Popular online electronics retailer B&H photo has set up a placeholder product page for a new Apple Mac computer featuring an Apple Silicon M2 processor. Apple will host its WWDC keynote on Monday, and the Apple press is keen to get early scoops. Still, sites like 9to5 Mac (opens in new tab) admit that the B&H listing may be an attention-grabbing prank or hoax, as Apple doesn’t pass on any information to resellers ahead of product announcements.
The first of B&H Photo’s ‘accidental’ early product page leaks is a new Mac Mini with an M2 processor. According to the retailer page, this mini computer comes in an 8GB RAM and 256GB storage configuration (possibly others). Adding a bit of sauce to its listing, the retailer says, “checkout will be available at 9:45 pm ET Monday night.” WWDC22 runs from Monday, June 6, to Friday, June 10, with the keynote on the first day at 10 am PT / 1 pm ET. Apple traditionally opens sales, or at least pre-orders, of products shortly after their announcement.
Nearly all readers will be familiar with the iconic Mac Mini. Therefore tomorrow, the most significant interest will be in what is inside – with this listing teasing the arrival of the new M2 processor. Perhaps B&H read our story from early March when we discussed the rumors of M2 Mac Minis by mid-2022. That report suggested the more contemporary architecture M2 processors leverage a mix of Avalanche performance cores and Blizzard efficiency cores. Moreover, the GPU core counts are likely to be increased, and the TSMC process node will move from N5 to N5P. Looking further ahead, rumors say that the Apple M3 SoCs will use TSMC’s next-generation N3 node.
Of course, no one knows what kind of performance uplift the new M2 SoCs will deliver to Apple’s Mac refreshes. Even after the keynote and the presentation slides at hand, we won’t have the most straightforward idea either, as a cloud of marketing will add to the technical information shared. Therefore, we must look forward to third-party testing and comparisons to get an authentic feel for what M2 delivers.
Another listing spotted at the US electronics retailer was one for an Apple Mac Mini Tower. As a more premium design, it is odd that this would come with an M1 Pro SoC and the same 8GB RAM and 256GB storage configuration as the Mac Mini. 9to5 Mac reckons to list the tower design as a probable sign that the product page is fake for the fun of someone at B&H. In other words, take these two listings with a hefty pinch of salt.
Apple mentioned a new Mac Pro on the way at the end of its March event, so if there is any ‘tower’ being prepared for launch tomorrow, this is what we expect. The last Mac Pro, AKA the cheese grater, launched with up to a 28-core Intel Xeon processor in late 2019.
Other Macs that could be in line for an update tomorrow include the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro 13. Outside of the laptop/desktop computer arena, tomorrow’s most exciting hardware launch could be Apple’s first AR/VR headset. As a developer conference, most of the week will be concerned with software; MacOS 13, iPadOS 16, iOS 16, TVOS 16, and WatchOS 9 are all expected to arrive during WWDC22 and new and improved apps.