Apple’s planning a Halloween spooktacular, reveals insider

Darkness falls across the land, the M4 Macs are close to hand

Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch M3 (2023)
(Image credit: Future / Mike Lowe)
Carrie Marshall
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Apple is expected to launch M4 versions of the MacBook Pro, Mac mini and iMac next week. The launch is now tipped for an early to midweek date.

Last year's October Apple event had a Halloween theme and the slogan "scary fast" to launch its M3 MacBook Pros. And it looks like this year's launch of Apple's M4 Macs is going to happen on or before Halloween: according to a well-connected insider the launch is planned for next week.

That's according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, who posted on X that it's a "busy week for Apple next week: Apple Intelligence on Monday, then M4 Mac launch, then earnings results on Thursday... happy Halloween!"

That fits with previous reports of a very late October launch and November deliveries.

Things that make you go boo

Apple is expected to launch four new models with M4 processors inside. Most of them will look pretty much identical to the current models with only internal upgrades. But the exception is the Mac mini, which is being significantly redesigned and will reportedly look much more like the Apple TV 4K.

The other M4 Macs we're looking forward to are a new 14-inch MacBook Pro M4; 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros with M4 Pro and M4 Max processors; and a new, M4-powered iMac. It hasn't been confirmed yet but some reports also say that the M4 devices will come with a minimum of 16GB of memory rather than the 8GB of their predecessors.

Moving to 16GB of integrated memory would address one of the biggest criticisms of current Apple Silicon Macs: upping the RAM from the standard 8GB is very expensive – increasing it to 16GB adds £200 to the price of a MacBook Pro and if you want 24GB that's a £400 option – and of course because it's integrated memory it can't be upgraded later.

In addition to the Macs, we're also expecting Apple to launch USB-C versions of its Magic Mouse, Magic Trackpad and Magic Keyboard. If the Magic Mouse hasn't been redesigned other than a port change that means it could be the perfect fit for a Halloween event: the charging port's location is famously horrible.

Carrie Marshall
Carrie Marshall

Writer, musician and broadcaster Carrie Marshall has been covering technology since 1998 and is particularly interested in how tech can help us live our best lives. Her CV is a who’s who of magazines, newspapers, websites and radio programmes ranging from T3, Techradar and MacFormat to the BBC, Sunday Post and People’s Friend. Carrie has written more than a dozen books, ghost-wrote two more and co-wrote seven more books and a Radio 2 documentary series; her memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, was shortlisted for the British Book Awards. When she’s not scribbling, Carrie is the singer in Glaswegian rock band Unquiet Mind (unquietmindmusic).

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