Apple today released MacBook Air Flash Storage Firmware Update 1.0, an update for Mid-2012 MacBook Air models to address an issue with recovering from crashes.

This update is recommended for MacBook Air (mid 2012) models. This update addresses a storage firmware issue that, in rare cases, may cause a system to fail to recover from a crash.

Flash storage module from mid-2012 MacBook Air (Source: iFixit)
The update is 1.69 MB and requires OS X 10.7.5 or OS X 10.8.3.

KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has issued a new report forecasting that the product highlight of Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), which kicks off on June 10, will be the introduction of new models of the company's MacBook Pro and MacBook Air lines based on Intel's latest Haswell processors. The projection is in line with previous reports from Kuo and other sources, as well as recent claims that Apple will begin ramping up production of the new models in mid-May.


On the MacBook Pro side, Kuo is reversing his earlier predictions suggesting that 2013 would see Apple discontinue the non-Retina MacBook Pro lineup and shift consumers to the slimmer and more expensive Retina line introduced at last year's WWDC. Kuo believes that continued strength of non-Retina MacBook Pro models, particularly the 13-inch line, have led Apple to continue producing the non-Retina lineup for the time being.

Contrary to our previous projection, we now think Apple will continue to make the MacBook Pro alongside the MacBook Air and Retina MacBook Pro because the 13” MacBook Pro remains the most popular product in the MacBook line. Also, there is still demand in emerging markets, where Internet penetration isn’t advanced, for optical disk drives.

Kuo believes that the updated versions of the non-Retina MacBook Pro could begin shipping very soon after WWDC, but that the new Retina MacBook Pro models will begin shipping somewhat later due to production bottlenecks on the displays.

For the MacBook Air, Kuo also believes that the new models will be introduced at WWDC and ship very soon after, but he indicates that Apple is unlikely to include Retina displays in the updated lineup. He believes that cost, thickness, and production concerns will continue to keep Retina displays out of Apple's lowest-cost and thinnest notebook line for the time being.

Over the past several months, a number of rumors have suggested that Apple will be looking to update its notebook lineup at or soon after its Worldwide Developers Conference, which kicks off on June 10. In particular, KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has a relatively strong track record, laid out a roadmap in January predicting that the MacBook Air could see an update by late in the second quarter with Apple's MacBook Pro moving to an all-Retina lineup early in the third quarter.

Reports on whether there will be any design changes as part of a rumored June notebook update have varied, with a February report from Taiwan's Economic Times claiming that the MacBook Air will see a design refresh while Kuo has suggested that the Retina MacBook Pro may also see design tweaks.


Digitimes has weighed in several times on the June notebook refresh rumors, first noting them in late December while suggesting that Apple may cut prices on the MacBook Air in the interim in order to keep sales moving. To that end, Apple did in fact drop pricing on its high-end 13-inch MacBook Air alongside a February spec bump for the Retina MacBook Pro. Digitimes weighed in again just weeks ago, claiming that Apple will be updating its notebook lineup late this quarter, again suggesting a June launch.

In a new report out today, Digitimes claims that Apple's quarterly notebook shipments are expected to grow 10% sequentially as the company works through the remainder of its excess inventory and looks to begin ramping up production again in mid-May. The report notes that this new production will primarily be next-generation models based on the Haswell platform.

Apple's MacBook shipments in the second quarter are expected to grow 10% sequentially as the company has almost finished digesting its excess inventory and should start placing new orders in mid-May, according to sources from the upstream supply chain.

The orders in May are expected to be mainly Haswell-based models, the sources noted.

Conflicting with some earlier reports of design changes for the MacBook Air and Retina MacBook Pro, Digitimes says that Apple's suppliers have not received any instructions for changes to designs or their equipment, suggesting that the upgrades may be limited to internal improvements.

During Apple's earnings conference call earlier this week, CEO Tim Cook appeared to play down the company's product launch plans for the next several months, specifically noting optimism about "amazing" new products coming in the "fall and throughout 2014".

Digitimes reports that Apple has essentially halted all component orders for its Mac product lines, apparently working through significant inventories of components delivered during an aggressive ramp-up late last year that may have proven overly aggressive.

