Apple Just Won't Stop

After a very busy fall of Apple product launches, I’ll be honest, I was looking forward to a few months of quiet before it was time to start diving into the rumors again. So much for that.

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Over the past week, Mark Gurman at Bloomberg dropped a series of stories about upcoming products, including new MacBook Pros, anew iMac, and an Apple-branded display that won’t set you back $6,000. Oh, and an expensive pair ofvirtual reality (VR) glasses.

All of that is interesting, but it's also dangerously close to "too good to be true." Still, sometimes good things do come to those who wait, and there's no question we've been waiting quite a while for a few of these.

VR Glasses

Apple has reportedly been working on a VR product for a while, but so far it’s been limited to the capabilities of the LiDAR sensor on the iPhone 12 and iPad Pro. The Bloomberg report says that the company is planning a set of VR goggles that would be expensive, powerful, and possibly have a fan.

I suspect that if this is a real product, it’s primarily designed for developers to have a platform for creating experiences that could be used on a later product, probably with augmented reality (AR) instead of VR.

iMac

The iMac is the Mac most in need of a facelift. That doesn’t mean it looks bad, but the design is starting to get a little old, and with Apple Silicon, there is plenty of room to improve the design now that you can cut down on the room used for physical hard drives and cooling.

It’s easy to assume that the design will follow the ProDisplay XDR, though I doubt it will be quite that extreme. I think it will likely have far smaller bezels and more closely follow what has been called the “iPad Pro” design language of flat sides. But, I think it will still look like an iMac.

I don’t think Apple wants to sell a computer that just looks like something else it already sells. Each of Apple’s products has its own feel and brand, and I don’t think ever going to not be the case.

5K Monitor

Whatever they do to the iMac, all they need to do is sell a version of the monitor without the iMac. That’s literally what people want—just give us the amazing 5K display from the 27-inch iMac, without the computer. Obviously, it won’t look exactly the same, for the reasons I’ve already mentioned. From a display technology perspective, however, this should be an absolute no brainer.

There are more than enough people who want a great display for use with their MacBook Pro, or even a Mac Pro, who don’t need the extreme performance of the XDR. Just give the rest of us something that looks great, in terms of design and performance, and something that feels like it fits on a desk with a MacBook Pro.

I’m sure there will be a lot of unhappy YouTubers and tech podcasters who will be bummed they spent $6,000 on something almost no one needs, when they could have waited and gotten something amazing for a lot less.

MacBook Pros

I saved this for last, because--honestly--it's easily the biggest deal to me. To understand the rumored changes to the MacBook Pro, basically think about everything anyone has said they wanted Apple to do for the last few years and imagine Apple did it. That’s basically what we’re expecting.

Between Gurman’s report, and another report from Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple plans to drop the Touch Bar, add a larger 14-inch display on the smaller MacBook Pro, bring back MagSafe charging, add ports like the SD card reader, and give the design a slight update to include more squared-off sides.

Oh, and it will have whatever comes after the M1.

Honestly, that’s probably the only thing that really matters to most people, though I’d definitely be a fan of a 14-inch MacBook Pro with no Touch Bar, and an SD card reader.