A couple on interesting pictures have been unearthed
by a French blog, buried inside the resource files of the first two macOS
Catalina beta builds (10.15.1). These appear to show renders of a MacBook Pro
in both Silver and Space Gray colors that seems very familiar, yet slightly
different upon closer inspection.
Going by the relatively smaller bezel size around
the display, as well as the "macbookpro-16-silver" and
"macbook-pro-gray" file names, it is almost certain that we are
looking at a new iteration in Apple's high-end laptop family. One, that has
already been mentioned by Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo in the past.
As per current rumors and scattered info, the new
16-inch MacBook Pro is expected to feature a 3,072 x 1920 pixel resolution on
its 16-inch display and be powered by Intel's 9-th generation Coffee Lake
processors. Likely going up to an 8-core i9, just like the current 15-inch
MacBook Pro model. The new mac is also widely believed to offer a re-designed
scissor-style keyboard mechanism to finally address all the issues Apple has
been having with its butterfly switches of late.
The biggest change, however, definitely has to be in
the display diagonal. Looking at Apple's official renders of the current
15-inch MacBook Pro, also pulled from macOS alongside the new images or
"icons", as Apple calls these, it seems that Cupertino has managed to
shave-off a lot of display bezel. Meaning that the new laptop probably won't be
that much bigger than its sibling. Another potential upgrade likely to debut on
the bigger MacBook is a Mini-LED display.
However, the latter speculation is rather dependant
on actual timing for the release, since Mini-LED tech is expected no sooner
than next year. And all of this is only possible if we assume the unearthed
"icons" are a viable indication of the new MacBooks's existence and
upcoming release in the first place. Going by previous experience, product
icons within Apple's beta software have actually been quite a reliable source.
The iPhone X's redesign was originally confirmed by such an image, as well as
the iPhone XS Max and new iPad Pro designs. Most recently, we have another such
image to thank for the still rumored noise-cancelling AirPod Pros, which
allegedly make an appearance in iOS 13.2 beta.
Hence, optimistically we could expect to see the new
16-inch MacBook Pro at a second Fall event. Apple has historically been holding
these, often with a focus on iPad and Mac updates. Then again, next year is an
equally viable option. We'll just have to wait and see.
