Finally, we have confirmation of the long-anticipated fall Mac launch. The rollout, however, may be a bit unconventional for Apple.
At first, we expected a product event, then we speculated about videos and press releases — and now Apple has revealed an entire “week of announcements” starting on Monday morning. It’s expected that the announcements will include the latest M4 refreshes for the Mac lineup, including the MacBook Pro, iMac, and a completely refreshed Mac mini. While many of those will merely be M4 updates, this may end up being the biggest single window of Mac releases since the initial M1 launch in 2020 in terms of sheer quantity.
Mac (😉) your calendars! We have an exciting week of announcements ahead, starting on Monday morning. Stay tuned… pic.twitter.com/YnoCYkZq6c
— Greg Joswiak (@gregjoz) October 24, 2024
As mentioned, hardware designs are expected to stay the same, with the Mac mini being the one exception. The mini PC is expected to get its first major redesign in over a decade — and perhaps this could be something Apple wants to give extra attention to later in the week.
According to Mark Gurman’s latest reporting, we might also get updates for the Magic Trackpad, Magic Keyboard, and Magic Mouse. Don’t get too excited though. We’re not expecting Apple to finally start from scratch on the infamous Magic Mouse, instead just updating the port from Lightning to USB-C. These could potentially get their own separate announcement, though they are most likely launching alongside the M4 iMac.
Will Apple spread these out throughout the week or reveal all six of these products on Monday morning? Who knows, but Apple certainly suggested that the announcements will only “start” on Monday morning.
As for the M4 MacBook Pro, it has been talked about extensively for months now. Everyone knows it’s coming, and it has also suffered from some pretty unprecedented leaks (whether they were real or not). It would be quite exciting if Apple decided to show off just how secretive it can be by revealing something we haven’t heard anything about yet.
That might be a little optimistic, however. Some responses to Apple senior vice president Greg Joswiak’s tweet are quite negative, writing off the announcements entirely because they believe the lack of an event means there won’t be anything exciting.
But, if nothing else, we can at least be happy that the wait is finally over — and I’m personally excited to see what the M4 MacBook Pro wallpaper will look like because there’s no way it will be the same as the M3 one we saw in all the leaks, right?
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Google DeepMind's AI world model Genie 4 can now build interactive worlds that you can explore and reshape as they run. It also generates ambient sounds, music, and dialogue that respond to your actions.
The new world model builds on Genie 3 with improved realism, more natural human movement, and better simulations of real-world physics. It could eventually help with everything from game development to training robots.
Apple has an incredible talent for making me admire its products while simultaneously questioning what on earth it's thinking with the pricing. This isn't even something as bizarre as a monitor stand, but the audacity for starting a new laptop lineup from $2,000 doesn't surprise me.
The newly announced 14-inch MacBook Pro with M6 is just the latest to showcase this. The funny thing is, I already know that it's going to be a reliable workstation. You get a powerful new 2nm M6 processor, a gorgeous Liquid Retina XDR display, and up to 24 hours of battery life. We were impressed by the M5 MacBook Air, so the high-end M6 powered MacBook Pro definitely won't let us down.