New MacBook, iMac and Mac mini all but confirmed for Apple’s October 30th special event

“After weeks of rumors and speculation, it is now all but certain that Apple will use its October 30 event to reveal a new iMac, MacBook and Mac Mini,” Alistair Charlton writes for GearBrain. “This news comes from a filing made by Apple with the Eurasian Economic Commission, a government body similar to the FCC in the US. This is a necessary process which Apple – and other manufacturers – must complete before bringing new products to market, and is a very strong sign that new devices are almost ready to go on sale.”
“Discovered by French Apple blog Consomac, the new model numbers are A1932, A1993, A2115, and A2116,” Charlton writes. “The site claims these refer to new versions of iMac, MacBook and Mac Mini – the latter of which has not received a single update since 2014, leading us to wonder if it was going to be discontinued.”
“This latest revelation falls into line with the predictions of renowned Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who is especially confident of Apple releasing a new laptop at its New York event on October 30,” Charlton writes. “What isn’t quite clear for now, is whether this laptop will be an update to the MacBook, or a new version of the MacBook Air.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: To us, it makes perfect sense for the MacBook Air brand to be retired.
The only slightly strange issue with that is that a new 13-inch “MacBook” would only differ by 1-inch on the diagonal from the current 12-inch MacBook. Yes, there’s a significant increase in screen real estate there, but Apple usually has a 2-inch separation between notebook models (11-inch MacBook Air vs. 13-inch MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro vs. 15-inch MacBook Pro, for two examples). So, maybe the “Air” name lives on for the sake of differentiation? Or, more likely, there are further points of differentiation between the 12-inch and 13-inch MacBook (2018) models than just display size (ports, processors, internal storage, etc.)
Only five (long) days to go!