The suppliers originally expected to finish digesting their Mac inventories in April, but are now stranded waiting for further instructions from Apple.

The sources revealed that Apple's Mac orders to the supply chain dropped to almost nothing after the Lunar New Year holidays. Apple had high hopes for its Mac product lines and placed aggressive orders at the end of 2012; however, the company is now badly affected by the decision.

The report claims that Apple generally provides shipment forecasts to its supply chain partners at the beginning of each quarter, but the company has not done so for the second quarter. The lack of information has reportedly left suppliers wondering when they will be able to resume production.

Just last week, Digitimes claimed that Apple is likely to refresh its notebook lineup at the end of the second quarter, so it seems that suppliers may need to start ramping up production for new models in the relatively near future.


Apple frequently has to juggle its supply chain as it approaches product updates, seeking to accurately estimate consumer demand in order to deplete its existing inventories just as the new models are released. But if today's report is true, it seems that Apple may have overestimated customer demand for the early part of 2013 and is now finding itself with substantial inventories heading into its next round of product updates.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has also warned about reading too much into rumors from Apple's supply chain, noting that its "very complex" nature makes it difficult to accurately interpret what is actually going on from limited data points, even if that data is accurate.

Citing supply chain sources, Digitimes reports that Apple is expected to see only modest "single-digit" shipment growth for its notebook lineup in 2013, with the 13-inch MacBook Pro in particular seeing weaker-than-expected sales.

Apple was confident about its 13-inch MacBook Pro performance for 2013, but the device's actual sales turn out to be weaker than expected, leaving the company still digesting its inventories in the first quarter.

The sources pointed out that Apple's MacBook Pros have strong attraction to consumers, but the devices' high prices are instead pushing consumers away.

The report also claims that Apple will be refreshing its notebook lineup "at the end of the second quarter", which could mean an introduction at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference expected in June.


Digitimes had reported in late December that Apple was planning a June refresh for its notebook lineup, and similar timeframes have been claimed by reliable KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo and Taiwanese newspaper Economic Times.

Back in mid-February, Apple released a surprise minor update for the Retina MacBook Pro, including a significant price drop for the 13-inch models. Apple also dropped pricing on the high-end MacBook Air at the time, a move that had been at least in part predicted by Digitimes in its late December report.

Apple is likely to use Intel's forthcoming Haswell processors in its next-generation notebooks, and Intel will reportedly be releasing the first mobile Haswell chips in late May or early June.

Taiwanese newspaper Economic Times reports [Google translation, via Macotakara] that Apple is lining up suppliers for its next-generation MacBook Air for launch in the third quarter of this year.

According to the report, the MacBook Air will not only be receiving internal upgrades to Intel's new Haswell platform but also a "facelift" with new external features, including the possibility of a Retina display. The report also claims that suppliers will begin shipping components to Apple's assembly partner Quanta during the second quarter of the year.


KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo had previously included an updated MacBook Air in his 2013 Apple product roadmap, predicting a late second quarter or early third quarter launch for the device. He did, however, indicate that the update would not include Retina displays, which would require substantially more battery power than the current displays and likely force a redesign to also accommodate a somewhat thicker display assembly.

Pricing remains another question for Apple, as the MacBook Air is the company's entry-level notebook and Apple will likely be very hesitant to raise that floor. But while Apple's Retina MacBook Pro models carry significantly higher pricing than their non-Retina counterparts, a significant amount of that cost is related to a shift to solid-state drives, which are already used in the MacBook Air.

Consequently, a shift to a Retina display for the MacBook Air may add a much smaller price premium to the lineup. Apple could also choose to separate the MacBook Air into Retina and non-Retina lines as it has for the MacBook Pro, or offer Retina displays as higher-end options on a unified lineup.

KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has a very good track record in predicting Apple's product plans, has issued a new research report outlining his expectations for Apple's 2013 product launches. Kuo believes that Apple will focus its launches on the third quarter of this year, with a number of updates throughout the company's various product families.


