According to analysts and industry experts like Mark Gurman and Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple is expected to announce an M4 refresh of the MacBook Pro possibly this month and most likely before the end of the year. No event announcements have come yet, though Apple has historically held an October Mac event. But now, an online leak discovered by Wccftech claims the new model is up for sale on a private Facebook group. The claim is backed up by alleged images of the retail box, but there’s plenty to be suspicious about.
While the images were posted by known leaker ShrimpApplePro, the information was sent to them from an unknown source. There are two posts so far, one with an image of the back of the retail box — with comments from AppleShrimpPro saying to take it with asome skepticism — and one showing additional images and claiming it’s for sale on Facebook.
More photos of it confirmed it’s real. Apparently it is on sale in a private Facebook group lmao https://t.co/eSoXY5NHg9 pic.twitter.com/lxW9rbilSE
— ShrimpApplePro 🍤 ずっと真夜中でいいのに (@VNchocoTaco) September 30, 2024
Interestingly, AppleShrimpPro writes in the second post that “more photos of it confirmed it’s real,” but if anything, the second batch of images is what makes this leak unconvincing. One of the images shows the front of the box, revealing the M4 MacBook Pro featured wallpaper to be … the same as the M3 MacBook Pro wallpaper? We all know Apple doesn’t shake up the design of its MacBooks with every refresh, but it does at least change the wallpaper. The chances of the company suddenly throwing its new M4 model into a box identical to the M3 are extremely unlikely.
We can see some details from the original photo, however. Out of the various bar codes and numbers, only the serial number if partially blocked out — and that’s the only way to identify if this is an existing MacBook Pro or an entirely new design.
There’s also the problem of how someone would get their hands on a boxed and ready-to-sell M4 MacBook Pro. The only really plausible method would be to snag it from the inventory of an Apple Store — but if they’re lined up in stores already, why don’t we have an event announcement yet?
Invitations for the latest iPhone event, which happened on September 9, were sent out two weeks in advance. It’s hard to believe that Apple would just be sitting waiting for multiple weeks despite having everything ready to go. It’s hard to know when exactly Apple ships devices to retail stores, but it likely wants to wait as long as possible — fewer devices out in the wild means a smaller chance of leaks.
But just because this leak doesn’t seem quite believable, that doesn’t mean it hasn’t gotten anything right. We too still have our fingers crossed for a minimum of 16GB RAM with these new models. It’s not clear if that will happen, but we will keep you updated on any more leaks and announcements.