Last Tuesday, Apple SVP Greg Joswiak tweeted the Apple Event announcement Mac enthusiasts the world over have been hoping for - ever since the June 22, 2020 WWDC announcement that Macs would move entirely from Intel to custom silicon (specifically, a "family of Mac SoCs")

As the cool kids on social media might say, tell us you're introducing new pro-class-laptop/enthusiast-level Macs without telling us you're introducing new pro-class-laptop/enthusiast-level Macs.

(Coincidentally, Gesaffelstein is pretty great.)

What's on tap for Monday? Of course, no one really knows for certain...Apple's been trying to work on product leak control for a while now. But you don't do a Mac event without at least two Mac SKUs, which makes

(1) a new 16-inch MacBook Pro and

(2) the oft-rumored, much-anticipated "14-inch" MacBook Pro

as close to "given" as rumored unannounced products can get.

And the precedent of November 2020's event makes it highly likely in my book that Apple will give a third SKU, the Mac mini, the "pro-up" (get it) that most people probably never even thought possible in a form factor that compact. Apple already leaned into making Mac mini more of a professional device with its major refresh three years ago, after all, so it's a natural progression albeit with the most performant SoC yet seen for the form factor.

Let's take a quick look at possible "locked-in" standard features, and then I'll make some just-for-fun SKU predictions for tomorrow.

"Standard Features"

>> CPU

Yes, a SoC is far more than its CPU and GPU. But these remain *ahem* core to the computing experience, until there's some major paradigm shift. Oddly, the rumors seem most convinced that every Mac being announced tomorrow will have the same "8+2" CPU configuration - meaning eight performance cores paired with a "mere" duo of efficiency cores. It's now very clear that the quad efficiency cores from Apple A11 onward are considerably faster than the those of the A14 (easily around 25%), but at the same perf/W as before.

This along with the persistent rumor that Apple's dropping quad efficiency cores for "M1X" MacBook Pros (first noted by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, I believe) is a big potential hint that Apple will use the N5P technology base that yielded the Apple A15. Perhaps Apple will go further with the higher tech and higher power budget on these "Tier 2" Macs and allow the efficiency cores to literally be bigger than before (closer to a flagship smartphone "mid-core" in general performance terms). After all, M1 efficiency cores use a claimed 1/10th the power of the perf cores...leaving lots of room to raise that power ceiling significantly, since any task handled by an efficiency core still offers superior perf/W.

Now as for the performance cores - eight of them? Really? Since Apple's in charge of its own silicon destiny now, it could certainly create SoC models "best fitted" to its products. For instance, today, a pro-leaning MBP13 with a base price of $1799US offers a standard quad-core 2.0Ghz 10th-gen Core i5 CPU. According to the Geekbench 5 Mac browser, that offers a single-core CPU score of around 1140 and multi-core of around 4220. Would anyone seriously complain if Apple offered a 6-perf-core MBP14, since everything we know about the Apple M1 suggests multi-core scores would easily exceed 10,000 with such a configuration? It would still be best-in-class and could, in theory, leave Apple a precious few watts of power-space to improve battery life and keep fan speeds down while still allowing an outstanding fairly-mobile 3-lb.-laptop experience.

To this armchair observer, Apple's "answer" to CPU-outfitting the "Unleashed" next-tier-up Macs comes down to flexibility and confidence. It's not a question of whether an 8-perf-core CPU is enough for Mac mini through MBP16 - it would be dominant. The question is, is it worth the engineering time and thermal-optimization time to create, say, a 6-perf-core SoC for its "portable performance MacBook Pro" - even though it may well be the highest-volume Mac sold amongst the Performance Apple Silicon set? Would there even be cost savings to pass on to customers (don't laugh, Mac mini M1 is one such real-life scenario) when Apple could, rather than remove CPU cores, "easily" downclock the performance cores a bit to save on power consumption and heat - like they just did for the iPad mini A15?

Unbelievable as it seems, ultrafast CPUs may be standard across the "M1X" line tomorrow - a value-add to keep in mind for later.

>> Redesign, Ports, Screen Bezels

Are we "due" for a form factor redesign of the MacBook Pro line? Absolutely. The MacBook Pro design dates back to 2016 when the Touch Bar and now-banished butterfly keyboard were added. (I'm going to give Apple some credit for shaving off ~13% of the thickness and ~10% of the weight vs. the similar-looking 2015 model.) Meanwhile, the MBP16, though technically a redesign, is still so similar to its MBP15 predecessor in appearance that it's more than reasonable for consumers to expect a redesign, even though this one-off (Intel) SKU is only around 2 years old.

But even without a Touch Bar and still (probably) being a traditional laptop form factor, it'll be the collective changes that make the design difference.

I'm using a MacBook Pro from the first half of the previous decade, so if the HDMI and/or SD card slots "return", I literally won't know what was missing this entire time. 🤣 Meanwhile, TB3/4 and USB4 (of which we should have 3-4 of) are very handy universal connectivity standards (yes, dongles, but also a robust aftermarket of hubs enabling built-in support for every common connectivity standard, including freakin' VGA), and for everything else, there's wireless. Meanwhile, every Mac with Apple Silicon (even the full-redesign iMac 4.5K) retains a headphone jack, so one of the greatest potential Tech Outrages of 2021 will probably be averted. But will Monday's MacBook Pros still be able to charge through any TB3/4 port, regardless of the rumored dedicated MagSafe charging port? Stay tuned.

