Malcolm Owen
Packaging for the M4 14-inch MacBook Pro may have leaked, ahead of the rumored October event.
After failing to appear during September's "Glowtime" iPhone 16 event, the Mac and iPad lines are anticipated to turn up during a second one. With an October event becoming a possibility, it seems that at least one Mac line will see an update during it.
In a Sunday X post by serial leaker "VNChocoTaco," an image is provided for what could be a sticker for the back of a MacBook Pro box.
M4 14" Macbook Pro ?
— ShrimpApplePro (@VNchocoTaco) September 29, 2024
Not confirmed, take it with a pin of salt. I got sent this. pic.twitter.com/kbIRYurndw
The sticker is labeled for a 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M4 chip, 16GB of memory, and 512GB of storage. This may not necessarily be for a base model MacBook Pro, as the M3 version had 8GB, 16GB, and 24GB memory capacities.
The rest of the listed specifications seems similar to the existing model, including three Thunderbolt 4 ports, HDMI, an SDXC card slot, and MagSafe 3.
While the image is seemingly laid out correctly and resides above an Apple security strip, there's no guarantee that it's actually genuine. The leak poster also admits "Not confirmed, take it with a pin (sic) of salt. I got sent this." There is a market for faked Apple product security strips, for fraudsters to empty out a box, and replace it with a similar weight, and a faked security strip.
And, there appears to be a typo. An indistinct section of text seems to say that the box contains a "16-inch MacBook Pro."
However, while we cannot tell if the leaked sticker is genuine, it seems to be a plausible set of details, other than the aforementioned 16-inch MacBook Pro inclusion. Aside from being sourced from an fairily prolific leaker with a decent history, It matches the current-gen MacBook Pro for the most part, which would be the case for a spec-bump update.
AppleInsider Staff
Oliver Haslam
Andrew O'Hara
Wesley Hilliard
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
14 Comments
…Easily read the serial nos. by the barcode….will it let Apple find out the leaker…?
um... does Apple usually use the verbiage "Mx CHIP" on it's packaging. That's new to me. They usually specifiy the exact chip configuration (i.e. M3, M3 Max, etc) where they communciate it. But they usually don't put the SOC configuration in that location.
Not saying there isn't validity to an already rumored October event as there is precedent - just that this packaging is a bit dubious. Looks like existing packaging with specs photoshopped on.
in fact, I am not sure Apple puts the SOC on these stickers. I thought it was just RAM and SSD storage.
Also, that pull tab is waaay closer to the sticker than would normally be the case for a laptop box. someone when through the trouble of placing it so that you can see the pull tab and think it's the box. That's some effort and good thinking - if you're trying to pass off a fake. but apple puts the sticker in the middle of the underside of the box. not toward the bottom where the pull tab is.
Then there are the artifacts in the sticker copy.
Then there's the pull tab somehow being placed on top of the sticker.
There are too many issues with this image.
I'm going to say fake.
Compare to this:
In fact, notice the bottom left corer of the top box where the pull tab is. See the shadowing there? Looks kinda like the shadowing on the close-up image sent to ShrimpApplePro. Even the angle is similar. I wouldn't doubt this was the source image used in the photoshop. some bleiding modes, adjustment layers to trhow off the contrast and tone. rotate slightly, and voila. Low res looks like a cheap zoom in rather than a fresh photo. Don't know whay a faker wouldn't just go to a store and get a nice close-up of the box.
"10-core CPU" alone might be a major improvement. All base M3 processors are 8 core.