which hasn’t seen an upgrade since 2021, could also be a beneficiary of the new M3 chips and possibly a tweak to the design of its stand. Rounding off speculation is that Apple will finally be jettisoning the Lightning port charger for accessories such as the Magic Mouse, Magic Trackpad, and Magic Keyboard and move to the more industry-standard USB-C.

It’s also been touted that Apple is likely to upgrade the iMac to Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 in this event, something which they have already introduced to other Macs during the last year. Rumour has it that the M3 ‌iMac‌ is being tested in a range of colours, including orange, blue, pink, and silver which should be popular amongst iMac fans.

The upshot is that it could be a good time to delay any plans to upgrade a Mac or iMac until after the event and then, either go for a new upgrade or hope for reduced prices on the M2 chip versions.