'Unleashed' was likely Apple's last major event of 2021

Apple is likely done with major hardware announcements for 2021 after introducing a long-awaited MacBook Pro redesign, new AirPods and fresh HomePod mini colors at its "Unleashed" event this week, according to a report Friday.

While Apple is rumored to be preparing a number of new products for release, including a larger Apple Silicon iMac and refreshed iPhone SE, the company is not expected to hold another hardware event this year, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said in his Power On newsletter. He speculates that Apple will probably save its next major announcement for 2022.

Had another Mac been ready for release in the last three months of 2021, Apple would have unveiled it at "Unleashed" this week, Gurman concludes, adding that nothing else on the company's roadmap is ripe for introduction before 2022.

Last year, Apple held three events in September and October. The first, dubbed "Time Flies," took place on Sept. 15 and introduced Apple Watch Series 6, Apple Watch SE, a fourth-generation iPad Air and an eighth-generation iPad. A "Hi, Speed" keynote on Oct. 13 saw the unveiling of iPhone 12 and HomePod mini, while "One More Thing" launched Apple Silicon with new 13-inch MacBook Pro, MacBook Air and Mac mini models on Nov. 10.

Looking ahead, Gurman says to keep an eye out for a redesigned MacBook Air that should arrive in six to eight months. Rumors suggest the thin-and-light will incorporate a new "M2" chip, mini-LED display, 1080p camera, MagSafe, multiple color options and more. Also on the horizon are next-generation iPad Pro models that could arrive in the second quarter of 2022.

Further out, the tech giant is anticipated to transition the rest of its Mac line — 21.5-inch iMac and Mac Pro — away from Intel and on to M-series chips. The company has been working feverishly to shift Mac to Apple Silicon by 2022 and is on schedule to meet that deadline.

5 Comments

22july2013 3725 comments · 11 Years

About 3 years ago

Well, I guess we still have Christmas to look forward to. Sigh.

MacsWithPenguins 82 comments · 3 Years

I don’t think they need to release more products right now, either. If you release everything at once, less people will buy, because priorities come into play. Like, an iPhone, iMac, iPad Pro and Airpods plus two Homepod Mini, and the rumored new Apple display. Yeah .. maybe not at once, unless you’re rich or willing to spend it on monthly credit card payments.

EDIT: also .. chip shortage.

mjtomlin 2690 comments · 20 Years

"One more thing..." event in December... the return of the MacBook including the new M2. (MBP 13" will be discontinued.) Price/performance wise this will fill the gap between the Air and MacBook Pro's.

Next March, revamped Air and mini with an updated design and an M2
WWDC22 we'll finally get new iMac "pro" with new M1 Ultra (16+4 CPU, 32/48/64 GPU) and 24" iMac will get an M2 bump.
Then in late Fall 2022, the Mac Pro with the new M1 Extreme (32+8 CPU, 64/96/128 GPU) - this will be the end of the transition.

The Pro/Max/Ultra/Extreme SoC's will get updated every other generation, so M2 will be skipped, and then we'll get these for the M3, then M5, M7 etc.

mpantone 2245 comments · 18 Years

mjtomlin said:

"One more thing..." event in December... the return of the MacBook including the new M2. (MBP 13" will be discontinued.) Price/performance wise this will fill the gap between the Air and MacBook Pro's.

Extremely *EXTREMELY* unlikely.

Apple very rarely has product announcements in November. I don't even recall a December event.

It's obvious that they want their holiday product lineup locked by mid-November. For USA, the biggest holiday shopping day is Black Friday. I think Apple started shipping two products in December in the past decade: the Mac Pro 2019 and the Pro Display XDR, two decidedly non-consumer focused devices.

Note that isn't an Apple specific approach. Both Microsoft Xbox Series X|S and Sony PlayStation 5 were November 2020 launches. Nintendo commenced shipping Switch OLED this month. Xbox One and PlayStation 4 were both November 2013 debuts. This is a recognizable release pattern in the consumer electronics industry.

I'm not even sure a major launch of a consumer electronics product in December is attainable in today's business environment. All of these type of launches rely on air shipping and I don't even know if common carriers have enough planes and infrastructure to handle a major consumer product launch in December on top of the regular seasonal holiday air shipments. The two December professional Mac launches dealt with products that had extremely low unit production numbers.

And the M2 won't ship until 2022. Apple is not going to unveil a new desktop SoC generation less than two months after introducing the M1 Pro/Max.

The smart guess is that Apple will likely keep an annual fall launch for M-series SoCs to coincide with the new macOS release. There might be the occasional oddball spring refresh but I certainly would not count on that.

We've already seen Apple repeatedly cock up launches by doing too much on the same day. Today Apple separates iOS and macOS launches.

We've also seen plenty of cloud service release failures as well. I remember one went so poorly that Jobs was unbelievably livid; Apple eventually ended up extending service subscriptions by months to users.

Personally I think Apple is pretty much done with major hardware launches at WWDC. They might make preview announcements for new hardware technology to be released in the fall but new product releases in June seem to be something in Apple's rearview mirror.