Apple is currently dealing with the worst leak since an iPhone 4 prototype was left in a bar nearly 15 years ago. Fortunately for Apple, this time, it’s not an iPhone, but it’s still a product that many buyers are waiting for: The M4 MacBook Pro.
When the purported M4 MacBook Pro box leaked a few days ago, I said it could be a fake, no matter how genuine it might seem. Then, we saw a hands-on video over the weekend that showed a purported M4 MacBook Pro unboxing. I said the laptop appeared to be the real deal, especially considering that the benchmarks in the video match actual records from Geekbench.
Fast-forward to early Tuesday, and I have no reason to believe these leaks are fake. A second Russian YouTuber has gotten their hands on the base M4 MacBook Pro, which is apparently available for sale on some Facebook group. The unboxing video is similar to the previous one, but this time, we get to see a big detail that teases the M4 MacBook Pro’s release date.
Russian YouTuber Wylsacom showed the main M4 MacBook Pro upgrades during the weekend. The base model will feature the M4 chip, 16GB of RAM, and three USB-C ports, and it’ll come in Space Black. He also performed a Geekbench 6 benchmark, whose results are available online, indicating the laptop is a genuine Apple product.
Russian YouTuber Romancev768 posted a similar hands-on video featuring the same star on Monday afternoon. The M4 MacBook Pro unboxing seems to confirm all the details that Wylsacom mentioned.
What’s different is that Romancev768 gave us a look at the About This Mac screen of the laptop. As MacRumors points out, the screen tells us we’re looking at an M4 MacBook Pro laptop that’s identified as a November 2024 model.
This implies the M4 MacBook Pro release date might be sometime in November. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, who shared both unboxing videos on X, said during the weekend that Apple wants to unveil the new M4 Macs and the iPad Mini 7 on November 1st.
Considering the two leaks from Russia, it seems rather clear that Apple will unveil the M4 MacBook Pro and other M4 Macs by the end of the month. They should go on sale around the world in November. Strangely enough, the place where these big M4 MacBook Pro leaks originate from won’t officially get the laptop. Apple doesn’t sell products in Russia on account of the war.
With about three weeks to go until the M4 MacBook Pro’s launch, we might see even more unboxings online.
The leaker who first posted the alleged M4 MacBook Pro photo says there’s a private Facebook group where you can buy the laptop. Apparently, the seller has some 200 units on hand.
What’s curious in all of this is that Apple is using an existing wallpaper for the box, rather than choosing a brand new image for the M4 MacBook Pro.
That said, I’m very interested in the story of this leak. Someone getting their hands on hundreds of unreleased laptops is very serious. We saw this happen before but not with Apple products. Instead, Google’s unreleased Pixel phones surface on the black market all the time.
