Apple ‘Pro and Tell’ event LIVE: Touchscreen MacBook Pro, new iPad mini and all the news as it happens
Apple is ready to 'Pro and Tell' us all
Don't expect an OLED MacBook Air anytime soon
All this talk of an OLED touchscreen MacBook Pro has prompted a question amongst the team: will the MacBook Air get the OLED treatment? Short answer: not for a while.
According to reports, Apple are indeed testing one, but it's "some way off," and the annual spring time update will bring a standard LCD display to the Air again.
The OLED MacBook Pro won't come cheap
I spoke to David Naranjo, Associate Director at Counterpoint Research, who just ran a Bill of Materials (BOM) analysis to see what the price of the OLED MacBook Pro would actually be. Spoiler alert: it's going to get a price hike.
Price prediction is "between $2,799 and $2,999."
Some of this is the tandem OLED screen inside being more pricey than the mini LED panel you see at the moment. But what we're seeing is OLED being used as a "way for PC makers to justify higher prices as memory and component costs go up," in Naranjo's own words.
Is macOS ready for touch? Here's what I'd change
So ahead of the (reportedly) imminent MacBook Pro with OLED touchscreen, I stuck the Intricuit Magic screen to my M5 MacBook Pro to see how it fares.
Now, I know that chances are Apple has already thought about this, and will launch a touch-friendly version of macOS with the Pr-OLED.
But I hope it comes with aggressive icon scaling to improve the hitbox on smaller things, actual multitouch gestures like what you see on the trackpad, and some lessons learned from the iPhone Duo snapping apps together easily in splitscreen sesions.
iPad mini 8 pre-orders start at 10:10am PT on Wednesday... why the weird timing?
That is a weirdly specific time for the pre-orders to begin...I think that's a tell for something here, which I'll explain. And it's something MacRumors also picked up on too.
The LA experience begins on Wednesday at 10am PT sharp, so that's a 10-minute gap...seems like a nice enough gap for a certain video detailing the new OLED MacBook Pro!
BTW, you can see where you can pre-order the iPad mini 8.
How much will M6 iMac and M6 MacBook Pro cost?
Now, this is where we've not heard much in the rumor mill, so let me take a crack at it.
RAMageddon hit Apple hard earlier this year, as prices of all its computing tech went up by around $2-300. That puts the iMac at $1,499 and the base model MacBook Pro at $1,999.
These will most probably start at a base memory configuration of 16GB, and these sound like nice, round prices, which I think the Cupertino Crew will keep.
So my official predictions:
- M6 iMac: $1,499
- M6 MacBook Pro: $1,999
M6 by the numbers
So we've already tested the M6 in this year's Mac mini, and in my mate Anthony Spadafora's words, the chip "really shone" and "didn't miss a beat" under strenuous multitasking pressure.
| Header Cell - Column 0 | Mac mini M6 |
MacBook Pro M5 |
MacBook Pro M5 Pro |
|---|---|---|---|
Geekbench 6.7 single-core |
4708 |
3613 |
3701 |
Geekbench 6.7 multi-core |
21405 |
17505 |
29411 |
Handbrake (Mins:Secs) |
2:45 |
3:31 |
1:45 |
Compared to the previous M4 iMac, this is a warmly welcomed upgrade, and those super cores do point to a notable improvement over the M5 MacBook Pro.
Not to say you should upgrade if you already have one! But good to see!
Expect M6 stuff today
If you're locked in for the OLED MacBook Pro, chances are you'll have to wait until tomorrow. Apple revealed its hand when unveiling the iPad mini 8 yesterday!
My guess: they're going to slow-play this over the next couple of days leading up to a big fanfare announcement on Wednesday at the actual event in LA.
So if the touchscreen Pr-OLED is going to be Wednesday for the big thing, what does that leave? Simple: I'm predicting that today we'll see the M6 iMac and M6 MacBook Pro (base model) announced.
I imagine it'll be similar to yesterday's announcement — an update of the Apple Newsroom and a promo video. Keep it locked here for the second it happens at (total prediction) 9am ET.
Jason, checking in!
Welcome to the Apple 'Pro and Tell' live blog! I've been combing through the news, leaks and rumors leading up to this event for months now, and we're finally (possibly) at the start of a new paradigm shift for the MacBook Pro!
I'll walk you through everything. But to kick things off, we got one particularly mini but mighty announcement — an overhauled iPad mini with OLED display.
And I'll be real with you... I'm so tempted to pre-order. This is the upgrade I've been waiting for: that gorgeous OLED panel, A20 Pro chipset, under-display speakers to seal it for better durability!
But I wanna know what you think.
