MacBook Pro with notch, M1 Pro / Max chips… last point on Apple rumors before the keynote – 01net.com

Apple should dedicate the vast majority of his keynote “Hang on” to Macs. A few weeks after the iPhone 13, the Californian brand is preparing to unveil its new Apple Silicon chips as well as new machines designed to harness their power, including the highly anticipated new MacBook Pro.

In his newsletter Power On, journalist Mark Gurman delivers his latest predictions about the new Macs. Two boosted versions of the M1 chip would be on the program.

The MacBook Pros of reconciliation

As we might expect, Apple is set to rectify most of the mistakes of the previous generation MacBook. First example, the Touch Bar should definitely disappear in favor of a classic function bar. Apple understands that the majority of users are not fans of it. Another (big) throwback, Apple should resuscitate certain ports sacrificed in favor of USB Type-C in 2016. MagSafe charging should make a comeback and would be accompanied by other ports dedicated to SD cards and HDMI output , although Mark Gurman is not completely sure what went into the final version of these products. The journalist also indicates that Apple even considered bringing back the USB-A, but would have retracted.

The new MacBook Pro would be available in 14-inch or 16-inch versions, each time with a mini-LED screen, like the latest iPad Pro. This novelty would allow them to achieve OLED-worthy contrast ratios, which is good news for fans of Netflix and other streaming services. The Bloomberg reporter talks about definitions of 3024 by 1964 pixels and 3456 by 2234 pixels.

Finally, Mark Gurman gives us his last questions about the chips of these new Macs. The Apple M1 would not have one but two successors, with names still unknown. Both would ship a 10-core CPU but, on the GPU side, we could choose between 16 and 32 cores. The maximum amount of RAM that these MacBook Pros could receive would be 32 or 64 GB of RAM, while the M1 chip is limited to 16 GB.

For the names of these chips, Mark Gurman hesitates. M1X and M1Z? M1 Pro and M1 Max? Developers say they have identified chips with the names “Pro” and “Max” in their logs. Info or intox ? Answer in a few hours.

120 Hz, notch, 1080p webcam… Rumors galore

Mark Gurman is known to be reliable, but what about the other leakers? This weekend, many accounts, very often Chinese, delivered information on the future MacBook Pros. Most of them strangely agree on other points:

• The appearance of a notch at the top of the screen, like on iPhone
• Using a 1080p webcam
• 120Hz ProMotion refresh rate
• A new layout for the Touch ID button on the keyboard, now round like on the iMac keyboard
• A new charger with a different design

Are they right? What’s troubling here is that their never-before-reported notch information seems plausible. Specialized sites like 9to5mac and MacRumors discovered the existence of leaks from this summer explicitly mentioning a notch with FaceTime camera, TrueTone sensor and mic (but no Face ID). Even the screen resolutions reported by Mark Gurman, of 3024×1964 and 3456×2234, suggest that Apple has removed 74 pixels wide to achieve a 16:10 ratio, as on other Macs. Until tonight, critics of the notch have cause for concern. But why on earth would Apple want to add what is considered the iPhone’s weakest point to its Macs, when the iPads have been spared? Maybe the answer is in the mini-LED, able to hide the notch with black backgrounds?

01net.com will provide you with live coverage of the Apple event as well as recap articles from the announcements. In addition to the MacBook Pro, the new macOS, a more powerful version of the Mac mini and new AirPods are also expected. For once, Apple has kept the secret pretty well.