- iPhone: Kuo expects that Apple will introduce both an iPhone 5S and a revamped iPhone 5 around June or July of this year, with the iPhone 5S appearing very similar to the current iPhone 5 but carrying a number of upgrades including an A7 system-on-a-chip for better performance, a fingerprint sensor, and camera improvements such as an f2.0 aperture and a smart LED flash. He also believes that the lower-cost iPhone will in many ways simply be an iPhone 5 repackaged into a slightly thicker (8.2 mm vs. the current 7.6 mm) plastic enclosure available in six colors.


- iPad and iPad mini: Kuo forecasts that Apple will update both lines during the third quarter of the year, with the iPad mini gaining a Retina display as the most notable change. He also predicts that the full-size iPad will become considerably slimmer and lighter and adopt the thinner side bezels seen on the iPad mini.

- MacBook Pro: In line with his predictions from last year, Kuo believes that Apple will do away with the non-Retina MacBook Pro line in 2013, moving to an all-Retina lineup at cheaper price points than the current Retina models. Kuo also believes that Apple will tweak the design of these thinner Retina MacBook Pros, despite having just introduced the current form factor last year.

- MacBook Air: Retina displays remain a challenge for the MacBook Air given their relative thickness, and Kuo predicts that they will not be appearing in the 2013 MacBook Air lineup. Kuo believes that a move to Intel's forthcoming Haswell platform will be the main upgrade for the machines, with the update coming perhaps as soon as late in the second quarter.

- Desktops: Kuo notes that the iMac redesign has been well-received, but it appears that he does not see Retina displays coming to the lineup in 2013. He simply predicts a shift to the Haswell platform for the iMac and Mac mini in the fourth quarter of the year. Kuo's report does not address a new Mac Pro, even though Apple CEO Tim Cook had personally shared that a significant update for the line was due in 2013.

- iPod touch: Apple will reportedly discontinue the fourth-generation iPod touch, which is currently being sold alongside the new fifth-generation models. In order to fill the gap, Kuo believes that Apple will introduce a scaled-back fifth-generation model with 8 GB of storage and no rear camera at $199.

- Apple TV: Kuo predicts a minor update to the existing Apple TV product as soon as late this quarter, but he offers no details on what the update would entail. He also notes that Apple's more substantial television effort is unlikely to appear in 2013, with content issues and a lack of experience in the television set industry pushing things back until 2014.

Apple today pushed out a new EFI Firmware Update 2.6 for the mid–2012 MacBook Air, which comes with several bug fixes for the MacBook Airs that were released in June alongside the 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro.

This update fixes a color issue with HDMI displays connected to MacBook Air, resolves an issue with Windows which can prevent MacBook Air from booting properly, and also resolves an issue where unplugging a Thunderbolt device may cause the system to freeze when waking from standby.

The EFI update should be available in the Mac App Store for mid–2012 MacBook Airs and can also be downloaded from the Apple Support site.

DigiTimes reports that Apple has signaled Taiwan-based suppliers that both the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air series will see revisions in June 2013. As noted by our buyers guide, this would put the updates in line within the expected timeframes.

DigiTimes' sources also reveal that the new MacBook Airs won't have any major external design changes, but will feature a "new processor platform":

The sources pointed out that the MacBook Air for 2013 will feature a new processor platform, but its industrial design will not see any major changes.

The paper also reports that Ultrabook manufacturers are concerned that Apple "is likely to reduce the prices for its existing MacBook Airs before the launch of the new models." Such a move, however, would be extremely unusual for Apple. Apple rarely changes the prices of existing models before they are revised. So, we're skeptical about that particular concern. With the iPad 2, Apple has retained an older product and lowered its price to make room for a new product, but that move would also be unusual for Apple's notebook line.


Apple's MacBook lineup plans for late 2012 and 2013 (Source: Ming-Chi Kuo/KGI Securities)
Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo had previously outlined his expectations for Apple's 2013 plans back in June. The predictions in the top-portion of the graph above have already come true. Kuo expects that the MacBook Pro will consolidate back into a single hardware line next year. The new MacBook line will also use Intel's new Haswell chips which are expected between March and June 2013.

Haswell will incorporate CPU performance boosts as well as double the performance of the integrated GPU. This added GPU performance would be helpful if Apple does standardize on Retina Displays across the entire MacBook line in 2013.

