There has been a lot of back and forth over the last month about whether there will be updates to the iPad lineup (we ended up just getting a low end Apple Pencil!) or the Mac lineup before the end of the year. This event is set to focus on the later, with the stream somewhat curiously set to start at 5 PM Pacific Time, which is midnight Monday evening in the UK. I am expecting the stream to be brief, lasting less than 30 mins, enabling them to clear the decks as they go into the holidays.

iMac

The iMac was in the first round of Apple Silicon redesigns, being updated in April 2021. Although the M1 Processor is still fast enough, the RAM ceiling of 16 GB is becoming a bit of a sticking point for some buyers considering purchasing it with the view of it be up to the task for a number of years in the future. The iMac is set to get updated to the M3, skipping the M2 generation of chips entirely, with no other major changes expected.

MacBook Pro 14 and 16 inch

The MacBook Pro 14 and 16 inch were only updated in January this year to the M2 Pro and M2 Max chips, which raised the RAM ceiling from 64 to 96 GB and enabled support for 8k displays up from 4k over HDMI, amongst over incremental changes. Having only seen a major redesign in Oct 2021, I would expect another incremental round of changes with the most notable being the inclusion of the M3 Pro and M3 Max chips, and judging by the iPhone updates this year, the focus of the announcement will be on GPU Performance improvements. This probably means we get to see another Resident Evil demo …

USB-C Peripherals

In September we saw the iPhone and AirPods Pro be updated from Lightning to USB-C charging, so with the update of the iMac we are set to see all of its peripherals; Keyboard, Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad also be updated to USB-C. The most curious thing to see is if they revamp the Magic Mouse so it can used while being charged … maybe they will make it compatible with MagSafe so it can be docked and charged every time you are away from the computer?