Ports aside, the biggest, most obvious place for these new MacBook Pros to have a design impact is the display, where bezels can still be trimmed, brightness and contrast ratio boosted, and possibly even have screen corners rounded off ever-so-slightly (though this did not happen for the iMac 4.5K).

Regardless of the final screen dimensions (apparently, 16:10 is no longer a MacBook Pro standard?), a user has to keep in mind that one part of a bezel needs to be carefully thought out (the bottom bezel plus laptop "lid" frame), so that the screen has just that little bit of built-in height no matter the viewing angle. Sure, this is where trick mechanical innovations in springs and hinges could help, but as much as I dislike the heat and battery life woes of my aging MacBook Pro, the durability and simplicity of the hinge is not something I would change for change's sake.

One last design rumor to consider. Screen notch? Nah.

Although I have opinions on the prospect of Apple possibly retaining the same 1:50,000 Touch ID security from the iPhone 5s, eight years later, I don't think there was much need - or time - to add in far-superior Face ID just yet. Part of the problem is sheer engineering; thanks to the teardown experts at iFixit (check out Step 10), we know that the Face ID hardware is indeed smaller, but not by much. Yes, iPad Pro M1 has it, but there's no "laptop lid" on a tablet, so it can use much of its 5.9 mm thickness (for the iPad Pro 11") to contain all of this hardware. When, not if, Face ID comes to a Mac, Apple might have to engineer some kind of "Face ID camera bump" if hardware miniaturization doesn't advance enough within the next couple of years. I'll still take that over a MacBook screen notch any day of the week.

To wrap up, some price and feature predictions.

* * * * * * * * * *

Pricing and Feature Predictions for Monday

Mac mini

Mac mini is a fascinating black (or is it space gray?) box. It offers the most active cooling for the the exact same M1 chip found in Apple's high-volume Mac lineup. So it makes sense that any Mac mini could, in theory, quite comfortably cool any "M1X" chip being announced on Monday. And Apple could well be fine upping the ante on PCs all the way up to ~500W PSU minitowers and maybe even a bit higher, since Apple is (until Monday, anyway 😁) very comfortable offering $1100-3000 Mac minis on Intel, with options for a 6-core i7, 64GB of RAM, and 2TB of SSD (which might increase to 4TB or higher, who knows)

So for my total WAG, I'll go with:

• 8+2 CPU config (fixed)

• 16 GPU cores, up to 32

• 16GB (unified LPDDR4X?) RAM standard, up to 64GB

• 512GB SSD, up to 4TB

• Standard 10Gb Ethernet (about time, Apple)

• $1,199US starting price for Mac Mini (mostly "because of" the extra standard RAM and Ethernet upgrade vs. the Intel version)

Sure, $100 higher wouldn't be welcomed, since we're all the most spoiled tech brats ever. But in fairness to us, we also have to suffer through some rather unprecedented supply chain disruptions and numerous other issues related to a pandemic, thankfully easing but still heading into a second full year and perhaps even a portion of a third.

If it helps (??), the $100 upcharge is basically only adjusting for inflation even from 2018 (US basis) according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Plus, Apple seems very intent on making sure people never want for CPU performance in any M-chip Mac ever again, so upgrading the CPU (if CTO options will even exist for this going forward) will not be a cost item nearly anyone will consider outside of the Mac Pro or iMac Pro segment.

MacBook Pro 14"

Apple hasn't had a 14" display (or at least, a display that marketing could round up to 14" - hi, 23.5" M1 iMac) since 2005.

Back then, Apple had something only long-time Mac users would know about - it was called "iBook". The largest-screened consumer-grade iBook (which weighed 5.9 lbs and was 1.35" thick, by the way) had a starting price of $1300 with a 14.1", 784k-pixel VGA display, so if you're looking for its spiritual successor, the utterly superior $999 MacBook Air M1 (now with frequent discounts!) is your best bet.

Clearly, this new rumored 14" laptop, with Tier 2 Apple Silicon powering it, will be in an entirely different universe than iBook ever was.

Just for fun, I'll predict:

• 8+2 CPU config (fixed, possibly slightly downclocked to save battery and to add a bit of differentiation from MBP16)

• 16 GPU cores, up to 20 (my guess is Apple uses the most modern tech base available, which introduced the concept of "units of five" GPU cores in the iPad mini A15 and iPhone 13 Pro-series)

• 16GB (unified LPDDR4X?) RAM standard, up to 32GB

• 512GB SSD, up to 4TB

• ~600-nit ProMotion LED LCD, with the same general screen tech base as the M1 iPad Pro 11" (maybe adding mini-LED ProMotion as an option)

• $1,799US starting price for MBP14

No mini-LED? What a disappointment, right?