Apple has released a 127.07 MB update for all the Mac notebooks introduced in June 2012 -- the new MacBook Air models, as well as the spec-bumped MacBook Pro, and the MacBook Pro 15" with Retina display.

Apple is nonspecific about the exact issues the update fixes, but mentions graphics performance and compatibility with USB devices:

About MacBook Air and MacBook Pro Update 2.0

This update includes graphics performance and reliability enhancements and improves compatibility with some USB devices.

This update is recommended for all Mac notebooks introduced in June 2012.

The update is available via Apple's support website or the Mac App Store.

Installing the update also changes the build number of OS X 10.8.2 from 12C60 to 12C3006.

While Apple's MacBook Air is already extremely thin and the new Retina MacBook Pro has reduced the thickness of the company's flagship notebook by 25%, work naturally continues on new ways to shave even more thickness from future versions of Apple's notebooks.

Digitimes reports that Apple is working with suppliers on a new process that will enable the company to shave 0.15 mm from the thickness of the light guide used to distribute lighting for the company's illuminated keyboard in the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air.

Apple will reduce the thickness of light guide plates for the illuminated keyboards in its MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models from 0.4mm currently to 0.25mm in 2013, according to sources in Apple's supply chain.

Since the current injection process for the production of 0.4mm light guide plates has been optimized to its limit, makers utilizing extrusion processes are likely to win orders for 0.25mm light guide plates, the sources indicated.

A difference of 0.15mm seems a negligible reduction in thickness that would by itself be essentially imperceptible by users if it were even to translate to slightly thinner overall profiles for the machines, but the company is likely pursuing the reduction for some purpose. Apple is unlikely to significantly alter the overall form factor of next year's MacBook Pro and MacBook Air, but combining small reductions in thickness for multiple components would pave the way for more significant overall reductions down the road.

Kyle Wiens from iFixIt speculates that the added thinness for the keyboard may help prevent the keyboard leaving residual marks on the screen when the laptop is closed.

Among its slew of software updates released today, Apple has also pushed out MacBook Pro Retina EFI Update 1.0, which brings several fixes for Apple's new professional notebook released in June.

This update is recommended to MacBook Pro with Retina display (mid 2012) models. This update resolves an issue which can cause the system to hang during heavy processor loads, and resolves an issue where NetBoot does not function properly when using an Ethernet adapter.

The EFI update should be available through Software Update in the Mac App Store once OS X 10.8.2 has been installed.

Update: Apple has released several other firmware updates for various machines:

- MacBook Pro EFI Firmware Update 2.9 (4.29 MB)

This update is recommended for MacBook Pro (mid 2012) models. This update resolves an issue which can cause the system to hang during heavy processor loads.

- MacBook Air SMC Update v1.7 (658 KB)

This update enables Power Nap support on MacBook Air (Late 2010) computers and is recommended for all users running OS X v10.8.2 or later.

- MacBook Air EFI Firmware Update 2.5 (4.76 MB)

This update is recommended for MacBook Air (mid 2012) models. This update fixes an issue where Turbo Boost does not activate when using Boot Camp, and resolves an issue where NetBoot does not function properly when using an Ethernet adapter.

Over the past several days, Gizmodo has been highlighting freezing and crashing issues on several of its staff's new MacBook Air models, linking the problems to Google Chrome. Switching to Apple's Safari browser eliminated all of the issues, and thus the site recommended that owners of the new machines avoid Chrome for the time being.


Google has now issued a statement to Gizmodo acknowledging that Chrome is the culprit and discussing the steps it is taking to address the issue. While Google has disabled some of Chrome's GPU acceleration on an emergency basis as it seeks to deploy a permanent solution, the company has also filed a bug report with Apple as such issues should not be able to cause an entire system to freeze or crash.

"We have identified a leak of graphics resources in the Chrome browser related to the drawing of plugins on Mac OS X. Work is proceeding to find and fix the root cause of the leak.

The resource leak is causing a kernel panic on Mac hardware containing the Intel HD 4000 graphics chip (e.g. the new Macbook Airs). Radar bug number 11762608 has been filed with Apple regarding the kernel panics, since it should not be possible for an application to trigger such behavior.

