 The MacBook Pro at an Apple store. Photographer: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg Apple Inc. has been gearing up to launch a slew of new Macs, and now we have a clearer idea of when that will occur: early next year. I'm told that Apple is aiming to introduce the upgraded models—including M2-based versions of the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros—in the first quarter of calendar 2023 and has tied the launches to the upcoming macOS Ventura 13.3 and iOS 16.3. Those software updates are expected to debut between early February and the beginning of March. Apple has rarely launched new products in January or February during recent years, so I'd expect the new Macs to be announced by the first half of March. That aligns with the planned ship dates for the corresponding software, but also makes sense in light of Apple's recent history of launching new Macs during that month, including the Mac Studio this year. While Apple had aimed to release the new MacBook Pros as early as this fall, the company's internal plans—confirmed by public comments this past week—have shut the door on that. During the company's quarterly earnings call Thursday, Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook called the product line "set" for this holiday season.  Apple's 2021 MacBook Pro launch. Photographer: Tiffany Hagler-Geard/Bloomberg Luca Maestri, Apple's chief financial officer, gave us even stronger confirmation. He said that Apple's holiday quarter, which ends on Dec. 31, would see revenue growth decelerate compared with the previous period—in part because there will be no major MacBook Pro launch like there was in the prior year. "We have a very challenging compare against last year, which had the benefit of the launch and associated channel fill of our newly redesigned MacBook Pro with M1," he said. "Therefore, we expect Mac revenue to decline substantially year over year during the December quarter." Apple introduced the redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros with the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips last October, contributing to $10.9 billion in Mac revenue in the holiday quarter. This time around, expect the Mac revenue number to come in far below that. Apple's overall growth in the December quarter also will pale next to the 8% increase posted in the September period. But that shouldn't come as a shock to Wall Street. Analysts have already been predicting a more modest uptick in sales: about 3%. That's still good enough to get Apple into record territory, with revenue projected to top $128 billion.  Apple's launch of the M2 chip. Photographer: Christoph Dernbach/Getty Images As I recently reported in Power On, testing of the new MacBook Pros and a new Mac mini—along with development of the first Apple Silicon Mac Pro—has ramped up internally. The new MacBook Pros will continue to look like the current models, but they'll trade their M1 Pro and M1 Max chips for the first M2 Pro and M2 Max processors. The M2 Max will go to 12 CPU cores, up from 10, and see its top graphics option move to 38 cores from 32. A new Mac mini remains in development, and the company continues to test versions with the same M2 chip as the 13-inch MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, as well as an M2 Pro chip, which hikes the CPU and graphics counts. If Apple indeed launches the M2 Pro variation, we can expect the company to probably wind down the still-available Intel model. While the new Macs won't debut until next year, the company still has some software coming. The iOS 16.2 and iPadOS 16.2 updates, which began beta testing this past week, should be released around mid-December. Apple had earlier hoped to include the MacBook Pro as part of those releases, but rolling out a new Mac in December wouldn't make much sense. When I first reported on the new MacBook Pros in June, I said that Apple was aiming for a release between the end of 2022 and early 2023, so I wouldn't consider a March release to be late by any means.  Apple's 2019 Mac Pro. Photographer: Brittany Hosea-Small/AFP But the first Apple Silicon Mac Pro is clearly running behind the company's own self-imposed timeline. When it announced the transition to homegrown chips in 2020, Apple said the move would take about two years. The revamped Mac Pro, coming next year, will clearly miss that schedule. But I think we have a pretty clear reason why, and it's not a bad thing: The machine will be superior to what Apple originally intended to offer. As I wrote recently, my belief is that the first non-Intel Mac Pro will have options for 24 and 48 CPU cores and 76 and 152 graphics cores—along with up to 256 gigabytes of memory. I believe that Apple had originally planned to use a variation of the M1 chip, but at some point made the decision to hold off until versions of the M2 with more CPU and graphics cores are available. That seems like the right decision. The core M1 architecture is based on the A14 chip from 2020, while the basis of the M2 is quite a bit newer. Apple also may be waiting until it can build chips using the 3-nanometer process (the first M2 chips and the M1 are based on 5-nanometer technology). So it's probably worth the wait.  The Apple Music app. Photographer: Gabby Jones/Bloomberg Prices for Apple Music, TV+ and bundles jump. Speaking of Apple earnings, we now have a pretty clear reason why the company decided to raise prices of its services just a few days before its latest report. The business needed a bit of a jolt. Last Monday, the company made the following pricing changes in the US: - Apple Music (individual) rose to $10.99 from $9.99 per month
- Apple TV+ (individual) is up to $6.99 from $4.99
- Apple One (individual) went to $16.95 from $14.95
- Apple One (premier) rose to $32.95 from $29.95
The company also increased pricing for family subscriptions and annual plans. When making the change, it cited the increased licensing costs for music and the fact that Apple TV+ has gone from just a few shows to many originals that are now winning awards. That all makes sense, but another underlying reason is that growth in its services segment slowed in the fiscal fourth quarter. Apple cited softness in digital advertising and gaming but also blamed foreign exchange headwinds. It said if it were not for a strong US dollar, its growth would have been in the double-digits. Raising prices could be one way to help restore that growth—assuming customers stick around. If someone has $7 per month to spend on streaming, I think most people would pick the new ad-supported Netflix offering over ad-free Apple TV+. After all, Netflix has a back catalog—something TV+ sorely lacks. So Apple may need to further improve its services if it wants to justify the new pricing.  The USB-C port on a Samsung phone. Photographer: Michael Short/Bloomberg Apple's impending switch to USB-C on the iPhone gets more real. I reported in May that Apple is planning to transition from the Lightning connector to USB-C on next year's new iPhones. But the move suddenly got more real this past week, with Apple's head of marketing saying on stage at the WSJ Live conference that the company will have to comply with the EU's mandate to make the switch. While Apple appears to be bitter that a government is intervening in its product road map, the move from Lightning to USB-C is actually a good thing for consumers. The company didn't make that point on stage when discussing the switch, but you can bet that when Apple announces the iPhone 15, the change won't be described as government intervention. It will be presented as a way to simplify charging across iPhones, iPads and Macs.  Lisa Jackson, vice president of environment for Apple. Photographer: Alex Flynn/Bloomberg Nov. 1: Apple executive Lisa Jackson speaks at Web Summit in Spain. The company's head of environment and policy matters will be giving an opening night address at the Web Summit conference in Lisbon. Apple just recently touted that it's pushing its suppliers to go carbon-neutral by 2030, so you can expect that and related initiatives to be key topics.  Peloton's Row machine. Source: Peloton Nov. 3: Peloton announces quarterly earnings. Peloton investors and employees certainly haven't seen much good news recently (aside from some partnerships and the announcement of the new Row machine). That trend may not change next week with the company's fiscal first-quarter earnings results. Wall Street is expecting more losses and a 20% sales decline from the year earlier. Q: Why did Apple discontinue the iPod touch this year?
Q: Would a larger iPad run macOS instead of iPadOS?
Q: Do you think Apple will raise the prices of its other services beyond Music and TV+? | 
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