Apple’s October event might not happen at all

Contradicting widespread expectations that Apple will follow its September iPhone/Apple Watch announcements with a second event later in the fall, Mark Gurman has said the company will instead unveil its remaining new products for 2022 via press release.

In the latest instalment of Bloomberg’s Power On newsletter, the respected leaker discusses the upcoming products. He predicts the imminent announcement of new (M2 and M2 Pro) versions of the Mac mini, new (M2 Pro and M2 Max) versions of the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro, and new (M2) versions of the 11- and 12.9-inch iPad Pro.

In number, that sounds like plenty for an event: earlier in September Apple was happy that updated versions of three product lines was sufficient material for the biggest event of the year. But Gurman fears that the new Macs and iPads simply aren’t substantive enough to justify a full press gathering.

“None of these new products is a major departure for Apple,” he explains. “They’ll get some improved specifications and a chip that was already announced at a formal event in June at WWDC 2022. That has me thinking: Does Apple really have enough here to make it worth pulling together another highly polished launch event?”

Instead of an event, he thinks Apple “is more likely to release its remaining 2022 products via press releases.” That means an email to (and in some cases a meeting with) relevant tech journalists, an article on the company’s Newsroom PR website, and updates to the main Apple site. But no event, either virtual or in-person. Simply issuing press releases to mark a product refresh would have been normal behaviour for Apple just a few years ago.

There are precedents for a single fall event. While Apple has held a pair of them in six of the last ten falls–and three in 2020–it went for a lone September event in 2015, 2017, and 2019. It would not be especially unusual.

Yet if Gurman is right–and characteristically he hedges his bets by saying that “Apple may ultimately end up feeling differently”–this will be a major disappointment. Many pundits have argued that the rumored October event will be not just worthwhile but better than the September one, with the announcement of the first post-Intel Mac Pro a particular highlight; there have also been rumors of a redesigned Mac mini. But Gurman now expects the new Mac Pro to be a no-show (along with Apple’s highly anticipated AR/VR headset) and for the Mac mini to be a straightforward spec bump.

Is Apple done with events for the year? We hope not. But right now it’s a moot point, and we won’t know the truth until next month.