Another Week of Mac? Apple Preps October 28 Finale in Los Angeles

Now that Apple’s “Welcome Home” event is in the rearview mirror, the company isn’t wasting any time teeing up its next showcase. Apple has just sent out media invites to an “all-day product launch experience” in Los Angeles on October 28.

While it’s unclear how widely these invites are being distributed, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman appears to have gotten one — or at least knows they’ve begun going out, as he shared the news on X in the wee hours of this morning.

This roughly aligns with a report Gurman himself shared last week, when he said that Apple would be launching several new Macs “on or around Tuesday, Oct. 27.” While the invites now appear to be pointing to October 28, that qualifies as “around,” especially since Apple may spread out its product launches over the course of two or three days.

That would be similar to what it did for 2024’s “Week of Mac” or even this past March, when it pushed out several products via press release on Monday and Tuesday, culminating in a Wednesday boutique press event where it unveiled the MacBook Neo.

The choice of a Wednesday suggests that Apple may follow a similar playbook, quietly debuting the standard 14-inch M6 MacBook Pro, a new M6 iMac, and the OLED iPad mini via a series of newsroom announcements, saving the touchscreen MacBook Pro for a “main event” that wraps up the week.

While pundits have greatly enjoyed calling this new device the “MacBook Ultra,” we’ve always remained skeptical of that nomenclature for a whole lot of reasons, not the least of which is that Apple already has a chip that bears that name — a piece of silicon that’s almost certainly going to remain exclusive to the Mac Studio for the foreseeable future. A “MacBook Ultra” with an M5 Max would feel pretty strange against a Mac Studio with an M5 Ultra.

However, it also stands to reason that this is more likely to simply be the next evolution of the MacBook Pro lineup. Apple likes to keep things simple, and the mere addition of a touchscreen into the mix doesn’t justify a departure from its three-tier system of “good, better, best,” especially now that the MacBook Neo has arrived to nicely fill in that bottom end. Plus, Apple has already had to hike the prices of its entire Mac lineup, which would force a fourth class of MacBook to be priced into the stratosphere.

The new MacBook Pro is also expected to sport the same M5 Pro and M5 Max chips as the version that was released in March, as Apple is reportedly skipping the higher-end M6 chips. This means the headline upgrade will be the OLED touchscreen, which could also usher in a slightly slimmer design. Recent reports say we shouldn’t expect it to shave too much off the thickness, although it’s said to be “significantly lighter” than the current models. However, the only other major design change is that a Dynamic Island will replace the notch.

Meanwhile, the entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro is expected to get the new M6 chip, and not much else. A revamped version of that model could arrive with an M7 chip as soon as next spring, but for now, it’s going to be business as usual on that front. Ditto for the 24-inch iMac, for which the M6 will represent a healthier bump over its two-year-old M4 predecessor.

Finally, there’s the wildcard in the mix: a new iPad mini that’s expected to get an OLED panel and an A20 Pro chip. If accurate, that would put the new tablet in the same class as the iPhone 18 Pro — the first time since 2021 that it’s kept pace with the latest silicon. However, that’s expected to come with a $200 price increase — and it probably won’t feature a 120 Hz ProMotion display.

[The information provided in this article has NOT been confirmed by Apple and may be speculation. Provided details may not be factual. Take all rumors, tech or otherwise, with a grain of salt.]