Apple may be planning a surprise October M3 iMac announcement

October starting to slip away, and so far, all we’ve gotten was a very confusing Apple Pencil, despite rumors of iMacs and iPads. Well, it sounds like that new 24-inch M3-powered iMac is on its way this month after all. Mark Gurman thinks so, having written in his Power On newsletter for Bloomberg today that it’s coming very soon — as early as October 30th, in fact. That would end, as Gurman notes, an over 900-day drought since the M1 iMac launched in the first half of 2021.

Gurman writes that he was “told that Apple is planning a Mac-centered product launch around the end of this month.” He adds that if you try to order the iMac, 13-inch MacBook Pro, and either of the other higher-end Pro models, several of their configurations aren’t shipping until November. Gurman calls this, and the fact that Apple is posting its earnings in November, a “clear sign” that something is afoot in Cupertino. As he says, the last time Apple held off on discussing this quarter’s earnings until after October, it had just held a Mac and iPad announcement.

As Gurman acknowledged, the 14- and- 16-inch Pro laptops were refreshed in January, so they may still be on a 2024 release timeline, but it’s been over a year since the 13-inch MacBook Pro was updated, and the iMac, again, is creeping toward its third year on the same chip.

At the end of the subscriber version of Power On, Gurman responded to a reader’s question asking if he thinks the next MacBooks will see changes beyond internal upgrades. He says he doesn’t expect significant differences apart from processors and perhaps “minor improvements to displays,” but predicts the next real change will be a new iMac Pro in 2025, then OLED MacBook Pros in 2026, probably with updated designs and features.