Apple’s Pro and Tell experience week is here, and it’s off to a strong start, with the new iPad Mini unveiled on Monday morning and a new MacBook Pro and iMac on Tuesday. But there’s more to come: We’re also expecting a long-anticipated touchscreen laptop.
Apple’s had a busy few months, launching the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max in September alongside the Apple Watch Series 12, Apple Watch Ultra 4 and the AirPods 5followed by the iPhone Duo going on sale at the end of last week.
Apple’s refreshed smart home lineuprevealed during its recent Welcome Home event, is up next: the HomePod Mini 2 will launch on Friday; the Apple HomeView and Apple TV 4K on Nov. 13; and availability for the Home Collection products begins in December.
This week will culminate with Apple hosting a special event on Wednesday, and CNET will be on the ground capturing all the latest details. We’ll update this article as more details are revealed.
Apple’s new iPad Mini
Announced on Monday, Apple’s new iPad Mini is available to preorder on Wednesday and will go on sale Nov. 6. It starts at $699 for 128GB of storage, $799 for 256GB and $999 for 512GB.
Setting it apart from the last iPad Miniwhich came out two years ago, the new tablet has an 8.5-inch OLED screen (versus an LCD), IP67 water and dust resistance, an Apple A20 processor, a repositioned front-facing camera and a through-screen speaker system called Acoustic Display, as well as being thinner and lighter than before.
A new iMac
The latest iMac, announced Tuesday, features Apple’s M6 processor with a CPU and a GPU each having up to 12 cores, two more cores apiece than before, Apple said. A new dual 16-core Neural Engine delivers AI compute that’s up to twice as fast as the previous generation, the company said. The iMac also has a 24-inch 4.5K Retina display.
Preorders for the iMac M6 will begin Wednesday, Oct. 28, with availability to follow on Nov. 6. Pricing starts at $1,499 for an iMac with M6 featuring a 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU. It’s available in seven colors: blue, green, pink, yellow, purple, orange and silver.
MacBook Pro refresh
The new 14-inch MacBook Pro, also announced Tuesday, similarly features the M6 processor with 12-core CPU and GPU and dual 16-core Neural Engine for AI tasks. Apple says the battery life runs up to 24 hours. The laptop features a Liquid Retina XDR display, a 12-megapixel Center Stage camera and a six-speaker sound system.
The MacBook Pro with M6 can be preordered starting Wednesday, Oct. 28, and will be in stores and delivered to customers starting Nov. 6. Pricing starts at $1,999.
Apple Creator Studio updates
Tuesday also brought updates to the Apple Creator Studio software suite. For instance, Final Cut Pro for Mac now includes built-in MotionVFX, a collection of visual effects, plug-ins, transitions, templates and motion graphics tools; the curated Content Hub now includes video assets and is available in Final Cut Pro; Pixelmator Pro introduces Generate Fill, which lets creators transform selected areas of an image using natural language; and Keynote, Pages and Numbers introduce new AI features in beta, including assistants that understand document contexts.
The Apple Creator Studio updates will be available in November to subscribers for free.
And as for the iPhone Duo launch last week, check out CNET’s ongoing folding test — you can watch the livestream here and tune in on Tuesday as we continue testing how many times the iPhone Duo can fold without cracking in the CNET lab.