There has been a lot of speculation that Apple is going to surprise its audience and fans this year by releasing the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro 2016 models in 2015. It would be an interesting move by Apple, and these are the latest rumors on the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro 2015 or 2016 Release Date.
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."
The issue of the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air 2016 models arriving in 2015 comes from dwindling sales of the 2015 MacBook Pro and MacBook Air, according to Australian Network News. For those that don't know, the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air of 2015 were announced in Apple's Spring Forward event, but their prices have gone drastically down.
The reason for the price decrease could be to make room for the next model, which Apple has been known to do. Apple is not well-known for slashing its own prices for other reasons, but it is possible that the price cut of the current model of MacBook Pro and MacBook Air are simply a set up for holiday sales, which Apple also needs. Also, this holiday, with Microsoft's Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book, there will be a lot of laptop competition.
If Apple wanted to announce a new 2016 MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, it would have made sense for them to just mention them, if not spotlight them, when they unveiled the iPhone 6S and iPad Pro. In fact, because Apple wants the larger tablet to sell might be a reason why they are not updating the MacBooks until they need to.
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.
