The Breaker Times

Another round of Apple devices is about to arrive. After launching the iPhone 16 lineup, new Apple Watches, and the AirPods 4 in September, Apple appears to be gearing up to introduce updated Macs and iPads sometime this month.

We’re expecting a fresh round of chip upgrades, at least one redesign, and maybe an October surprise or two (the good kind). The official announcements might come to us via a traditional event or a series of early morning press releases — Apple has taken both approaches in the past, and nobody knows for certain right now. Regardless of how it happens, here’s what we think we’ll see get updates and what might not make the cut.

Apple Intelligence is set to launch “this fall” across compatible iPhones, iPads, and Macs, with the first features arriving in October. That means we should be getting an announcement sometime soon.

First up, we’re expecting Apple’s Writing Tools for rewriting, proofreading, and summarizing, plus a newly designed Siri, new Photos app features such as Clean Up (akin to Google’s Magic Eraser), and live transcriptions of phone calls and voice memos. Other features like ChatGPT search integrations, Genmoji custom emoji, Image Playground generative art, and Visual Intelligence image searching are expected to “roll out later this year and in the months following,” according to Apple.

We first saw these features demoed back at WWDC 2024, but so far, you’ve had to install one of Apple’s developer or public betas to experience them. For iPhones, the features are coming to the 15 Pro / Pro Max and the whole iPhone 16 line. On iPads and Macs, Apple Intelligence will launch on models with M1-generation processors or newer.

Last year’s October event had a big focus on the MacBook Pro line. The 14-inch and 16-inch models both saw chip bumps, and Apple introduced a new stripped-down 14-inch model that finally killed off the Touch Bar. It’s likely we’ll see updates to all three with a jump to the M4 generation, but so far, there hasn’t been much in the rumor mill about major changes design-wise. But a chip upgrade is always welcome, especially if you’re a bargain hunter looking to pounce on some closeout sales of soon-to-be last-gen hardware.

We’re expecting a big redesign of Apple’s smallest desktop computer — likely to make it even smaller. In addition to including new M4 and M4 Pro chips, the new Mac Mini is rumored to shed its USB-A ports and be about as tiny as an Apple TV streaming box. It would be the first major redesign to come to the Mini in about 14 years (longer than The Verge has even been around).

The current Mac Mini with M2 and M2 Pro chips has been with us since the early days of 2023, so a new model does feel timely. A few of us here are Mac Mini stans, in part because it offers a great value proposition for its performance — at least, if you already have a monitor, keyboard, and mouse.

I’m excited to see what a refreshed Mini could look like and just how much an M4 Pro model leapfrogs the current M2 Pro, but potentially having fewer ports gives me pause. It also sounds unlikely that a smaller Mini will have the one thing I’ve really wanted in mine: a speedy built-in SD card slot like the Mac Studio.

The iMac has been on autopilot ever since the machine received its colorful glow-up in 2021. If the October event brings changes to Apple’s all-in-one computer, it’s likely we’ll just see a bump from last year’s M3 model to a fresh M4 version.

The real highlight may be refreshed versions of Apple’s Magic Mouse, Magic Trackpad, and Magic Keyboard that use USB-C instead of Lightning. They’re among the final Apple devices to still use the Lightning port and feel sorely out of place now that the iPhone has switched over (and as the EU’s deadline to move to USB-C creeps closer).

I’m still holding out hope for a bigger iMac refresh sometime down the road. Somebody wake me when we finally get the long-rumored 32-inch iMac or a resurrection of the iMac Pro.

If Apple has any updated tablets in store, the model most due for some changes is the iPad Mini. The current 8.3-inch iPad Mini came out back in 2021, running the A15 Bionic processor we first saw with the iPhone 13 generation. Perhaps it’s time for pilots everywhere to rejoice as the tiniest iPad steps up to an M-series chip? Rumors suggest a refresh is coming — the question is whether the Mini steps up to the big leagues with the M4 or gets relegated to the still-kicking M2 like the latest iPad Air. Either way, anything is better than what happened to the mini iPhones.

There are also rumblings that Apple could update the entry-level 10.9-inch iPad to a new 11th-gen model, but it’s not clear if this update is in the cards for this month or sometime early next year. The current 10th-gen model launched at a pricey $449, but Apple course-corrected by slashing its starting price to $349 earlier this year. An 11th-gen model will likely look very similar, though it might be an opportunity for Apple to clean up and update its messy accessories situation.

The M4 processor debuted five months ago in the latest iPad Pros, and as mentioned above, Apple is expected to announce its latest chips are finally making the jump to most Macs in the coming weeks.

But will we see any M4 Max or M4 Ultra chips debut in refreshes of the Mac Studio and Mac Pro? Those pro-oriented machines are still on the M2 Max and M2 Ultra, so they’re due for an upgrade. But rumors of new models have been pretty nonexistent so far. Plus, getting new chips across the entire line of Macs all at once may be too much of a long shot — Apple has a track record of spacing things out.