Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen a spate of leaks showing off what are alleged to be the upcoming M4 MacBook Pro. From photos of retail boxes to full-blown unboxing videos, the internet has been awash with the next MacBook Pro, despite the fact that Apple hasn’t even announced it yet.
Despite the constant media attention, there have been consistent doubts about the leaks — for some, they just had a few too many question marks to be trusted. Yet Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman has just dropped a bombshell by throwing his weight behind the leaks, writing in his latest Power On newsletter: “I can confirm that these are indeed Apple’s upcoming M4 MacBook Pros.” Gurman is one of the most accurate and consistent Apple leakers in the business and claims to have sources deep inside the company. So, when he says something is genuine, there’s a good chance he’s right.
According to Gurman, there are a few reasons to vouch for the devices shown online. For one thing, “the specifications — as well as the internal model numbers for the device — all align with what I’ve been reporting for weeks,” Gurman says. Presumably, Gurman has been able to confirm the leaks’ veracity with his sources inside Apple, leading him to be confident in his conclusions.
Good news and bad news
If Gurman is right and these are the actual M4 MacBook Pro laptops that we’ll be seeing at Apple’s October event in a few weeks’ time, there are some major implications from this whole affair, for us as consumers and for Apple as a company.
If you’re a consumer and are interested in getting a new MacBook Pro, the confirmed leaks come with a healthy dose of good news. For instance, Gurman believes that the leaked photos and videos depicted the base configuration of the new MacBook Pro, rather than a higher-end option with upgraded parts.
If that’s so, then the entry-level MacBook Pro should be getting some tasty upgrades. The models shown in all the leaks bore the same internal configuration: M4 chip, 16GB of memory and 512GB of storage. The difference here when compared to the M3 MacBook Pro is that Apple appears to be doubling the memory in the entry-level MacBook Pro, up from 8GB to 16GB. That should provide a welcome boost to multitasking and any memory-intensive workloads, while also fixing a problem that Apple has been denying for close to a year.
As well as that, the leaked MacBook Pro models are equipped with three Thunderbolt 4 ports. That’s a serious upgrade on the two Thunderbolt 3 slots the current MacBook Pro gets, both in terms of quantity and capability. And if you’re a fan of Apple’s SpaceBlack colorway, it looks like that will no longer be restricted to high-end MacBook Pro models, with the base M4 version sporting this color as well.
But while the implications of the leaked MacBooks are pretty encouraging for us consumers, they’re far less so for Apple. That’s because a breach of this scale and audacity has never happened to the company before. Sure, the iPhone 4 leaked in 2010, but that was just a single unit. This time we’ve got 200 units of the M4 MacBook Pro apparently up for sale, as well as multiple hands-on videos by Russian YouTubers and photos revealing all of the product’s internal specs. When it comes to the M4 MacBook Pro, it seems that nothing is secret or unknown anymore.
Banishing the doubts
Before Gurman’s Power On report, the major doubt surrounding these leaks was that the M4 MacBook Pro appeared to have the same desktop wallpaper on its packaging as the M3 MacBook Pro. It’s incredibly rare for Apple to do this from generation to generation — I certainly can’t think of a time when Apple has used exactly the same wallpaper two versions running — and it seemed like a huge giveaway that these laptops were not authentic.
Yet while Gurman concedes that this is move is “an odd and rare choice,” he maintains that “I am certain these machines are the real deal.” Somewhere deep inside Apple, someone must have confirmed to Gurman that Apple has made this strange choice and that the laptops are legitimate.
As for how the Russian YouTubers got the laptops despite Apple enforcing a trade embargo with Russia, Gurman says, “I believe these [laptops] were stolen elsewhere in Europe before being sent to the country.” Without access to Gurman’s connections, none of us can confirm this for ourselves, but it certainly seems plausible.
With just a few weeks to go until the M4 MacBook Pro hits store shelves (Gurman expects it to go on sale around November 1), there’s not long before we find out if these leaks are on the money. With someone as prominent as Gurman giving them his blessing, you wouldn’t want to bet against them.