Mario Bautista
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.
