There have long been rumors that Apple will unveil the M3 MacBook this October. Unfortunately, new claims suggest otherwise.

According to analyst and Apple informant Ming-Chi Kuo (via Ars Technica), Apple will not release the rumored M3 MacBooks in 2023. Kuo did not specify why Apple will reportedly not release the M3 MacBooks this year.

Kuo's claim is contrary to reports of an October launch that Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has been citing for the past several months. In a Power On newsletter published over the summer, Gurman stated that the M3 MacBook would be announced in October. According to his sources, Apple will unveil a new 13-inch MacBook Air and a MacBook Pro of the same size.

Kuo is not the first to claim that the rumored Apple M3 chip will not appear in 2023. According to many leaker Revegnus, Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC, with whom Apple works closely on several products, apparently cannot produce enough M3 chips to update its tablets, laptops, and desktops. iPads and Macs with the new generation of silicon will instead appear only in 2024, Revegnus adds.

The Apple M3 series chips are rumored to use TSMC's N3E 3-nanometer process, the same process used in the Apple A17 Pro chip in the iPhone 15 Pro. One might speculate that the iPhone 15 may be the reason why the M3 MacBook is not released this year, as Apple may be prioritizing cell phones.

As we have written before, the iPhone is more popular than the best MacBooks and the best iPads. Perhaps Apple and TSMC are using these mobile chips to meet the potentially high demand for the new iPhone. Apple has reportedly asked suppliers in the past to shift manufacturing priorities away from other products in order to keep the iPhone on the production line, so perhaps this is something we will see again.

While Apple's September event this week introduced new products like the Apple Watch 9 and iPhone 15, I was personally most looking forward to the M3 MacBook being announced at the rumored October event. If the rumors are true, it appears that we will have to wait a bit longer for the M3 MacBook and Mac. Nevertheless, since these are all based on rumors, it is best to be skeptical.

Even if the M3 MacBook does not launch in 2023, something will be announced in early 2024. Whether Apple will hold a full-fledged live event or play pre-recorded video, as it did with this year's MacBook Pro 14-inch and MacBook Pro 16-inch, is anyone's guess. But we will have to wait and see.

Keep checking back for any new reports on the M3 MacBook.