The Apple spring event we’re all waiting for probably isn’t happening

With numerous new products on the way this spring, we’ve been anxiously waiting for Apple to send out invitations for its spring event sometime in early March. However, with the new M3 MacBook Air arriving Monday morning, it appears as though there won’t be one after all. 

Apple has a hot-and-cold relationship with spring events. We got one in 2022 when Apple unveiled the Mac Studio and iPhone SE 3, and in 2021 with the M1 iMac and AirTags. But in 2023, Apple launched the M2 MacBook Pro and Mac mini, and the 2nd-gen HomePod without an event. 

But this year appeared to be an “on” year with several major products due for an upgrade. After more than 12 months without a single iPad release, Apple reportedly has several ready to go, with OLED iPad Pros and a larger 12.9-inch iPad Air rumored to be in production. And the inevitable M3 MacBook Airs are also likely coming sooner than later. 

As first reported by Mark Gurman, writing in his latest Power On newsletter, Apple is going to skip the event this spring and instead launch its new lineup via press release. The timing of the announcements is somewhat unclear—Gurman says to expect the new products to arrive in late March or early April, while MacRumors reports something new could arrive as early as this week—and indeed it did in the form of the M3 MacBook Air. With several more updates expected this month, Apple appears to be spreading out the launches over a series of days rather than dropping everything at once like an event.

Since there almost certainly isn’t a spring event, Apple’s first event of the year will likely be WWDC in June, where it will show off the latest versions of iOS, macOS, watchOS, and visionOS, along with some possible hardware releases, including the M3 Ultra chip for the Mac Studio and Mac Pro.