While the root cause of the leak is being fixed, we are temporarily disabling some of Chrome's GPU acceleration features on the affected hardware via an auto-updated release that went out this afternoon (Thursday June 28). We anticipate further fixes in the coming days which will re-enable many or all of these features on this hardware."

With the issue affecting all systems using Intel HD 4000 graphics, all of Apple's notebook models released earlier this month are susceptible and owners of the new MacBook Pro models are indeed also reporting the issue.

First launched in September 2008, Chrome has steadily gained in overall popularity among desktop Internet browsers and is currently running neck-and-neck with Firefox for the second position behind Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

With the first Mid-2012 MacBook Pro and MacBook Air models reaching the public, Primate Labs has collated some data from its Geekbench 2 benchmarking database to assess the raw performance of these systems compared to their predecessors.

For the MacBook Pro, Primate Labs has data on four different models: the new Retina model with 2.3 GHz and 2.6 GHz processors and the non-Retina model with 2.3 GHz and 2.7 GHz processors. The top-of-the-line 2.7 GHz system registers with a Geekbench average score of 12,303, roughly 16% higher than the top-of-the-line 2.5 GHz Sandy Bridge system from the previous generation.


Notably, the leaked MacBook Pro benchmark from mid-May does appear to have been legitimate, with details corresponding to the new non-Retina 15-inch MacBook Pro. That machine is designated MacBookPro9,1, while the 13-inch model is designated MacBookPro9,2. The Retina MacBook Pro appears as MacBookPro10,1.

On the MacBook Air side, top-of-the-line systems are seeing boosts of over 20% in Geekbench scores over their corresponding predecessors. As with the MacBook Pro, even the low-end systems of the new generation outperform the high end of the previous generation.


Geekbench testing focuses on processor and memory performance, providing comparisons of raw power between machines but only telling part of the story. But with these machines seeing significant boosts in graphics performance with the addition of Intel HD 4000 integrated graphics and/or the NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M, and systems with solid-state drives using faster drives than in the previous generation, real-world performance should see marked improvement.

The teardown experts at iFixit are currently in the process of taking apart the new 13-inch MacBook Air released yesterday, and while the machine appears to be only a minor update to the previous model, there are undoubtedly some changes that are worth noting.

The most notable change so far is with the solid-state storage. Apple has tweaked the connector design on the MacBook Air's integrated flash storage, making current replacement and upgrade modules from third parties incompatible with the latest models. Other World Computing has also noted this difference and indicated that they are working "full steam ahead" on launching new Aura Pro Express SSDs compatible with the 2012 MacBook Air. Apple announced at WWDC that it was using new 500 MBps SSDs in its MacBook Air, and the new connector design is likely to accommodate the faster data transfer capabilities.


Toshiba SSD in Mid-2012 MacBook Air
Beyond the SSD, iFixit has found very few changes to the MacBook Air. The new models incorporate Apple's thinner Magsafe 2 standard that the company developed as it has sought to find ways to continue reducing the thickness of its notebooks. The new MacBook Air obviously also incorporates Intel's latest Ivy Bridge processors and new 1600 MHz RAM, as well as USB 3.0 support, but these upgrades have yielded very little in terms of changes to the machine's internal layout.


Left I/O board from Mid-2012 MacBook Air, with MagSafe 2 connector at left
iFixit's teardown is still underway, so there may yet be more news to come, and we will update this story with any additional discoveries of note.

In its quest for thinness in the Retina Display MacBook Pro, Apple removed the optical drive and built the display into the unibody construction. The company's engineers also designed a new, thinner MagSafe power port to accommodate the notebook's 0.71" height.


The new MagSafe 2 connector -- which is incompatible with the original MagSafe power bricks as well as devices with a MagSafe power cord built into products like the Apple LED Cinema Display and Thunderbolt Display -- is included in the new Retina MacBook Pro as well as the new MacBook Air models. It seems likely the port will make its way to the legacy MacBook Pro models in a future update.

