Earlier this month, Apple introduced the iPhone 7 and Apple Watch Series 2 during its September press event. Something that wasn’t mentioned was any news on the Mac line or macOS, even. With the holiday season coming soon, MacBook Pros are expected to launch in late October, according to MacRumors.
The report says Apple will launch its new MacBook Pro models alongside macOS 10.12.1, which is currently in beta for developers and public beta testers.
As previously rumored, the new MacBook Pros will include Touch ID support and an OLED “touch bar” which is currently being tested internally with macOS 10.12.1 which is why we don’t see any user-facing features in the beta. For the 15-inch models, Apple will be shifting to “Polaris” graphics from AMD.
MacRumors says Apple will seed one more beta of macOS 10.12.1 to developers and public beta testers early next week, with a goal of finalizing the software by the end of the week to load onto the new hardware which is being manufactured right now.
The source says that this could change as last-minute bugs or other circumstances may shift Apple’s plan but as it stands the company wants a late October ship date. Smaller bugs may be held until a macOS 10.12.2 update, for more prominent bugs and security fixes are currently being worked on for macOS 10.12.1.
The report does mention refreshed MacBook Airs and iMacs but says it’s unclear whether or not those would warrant a keynote or if Apple will do a simple press release as it’s been known to do in years past.
Aside from that, don’t expect Mac Pro or Mac mini updates as those haven’t been rumored. Nonetheless both product lines are in desperate needs of an update.
