There are just two weeks left to go until November, but Apple is far from finished with October. According to rumors, there are several new products on the way, including new iPads and Macs, as well as the launch of iPadOS 16.1 and macOS Ventura with the highly anticipated Stage Manager feature.
So, when are these new products arriving? We all know Apple doesn’t like to spill any secrets until the big day arrives, but there are plenty of clues this time around. And right now, every one of them is pointing to a flurry of releases during the week of October 24.
We haven’t gotten an event invite yet: As far as new products go, Apple could either hold an event or issue press releases. If there’s an event it will most likely be held on Monday, October 24, with invitations going out early this week. The event would probably be an in-person/virtual hybrid like the iPhone 14 event.
However, there are strong rumors to suggest Apple won’t be holding an event at all, and instead will quietly launch new products on its website via press release. Traditionally, Apple has launched new products in this manner on Tuesday (AirPods Max) or Wednesday (iPhone SE 2), so we could get new hardware on October 18 or 19 and/or October 25 or 26.
iPads could arrive this week: Over the weekend, Mark Gurman of Bloomberg reported that new iPads are arriving “in a matter of days.” That would be the M2 iPad Pro and redesigned iPad, which will likely hit Apple.com on Tuesday or Wednesday. But they likely won’t ship until after iPadOS 16.1 lands on October 24.
The release candidates haven’t arrived: Before iOS/iPadOS 16.1 and macOS Ventura can make their way to billions of iPhones, iPads and Macs, Apple needs to finalize development of the betas. That usually happens a few days before the full release—for example, the iOS 16 release candidate arrived on September 7 and pushed out to the public on September 12.
Assuming both release candidates arrive this week, both iOS/iPadOS 16.1 and macOS Ventura will likely land on Monday, October 24, or Tuesday, October 25. That gels with Mark Gurman’s report that iOS 16.1 is “on track to be released the week of Oct. 24th–barring any new bugs or issues.” He doesn’t mention Ventura, but the two OS updates will likely arrive on the same day since Stage Manager is a marquee feature of both.
There are too many products to release at once: According to rumors, there is a lot of new hardware arriving—updates to the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, iPad, and Mac mini. While it’s common for so many new products to launch at an event, it would be unusual for Apple to drop four new products at once without any fanfare. So even if the iPads launch this week, there will be plenty of Mac news for next week.
Two Apple execs are scheduled to speak on October 25: And there’s one more thing to suggest the final week of October will be a monster one for Apple. Apple senior vice presidents Craig Federighi and Greg Joswiak are scheduled to speak at The Wall Street Journal’s WSJ Tech Live conference on Tuesday, October 25 at a session titled “Products, privacy, and power at Apple.” It’s unlikely that Apple will unveil any products during the half-hour session, but the timing suggests they will have a lot to discuss.