Apple is selling a MagSafe to Magsafe 2 Converter for $9.99 on the Apple Online Store, as well as new 85W and 45W MagSafe 2 Power Adapter for $79 each.

Apple today announced minor updates to its MacBook Air and MacBook Pro lines, including upgrades to flash storage, memory and processors.


The 11" and 13" MacBook Air models now include up to 512GB of flash storage, 60% faster graphics, up to 8GB of memory and a 2.0GHz i7 Ivy Bridge CPU. The machines have been upgraded with combined USB 3.0/2.0 ports as well as 720p FaceTime cameras. All MacBook Air models now include 4GB of RAM standard. Pricing remains similar to before, with only the premium 11" MacBook Air seeing a $100 price drop.

The 15" MacBook Pro model include Ivy Bridge quad-core i7 CPU's up to 2.7GHz, a 1GB GeForce GT 650M discrete graphics card, a standard 8GB of 1600 MHz memory, and USB 3.0/2.0 ports. Pricing remains the same at $1,799 and $2,199.

The 13" MacBook Pro includes Ivy Bridge dual-core i7 CPU's up to 2.9GHz. Pricing remains the same at $1,199 and $1,499.

9to5Mac reports that it has received information on the MacBook Air upgrades to be announced today, with each of the 11.6-inch and 13.3-inch sizes arriving in two standard configurations with a third customizable high-end configuration also heading into stock at some retailers.


According to the report, the initial model descriptions include not only a boost in processor performance to Intel's latest Ivy Bridge processors but also boosts to RAM (maxing out at 8 GB on both sizes) and solid-state drive capacity (maxing out at 512 GB on the 13-inch model). The descriptions include model number, short product name, screen size, processor speed in GHz, RAM in GB, and storage size in GB.

11-inch
Base Model: MD223LL/A - MBA 11.6/1.7/4/64FLASH-USA
Better: MD224LL/A - MBA 11.6/1.7/4/128FLASH-USA
High End: MD845LL/A – MBA 11.6/2.0/8/256FLASH-USA

13-inch
MD231LL/A – MBAIR 13.3/1.8/4/128FLASH-USA
MD232LL/A – MBAIR 13.3/1.8/4/256FLASH-USA
MD846LL/A – MBAIR 13.3/2.0/8/512FLASH-USA

The current MacBook Air includes 2 GB of RAM on the base 11-inch model, with all other models at both screen sizes offering 4 GB of RAM. On the storage side, it appears that the 11-inch model will not be seeing any changes given that the existing line starts at 64 GB and goes up to 256 GB at the high end, but the new 13-inch model is shown as introducing a new 512 GB option at the high end.

We also asked 9to5Mac about the implausible Mac Pro specs they published earlier today, and they assured us that those are indeed the specs that are showing up in inventory systems. Consequently, it remains unclear exactly what is going on with the Mac Pro and whether there might be errors or purposely incorrect information being provided by Apple.

KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo today issued a new report outlining his belief that Apple's thinner, Retina-equipped Mac notebook will arrive next week as a new model, referring to the machine simply as a "MacBook". Kuo believes that this MacBook will be offered alongside upgraded versions of the existing 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pro models, with Apple being reluctant to do away with the current 13-inch design in particular due to its massive popularity.

We expect Apple (US) to unveil a new MacBook series independent from the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro lines at Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June. We expect the new MacBook to have the following features:

(1) Basic 13” model to be priced at US$1,199
(2) No disc drive
(3) To come in both SSD and HDD
(4) Lighter and slimmer than MacBook Pro, with equal computing power
(5) Retinal display with tapered edge, larger battery capacity

Kuo also reiterates his earlier claims that Apple will discontinue the 17-inch MacBook Pro this year, citing estimates that the model makes up only 1% of Apple's notebook sales.

The introduction of this new "MacBook" model would leave Apple with a lineup of six notebooks, although Kuo predicts that issues with display yield and heat dissipation will push the release of the 13-inch MacBook back until August, leaving only the 15-inch model to make its debut next week.


