Apple is reportedly testing its M2 chip ahead of Tuesday’s event

For months, pundits have been pointing to the long-awaited announcement of new iPad Air and iPhone SE models at Apple’s spring event. But last-minute leaks–not to mention the suggestive ‘Peek performance’ tagline attached to the invites–now suggest the Mac line-up could be bolstered by the arrival of high-power updates during tomorrow’s presentation.

Writing in his Power On newsletter, knowledgeable Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman reveals that, according to his sources, Apple “has been testing multiple Macs with a new chip in recent weeks that includes an eight-core CPU (four efficiency cores and four high-performance cores) and 10 GPU cores.” This unreleased processor, Gurman points out, is specced identically to the M2 he has written about in the past.

We’ve written about the M2 ourselves, as it happens, and elsewhere we’ve argued that the upcoming M2-based MacBook Air is the only currently rumored Mac worthy of the hype. However, we remain cautiously optimistic that the Air could yet make its debut tomorrow.

But Gurman sees things differently, talking up a raft of other new Mac releases, based on the new M2 or existing M1 Pro and M1 Max, which he believes will be split between Apple’s March event and WWDC in June. This will include updates to the Mac mini, 27-inch iMac (potentially rebranded as iMac Pro), and 13-inch MacBook Pro, he reckons, along with the aforementioned Air.

But the ‘Peek’ part of the tagline has Gurman’s mind whirring, and he floats a further idea: that tomorrow’s event could contain a preview of releases coming later in the year, including a new Mac Pro.

Is this prediction correct?

If you’re feeling skeptical about the claim, it’s worth giving Gurman his due. No pundit is infallible–even the ones who’ve hit all their predictions so far could fail in the future–but Gurman is riding a wave right now after correctly predicting the date of Apple’s spring event, quite aside from his long record of solid punditry. There’s every reason to believe his sources are sound and that Cupertino has indeed been testing new Mac chips with the tech specs given.

However, as we so often have to point out, the fact that Apple has been testing a product doesn’t mean the company will necessarily announce and launch it on Tuesday. We’d class this prediction as plausible, but Apple may yet choose to focus on its iOS and iPadOS product lines and save the big Mac announcements for WWDC in June.

The truth will be revealed at Apple’s ‘Peek performance’ event. Join us tomorrow at 10 am PT as we report and analyze the announcements as they happen.