Apple's worst product leak in 14 years! M4 MacBook not released yet, unboxing videos are everywhere

OMG, Apple has had its worst product leak in 14 years——

Although the 14-inch MacBook Pro equipped with the M4 chip has not yet been released, its photos and videos have been circulated all over the Internet.

The screenshot above is from the latest video of the Russian YouTube channel Romancev768. In the video, the up master unboxed a 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M4 chip, 16GB RAM, and 512GB storage.

This is not an isolated case.

Last week, there were already spoiler photos of the latest Apple computer equipped with the M4 chip on Twitter.

However, there was widespread doubt in the comment section at the time, with people suspecting that this was a photoshopped image or a scam.

And now, Mark Gurman, a well-known technology reporter for Bloomberg , has also confirmed the existence of the M4 MacBook in his latest blog post.

The 14-inch MacBook Pro equipped with an M4 chip is really coming!

Suspected to have leaked from Apple warehouse

Let’s take a closer look at the configuration of the M4 Mac that has been suspected to have been leaked.

This 14-inch MacBook Pro is equipped with an M4 chip, with a 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU, 16GB RAM, and 512GB storage.

This means that the minimum RAM for the MacBook Pro series will double from the base 8GB to 16GB (there have been rumors of this before) .

The MacBook Pro in the video is equipped with three Thunderbolt 4 ports .

The current 14-inch MacBook Pro only has two Thunderbolt 4 ports.

The overall appearance color is space black .

This new color option for the 14-inch MacBook Pro currently only has two colors: Space Gray and Silver for the base model.

Additionally, in terms of design, there doesn't seem to be any noticeable changes to the 14-inch MacBook Pro.

So the question is, where did the leak come from when so many 14-inch MacBook Pros were exposed to the public before they were released?

No one can answer this question, and Apple has not yet given any explanation.

However, Twitter leaker @ShrimpApplePro later added that the unreleased 14-inch MacBook Pro was already being secretly sold in a private FaceBook group .

And it’s not just one – some people say they have 200 of these things in their hands!

Therefore, it is reasonable to guess that the source of this leak is Apple's warehouse.

If true, this would be the second worst product leak in Apple's history.

The first serious leak occurred before the iPhone 4 was released.

In 2010, an Apple employee named Bob was celebrating his 27th birthday at a bar in California and accidentally left his iPhone 4 prototype on a bar stool.

Then the prototype that Apple considered top secret was picked up by a young man, who then sold it to the technology media Gizmodo...

The iPhone 4 is Apple's most legendary model, and when the prototype fell into the hands of the technology media, Jobs was furious.

After this most serious leak, Apple sued Apple for theft, and also sued Gizmodo's editors.

At present, Apple has not responded to the leak of the M4 Mac, and it is unclear how it will deal with this incident.

“Apple is abandoning its annual product update strategy”

Bloomberg's technology reporter Lao Gu has previously stated bluntly that Apple may hold a small event in October this year to release the new M4 Mac, and then officially go on sale on November 1.

Lao Gu predicts that the products released this time may be as follows:

• The entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M4 chip;
• High-end 14-inch/16-inch MacBook Pro with M4 chip;
• New Mac minis with M4 and M4 Pro chips;
• New iMac with M4 chip;
• New iPad mini.

iPad mini hey!

What we mean is that it has been three years since the release of the previous generation iPad mini 6.

Looking further ahead, Gu expects Apple to launch several other new devices in the first half of 2025 , including a 13-inch/15-inch MacBook Air with an M4 chip, a new iPhone SE, a new 11-inch/13-inch iPad Air, and upgraded AirTags.

At the same time, Lao Gu also put forward his own observation summary, which is:

Apple is quietly abandoning its strategy of annual product updates .

For a long time, Apple has had its own rules, which can be summarized as releasing a new system in June, and then launching supporting new devices in September and October, such as the iPhone, iPad and Mac.

The benefits of doing this are very obvious.

First of all, the annual "fixed routine" helps employees work together and know when to prepare what part of the product, so there will be no major problems.

Second, from an outside perspective, analysts and investors have a rough idea of ​​what is going to happen.

Third, a fixed rhythm will plant an anchor in consumers’ minds, forming fixed expectations for a fixed time.

But as the number of Apple products gradually increased, the disadvantages of doing so gradually became apparent.

On the one hand, some hardware products, such as Apple Watch Ultra or iPhone SE, do not require such frequent updates and upgrades.

On the other hand, since Apple's internal division of labor is based on functions (hardware, software, services) rather than design departments by product category, upgrading mobile phones, computers, headphones, and iPods once a year would bring a lot of pressure , and it would be unrealistic to expect to complete them excellently.

Therefore, Apple has begun to "disrupt its own pace", that is, it has broken the inherent rhythm of new product launches.

Taking hardware releases as an example, Apple launched new Macs in January and June last year, and a new iPad in May this year.

There are signs of Apple updating and launching new products all year round.

Taking software systems as an example , in the past two years, there have been frequent cases where key new features of software updates have been temporarily launched for weeks or even months.

It has to be said that Apple must do something to make new product launches more flexible and have its own rhythm and style.

Fortunately, Gu found that Apple was clearly aware of the problem.

There are other signs that Apple is moving toward spreading its product releases throughout the year.
The company plans to launch several new hardware in the second half of next year, and most of the next year will be spent on a major update to iOS 18.
That makes sense - and helps really tie in new hardware and new software features.