Originally published at: “Unleashed” Apple Event Set for 18 October 2021 - TidBITS
Apple’s “Unleashed” event on 18 October 2021 will likely debut new Apple silicon-powered Macs, including a rumored MacBook Pro redesign.
OSIRIX will do a presentation during the event, so they have announced… I’ll be watching with more than fleeting interest 
I wonder if they will finally unleash macOS Monterey. The beta testing has been going on far too long. It’s the longest OS testing I can remember.
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Well, Big Sur was released on November 12 last year.
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OsiriX, the medical imaging software? That could be something relatively boring like raving about how great the new processor is at handling big files or how great the new displays are for looking at subtle details. Or how easy it was to update from x86 to Apple Silicon code. More exciting would be some kind of VR/AR/XR demo.
An extended family member is a radiologist that uses OSIREX on Macs in his practice, and he likes that it has an app works great in iPads and even iPhones. Augmented and virtual reality are already features that are important in diagnosis, surgical planning and surgery.
If Apple does debut a headset, it could add a new dimension to diagnosis and surgical techniques, esp. robotic surgery:
https://www.hpbonline.org/article/S1365-182X(18)33891-7/fulltext
And it could be used in the education of doctors, nurses, physician assistants, etc. And Apple has been quite aggressive in targeting the medical field, as well as health and fitness, over the past few years.
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More evidence of Apple’s segue into health and sciences:
This is the first time I’ve been hearing about this particular rumor, so it probably won’t be Unleashed on Monday.
Apple controls both hardware and software, it’s giving them an advantage in health and healthcare services. It ain’t just about games.
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we can hope they’ll actually release an o/s that isn’t so buggy that it’s almost micro$lopian …
I don’t care what it is, there’s no way I’d ever install a version x.0.0 release of any OS from any vendor on a production system.
Always wait for one or two updates. Or at minimum, wait for reviews from the early adopters.
(FWIW, I only upgraded my main Mac from Catalina to Big Sur about a month ago).
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employed the same strategy. even after all that waiting, still found big sur to be quite buggy. so the wish expressed above remains …
Is it that I just haven’t noticed before or is the first Apple Event where they have a lot of paid commercial ads? I am seeing ads all over the place for this event and I don’t remember that happening before. Apple must have paid a small fortune for these advertisements, does that mean this event is going to be a really big deal?
I haven’t seen any commercials for Apple’s unleashed, but I have seen a ton of excellent PR pickups. I checked Ad Age, Adweek, Digiday and The Drum, and no mention of any Apple media buys for the event. Traditionally, Apple will often schedule and air commercials and print ads for the new products immediately or soon after the event.
But I did find some very interesting information about timing for Unleashed…about two weeks ago Google announced its annual Pixel event is scheduled for October 19:
Apple probably has some good industrial intelligence. The scheduling sounds too good to be accidental. It’s more like stealing someone’s thunder.
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It’s been years since I’ve eagerly anticipated an announcement. My high end MBP 2019 has a number of issues:
- discolored keyboards (happened early on)
- battery useless even though I hardly ever use it without external power (even before pandemic)
- overheats even in the window (related to using an external display, and poor chassis design); for the last 5 months or more, I’ve had to use it with an external traditional fan pointed at it .
Didn’t want to buy a first gen M1 MB. plus do want the bells and whistles of a MBP. But I must say I was quite tempted to go for it, given the positive reports of first M1 MB.
Still under Apple Care. When I get a new one, Apple will have a lot of work to do on it. Then I’ll give it away to a team member.
I can’t say I’ve had a lot of luck with macbooks overall the last 8 years. I hope their new model doesn’t have any glitches.
Anyone else think Dr Who for the wait screen?*
-three more colors of Homepod Mini… but no brown/tan/beige color?
-3rd generation of Airpod
-New MacbookPro, M1Pro Chip
-New M1 Max Processor
-New Macbook Pros 14" and 16" WOOHOO MAGSAFE BACK!
-HDMI Builtin, no touchbar (that was short lived)
-SD card slot!
-1080p camera - about time.
*hyperspace…punch it Chewy.
Initial reaction to the Unleashed event? WOAH… Imagine what will happen in 2022 and beyond when the nanoscale goes to 3nm or below. It is little wonder why Intel is so upset.
Anyone else notice those test rigs in the R&D Lab? The prototyping system boards with the honking CPU coolers on every table?
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And the return of Mag safe. It saved the life of my MacBook a few times.
Better screens and more screen real estate in both models. As predicted here, the bezels have been drastically reduced. An upgraded the camera for teleconferencing.
NO TOUCHBAR!
Although there will be fans, they will very rarely need to turn themselves on. Almost every time I use it, my ancient MBP sounds like the runway at a major global airport.
More ports.
More battery life and faster charging.
I’ll be checking them out later this week when the new editions hit the stores, and I’ll definitely decide on which one.
That is too funny – I read this as “fans of the Touch Bar,” not fans as in cooling devices.
I loved the concept of the Touch Bar, but the way Apple implemented it was awkward from a usability perspective (flat surface you can’t see without looking down at the keyboard), endless horizontal scrolling for something like a list of Emoji was idiotic, and the APIs for devs to add support for it were extremely convoluted (not easy). It’s no wonder few apps bothered and now it’s dead.
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The Slackbits chat wondered what the price differential of the Max would be…
It’s 1K to jump from 16Gb Pro to 32Gb Max. And another 500 for the 64Gb Max.
Hmmm.