Apple’s Regent Street store is expected to have a whole new product category for sale next year
(Picture: Apple)In 2022, Apple played it pretty safe in terms of products, with the usual annual improvements to the iPhone and Apple Watch accompanied by updates to the Mac and iPad lines. Only the Mac Studio and accompanying Studio Display went slightly beyond the comfort zone.
But 2023 promises to be different. Sure, there are plenty of familiar products in the mix, but we’re expecting a few more wildcards, including a whole new product category to get excited about (if you have the money … it’s going to be pricey).
The wildcards
It’s been four years since Apple branched out into a whole new product category with the HomePod, but all signs suggest the company will end this hiatus in 2023 with the release of a mixed-reality headset.
That means a headset that can run both virtual and augmented-reality applications, with insider reports hinting at 12 cameras to track your movements and surroundings. It will essentially have the power of a MacBook Pro, with reports of an Apple M2 chip and 16GB RAM – which sounds like overkill until you realise other mooted specs include a 4K OLED screen for each eye.
That won’t come cheap: reports suggest it will be somewhere between £1,500 and £2,500. If that’s correct, suddenly the Meta Quest Pro looks a lot more reasonable.
Beyond mixed reality, there are some other possible innovations on the way, chiefly in the smart home space. While Apple discontinued the full-size HomePod last year, reports suggested it will be coming back and could be accompanied by other ways of getting Siri around the house.
Apple would release a new version of HomePod in 4Q22-1Q23, and there may not be much innovation in hardware design. Smart speakers are undoubtedly one of the essential elements of the home ecosystem, but I think Apple is still figuring out how to succeed in this market.
— 郭明錤 (Ming-Chi Kuo) (@mingchikuo) May 20, 2022
That’s according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, who said Apple is experimenting with a speaker dock that turns your iPad into a smart screen, like the Echo Show or Google Nest Hub. Amazon has previously achieved something similar with its Fire Tablets.
In the same piece, Gurman mentions Apple is working on the larger HomePod, as well as a “combined Apple TV and smart-speaker device with a camera for FaceTime and other functions”. Bundling three smart home devices in one would certainly be parking virtual tanks on Alexa and Google Assistant’s lawns.
The usual suspects
None of this is the bread and butter of Apple’s money-printing business, of course, and even if the company is exploring new product lines, it doesn’t mean it will take its eye off iPhones, iPads, Apple Watches and Macs.
The iPhone 15 is virtually inevitable, as is a September unveiling, given all numbered iPhones have been announced then since 2012 (with the exception of the iPhone 12, which was delayed to October, due to Covid-19).
As is normal in recent years, we can expect a regular iPhone 15 and a Pro model, but there’s also talk of an Ultra version this year, with a titanium build and other as-yet-unknown enhancements.
The regular iPhone 15 is set to catch up with this year’s iPhone 14 Pro with a possible 48MP camera and the introduction of Dynamic Island, but the iPhone 15 Pro will take things further with a potential periscope camera for vastly improved long-range photography. All of them will finally make the jump to USB-C thanks toa law change in the European Union.
The world of iPads is arguably a bit more interesting, with talk of Apple introducing models with far bigger screens than currently available, and blurring the line between tablet and laptop further. Both 14.1-inch and 16-inch models of the iPad Pro are predicted, with dates of early 2023 and Q4 cited as possible launch dates.
Confirmed the 14.1" iPad Pro is being developed with our supply chain sources. It will have MiniLEDs and ProMotion. Not sure of the timing, but early 2023 may be more likely.
— Ross Young (@DSCCRoss) June 9, 2022
For Macs in 2023, it’s all about the power, as Apple’s own M chips go from strength to strength. Very early on, we can expect 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros to arrive sporting M2 Pro and M2 Max processors. These were apparently expected this year, but have slipped to 2023, so a spring release seems likely for the flagship laptops.
Those will probably be expensive and Apple reportedly has an option for those that want the big screen without the massive outlay. According to Bloomberg and others, Apple may be planning its biggest MacBook Air yet, coming in at 15 inches. The current model is 13.6 inches, so that’s quite an upgrade for those who like a big canvas to work with.
But it is desktop Macs that are really worth watching, specifically, two models that still use Intel chips rather than Apple’s own components. The smaller 24-inch iMac got a colourful makeover in 2021, the classic 27-inch all-in-one has yet to follow suit.
Then there’s the Mac Pro. The current “cheesegrater design” professional desktop was released in 2019 and Apple is apparently working on a version powered by its own chips. These will apparently be extremely powerful: Bloomberg believes that the M2 Ultra chip powering the computer will be available with up to a 24-core CPU and 76-core GPU, with at least 192GB RAM.
If that doesn’t mean anything to you, just know that the current chipset maxes out at 8 CPU cores, so this is still a serious upgrade that will cost serious money. How much money? Well, the current 2019 version starts at £5,499.
Finally, we’d expect Apple Watches at the same time as the iPhone 15 but everything has been very quiet on the leaks front, suggesting we’re not looking at a monumental update this time around.
Not happening (yet)
With such a packed schedule, you can’t have everything, and there are three big-picture omissions here.
First of all: no foldables (outside fun third-party prototypes like the one pictured above, that is). Insiders reckon that Apple won’t be dipping its toes into foldables until 2024 at the earliest, and then it will probably be a folding iPad rather than an iPhone Flip. While the foldable market is floundering, Apple entering it could be a game changer, as IDC Europe’s vice-president of data and analytics told the Standard in October.
Secondly, the Apple VR headset mentioned earlier is supposed to be the first step on the way to a Google Glass-style set of augmented reality glasses. But the dream of that is years away, and analyst Jeff Pu predicts a 2025-2026 launch.
A similar timeframe is expected for the much-hyped Apple Car. While Apple was apparently considering a self-driving vehicle with no steering wheel or pedals, it will now be considerably more conventional when it arrives in 2026, according to Bloomberg.
