In latest days, the as-yet-unannounced M4 MacBook Professional has appeared all around the web, with the media partaking in a feeding frenzy as photos and movies of Apple’s subsequent flagship laptop computer frequently floor. However as if that wasn’t unhealthy sufficient for Apple, it now seems to be like some individuals are promoting the system earlier than it’s even been formally unveiled.
As noticed by @aaplpro on X (previously Twitter) and reported by MacRumors, an inventory has appeared on the Russian classifieds web site Avito. In accordance with the knowledge within the submit, the mannequin in query has the identical configuration of all of the beforehand leaked fashions: Apple’s M4 chip, 16GB of reminiscence, and 512GB of storage, indicating a typical supply for every of the leaked laptops.
On Avito, the M4 MacBook Professional was being offered for roughly $7,500 – clearly a really excessive worth to pay contemplating the bottom M3 MacBook Professional prices $1,599. Moreover, @aaplpro famous that there have been initially a number of laptops on the market on Avito, every with an hooked up word indicating that the worth of the system adjustments on daily basis and for patrons to verify earlier than buying.
The depicted submit has already been taken down, as Avito prohibits gross sales of “non-existent” merchandise. Whereas that presumably refers to the truth that the M4 MacBook Professional has not been introduced but, it additionally raises an attention-grabbing level: we don’t truly know if the one that created this itemizing actually had an M4 MacBook Professional in any respect. It’s potential that they merely used an image from one of many unboxing movies or printed their very own field and took an image of that, hoping for a fast money seize whereas the hypothesis and media furore swirls.
Regardless of the case, promoting a leaked product like this may not be a very intelligent concept – Apple is well-known for looking down leakers and threatening them with authorized motion, with a number of receiving precise jail time for his or her actions. Promoting an unannounced product offered by an organization of Apple’s tenacity might be a fast solution to unmask your self and endure the implications
To this point, it’s been unattainable to know whether or not any of the leaked M4 MacBook Execs are real. There are some clues that they may properly be: the sheer variety of models moving into folks’s arms means that if these laptops are merely older fashions which were patched or tweaked to look just like the M4 MacBook Professional, we’re taking a look at a extremely refined faking operation that hasn’t merely executed a fast one-off and known as it a day. This isn’t only a two-bit course of with somebody placing collectively a crude pretend – these laptops look convincing.
However, some elements of the leaks elevate eyebrows. They counsel that Apple is utilizing the identical wallpaper for the M4 MacBook Professional because it did for the earlier M3 mannequin – one thing the corporate has nearly definitely by no means executed earlier than. And regardless of benchmarks indicating that these laptops may comprise a brand new M4 chip, it’s definitely not unattainable to pretend outcomes like that.
Both means, we gained’t know for positive if these leaks are the actual deal till Apple broadcasts the M4 MacBook Professional at an occasion later this month. However one factor is for certain: Apple is much from in management right here, and it doesn’t appear like the leaks are going to decelerate any time quickly.