Mention of an independent graphics chip on 13" MacBook Pro is an error - should be integrated graphics
We should note that this configuration of models is not accounted for in our speculation on part numbers that leaked earlier this week, but we did receive an unconfirmed tip of a different configuration that would match up with Kuo's claims fairly closely. In that scenario, new iMacs are not accounted for in the list and the J30/J31 model numbers represent updated 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pro models while the D2 model represents this new Retina-equipped 15-inch MacBook.

Kuo believes that Apple will wait until next year to re-simplify its notebook lines with Intel's Haswell platform, at which point the company will merge the MacBook Pro and this new MacBook model, leaving a set of four models: 11-inch and 13-inch MacBook Airs and 13-inch and 15-inch MacBooks.

We do find Kuo's claims to be somewhat difficult to believe, as we fail to see how this new "MacBook" model is substantially different in performance from the MacBook Pro and thus do not see why users would be interested in a non-Retina MacBook Pro given the existence of this new MacBook line. Given the scenario outlined by Kuo, the only "advantage" of the thicker MacBook Pro would be an included optical drive, but users are finding such a feature to be increasingly unnecessary and easily replaceable by digital downloads such as through the Mac App Store, direct file transfers, and cloud-based storage, with an external optical drive available to be connected only on the rare occasions when necessary.

Still, Kuo has offered accurate information on Apple's notebook plans in the past, being the first to outlined the MacBook Air redesign that included the new 11-inch model, and thus we feel that his claims are worth some consideration and discussion.

Following yesterday's leak of Mac Pro part numbers, AppleInsider now posts a full list of 27 new part numbers said to be on their way to resellers in Australia. A total of 13 of the part numbers are listed as "standalone kits", indicating that they are accessories, which leaves as many as 14 Mac models included in the launch.


Based on hints included in the leaked image and some additional information, guesses can be made at the identities of some of the remaining products.

The first product on the list, part number MC414, is described as "K31 Best" and appears to have a price under AU$1000. The K31 part number initially appeared a year ago to describe what is now the current generation of Apple's Time Capsule base station. Consequently, this new listing may represent a capacity upgrade to the existing line.

The next group of part numbers includes a pair of "D2" machines with prices above AU$2000 and AU$3000 respectively, and these parts could represent new 15-inch MacBook Pro models. The current stock 15-inch models come in at AU$2099 and AU$2499, and the higher price on at least the new high-end model could be a result of a shift to solid-state storage. The identification of these part numbers as MacBook Pros is mere speculation, however, based only on the best fitting price points of current machines.

Two pairs of model numbers at J30 and J31 could represent updated iMacs, with the three lowest models being priced in the AU$1000-AU$1999 range and the top end model coming in above AU$2000. This fits with the existing iMac pricing, which is AU$1399/AU$1698 for the 21.5-inch size and AU$1949/AU$2299 for the 27-inch size.

The next two pairs of model numbers, J11 and J13, may also be linked and could represent new MacBook Air models. Only the first digit of the low-end J11 price can be seen, and it indicates that pricing begins above AU$1000, in line with the current AU$1099 entry-level price on the 11-inch model.

Following a list of 12 accessory part numbers comes the three Mac Pro models detailed yesterday, and the list concludes with a "PD454" part number that interestingly represents a personalized or engraved version of the B67(A) accessory that appears earlier in the list.

Notably, our speculation on the identities of the various part number does not include a 13-inch MacBook Pro, for which a claimed spec label leaked yesterday. It is possible that one of the model numbers such as J11 could represent two stock configurations of a 13-inch MacBook Pro, but that would leave Apple's set of four MacBook Air models incompletely accounted for in the part numbers.

We caution our readers that these guesses at identifying the various part numbers are indeed speculation based on best fits with Apple's current pricing structure and number of models offered in each of its Mac lines. We do not have specific knowledge of the identities of these models beyond what is shown in the leaked image.

Update: 9to5Mac posts a full matrix of parts and prices along with their speculation on models matching up with those parts. Their guesses are identical to ours with the exception of the K31 part, which with a price of AU$119 would represent a new AirPort Express rather than a Time Capsule upgrade.

The addition of prices for the accessories also indicates that the B67 product is a new iPod shuffle available in five colors and with personalization. Other likely accessories include an external SuperDrive and a USB 3.0 Ethernet adapter.