Apple MacBook Air and MacBook Pro 2015 & 2016 Release Date and Rumors

Nov 12, 2015 05:01 PM EST

For some reason, there have been a lot of rumors that Apple's 2016 model of the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro will have a release date that will be this year.  There are two pieces of evidence that support this theory, and some of it seems valid to support the Apple MacBook Air and MacBook Pro 2015 or 2016 release date. 

One of the juiciest rumors has surfaced as The Venture Capital Post reported that the 2016 MacBook Air could launch on Black Friday 2015, and the 2016 MacBook Pro could arrive by December 2015.  This is a rumor, and there has not been any official word, but there is at least some evidence to support it. 

The first evidence is the price cuts on the current models of the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, which were released shortly after Apple's "Spring Forward" event.  The price has drastically gone down recently, which many believe as a signal that some new model is coming, as Apple has been known to do that. 

This is speculation, and Realty Today has stated that there has been a decline in the sales of Apple devices.  It is possible that the price cut might exist to encourage buyers for more sales, as well as competing against the Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book that Microsoft is releasing this holiday season. 

The second piece of evidence comes from some code that a lot of sources are calling proof positive.  According to Pike's Universum, this website has "stumbled upon" a new Mac code, AAPL951, in El Capitan, which indicates that the launch of new MacBooks could occur sooner rather than later.  As the post reads:  "The data is identical to that of the late 2015 (iMac17,1 in the same file) so it may as well be a remnant of the new iMac, but the strange thing is that the XHCI data for the late 2015 iMac is also there, which is why I believe that this is not/was not added for the/a new iMac but another Mac." It also says: "And like I said earlier in the comments, there are too many USB 3 ports defined to fit on a MacBook (Pro) and Mac Mini. This and the fact that there is already support for newer graphics chips [baked] into El Capitan... is why I think that it was added for a new Mac Pro."

It is pretty difficult to argue with code when it comes to evidence of a new product launch from Apple.  If the 2015 release of the 2016 models of the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro is true, then that is a pretty fast turnaround time for the new models.  It is pretty clear that after Black Friday has come and gone, we can dismiss this idea of a possibly premature new model of MacBook as just a rumor. 

However, when the 2016 version of the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air come out, this year or the next, it is rumored to have an Intel Skylake-U chipset under the hood, and powered by OS X El Capitan.  There are also plans that the new models will be sleeker, which should come as no surprise, but it could come with a Type-C USB port.  There are also talks of these new models having more powerful RAM and Force Touch technology.