Well, a few things. Aside from product differentiation, there's also a key consideration of pure cost. $1,799 is the current "target price" based on the closest Intel MacBook Pro equivalent, and charging any closer to $2,000 for a "entry-level" MacBook Pro seems a little too high, especially if Apple uses high-speed 8-perf-core SoCs across the next-level-up Mac line. We also know mini-LED adds a bit more thickness (just look at the iPad Pro 12.9) and likely weight, which might not work so well for a more compact laptop at this point.

Finally, 600 nits of brightness @ 120Hz adaptive refresh (possibly closer to 625 nits, like the iPhone XR and 11) on a display improving to a rumored ~5.9MP would still be a very meaningful improvement from the 500 nits, 60Hz refresh, and 4MP displays in MBP13s today. Keeping the price "the same" - with huge leaps in performance, and maybe even 4-5 more hours of typical-use battery runtime - might be enough to keep Mac fans from being too upset over a less-than-kilonit-peak-brightness display.

MacBook Pro 16"

At last. The mobile workstation. Apple's tech showcase/halo product - even though the MBP14 is seemingly destined to be the top-selling prosumer Mac given the overall lower price and greater portability.

If Mac mini "Pro" and MBP14 will have 8+2 CPU core configs, shouldn't MBP16 at least have the option to add even more? Sure, this segment of the Mac installed base would love it. But Apple clearly isn't in the business of offering a bunch of core configurations and speeds like typical silicon merchants, as Rene Ritchie aptly calls them. After all, they took the same M1 chip, and added it to four different Mac form factors and an iPad Pro line to boot. One TDP - for a given CPU configuration, anyway - really simplifies thermal engineering and just plain hardware engineering.

So if Apple decides to add even higher-performance CPU options for this "M1X" generation, maybe we'll get two or three, max. Perhaps starting with the upcoming larger iMacs that...should?...be on the way to replace the iMac 5K.

In the meantime, having a MBP16 that might just multiprocess (given fully optimized software) around twice as fast as the current top-spec MBP16 running Intel, at lower power, without having to pay $200 or more to buy up to that CPU power (to say nothing of the standard GPU power!), should be enough for most.

My random key-specs predictions:

$2,399-$2,499 base model:

• 8+2 CPU config (no option to upgrade the CPU on any MBP16 this year)

• 20 GPU cores, fixed (the fastest, highest-binned ones, "derived from" the iPhone 13 Pro-series)

• 16GB (unified LPDDR4X?) RAM standard, up to 64GB

• 512GB SSD, up to 8TB

• the same ProMotion mini-LED display tech as iPad Pro 12.9, meaning 600 nits typical, 1000 nits max full-screen brightness, 1600 nits peak for HDR

$2,899-$2,999 top-end model:

• adds 10-20 GPU cores

• starts at 1TB storage

• starts at 32GB RAM

Kind of expensive? Relative to competitors, yes. Always. We'll see how the competition reacts to the performance per [choose your unit of currency] as well as perf/W, though.

* * * * * * * * * *

An Exciting Prosumer Start, But With Unfinished Business

Unless Apple shocks us all and unleashes an Apple Silicon Mac Pro on Monday, it seems like the rumor signs are pointing to Apple more or less repeating the "three new Apple Silicon Macs" pattern from last November, just with this incredibly-anticipated "M1X" chip.

But as some chip enthusiasts will point out, both on the Mac and PC side, these aren't expected to be fastest personal computer CPUs or GPUs out there in absolute terms.

Mac observers (myself included) are probably right, if only because this "M1X" sure looks to be more of a mid-power chip with the sheer bandwidth to compete with minitower and workstation computers operating at much higher power. (Oh don't worry, it could still end up best-in-class by a wide margin, never mind being the fastest laptops to date.)

The Mac installed base (predominantly on laptop, mostly at MBP13-level and below) needed to be addressed in a certain logical order of price and volume - or at least, it's hard to argue with that rationale, considering also that it probably wasn't as relatively challenging to "upgrade" A14 to the M1.

Now that numerous lucky MacBook Air, MBP13, Mac mini and iMac customers have their M1, Apple next needs to address their very key Mac power-user/pro/enthusiast base, which is crying out for Apple Silicon updates.

This generally-mobile-pro demographic mostly uses laptops that the upcoming rumored MBP14 and MBP16 are meant to replace (with a side of bigger iMac, similar to the iMac 4.5K for lighter-use consumers). "Big Iron" Apple Silicon, as I like to call it, is simply not the highest priority - yet.

PC observers, meanwhile, can rightly point out (even in a semi-justified mocking tone) that Apple has done rather poorly by its top-end, lowest-volume Desktop Pro customer base, even though Apple's Pro Workflows team is trying hard to change that. Mac Pro has not seen any CPU update in nearly two years, just some new GPU options and added MPX module vendor support. iMac Pro was never updated after its launch in Dec. 2017, making it a decidedly transitional machine as Apple pushed to changeover all Macs to its own silicon.

I have a lot of sympathy for those long-suffering pro customers, but for now, they can get a glimpse of the future with tomorrow's event. And it promises to be fairly exciting. Both the event, and the future of Apple Silicon.