Apple’s 15-inch Touch Bar MacBook Pro has become hard to come by and its current shipping times may be a hint that new models will be introduced at the company’s Worldwide Developer Conference next week. Right now Apple’s online store is showing the laptop as shipping no earlier than June 5, which is the first day of the event.
WWDC is Apple’s annual event where Mac, iOS, Apple Watch, and Apple TV developers meet with the company’s own engineers and learn more about coding for the platforms. Apple kicks off the multi-day conference with a keynote presentation showing off features from the next OS releases, and occasionally uses the event to unveil new hardware, too.
Rumors have been saying Apple will refresh the Touch Bar MacBook Pro at WWDC. The new model is expected to use Intel’s Kaby Lake chipset and support more than 16 GB RAM. The Touch Bar models were introduced in October 2016, so this will be a faster than usual refresh cycle.
Other rumors claim Apple will introduce its Siri-based countertop voice assistant appliance to compete with Amazon’s Echo. A brand new 10.5-inch iPad Pro, along with updates for the MacBook Air and 12-inch MacBook are reportedly coming, too.
That’s a lot to introduce, especially since Apple also needs time to show off macOS 10.13, iOS 11, watchOS 4, and tvOS 11. Either Apple isn’t introducing all of the rumored hardware products, or Monday’s keynote will be really long.
The Mac Observer will be on location in San Jose for this year’s WWDC and the keynote event. Be sure to stick around for our keynote and conference coverage throughout the week.
I sense another Mac IIvx fiasco coming on…
If new MacBook Pros are announced I hope that when it comes to RAM and storage that they throw more than just a bone to the Professionals.