Apple to hold October event, probably release at least one new computer

The new Macs are expected to be radical redesigns – removing ports and adding strange new features

Craig Federighi, Senior Vice President of Software Engineering for Apple Inc, discusses the Siri desktop assistant for Mac OS Sierra at the company's World Wide Developers Conference in San Francisco, California (REUTERS/Stephen Lam)

Apple is set to reveal a whole new host of Macs at an event at the end of the month.

The company will be showing off new computers at an event on 27 October, according to Recode. The event has been long expected – a number of Mac models have gone without updates for many years, and the company has only really introduced one new computer in the last year.

That lack of activity has meant that many experts and recommendation sites have warned people not to buy the computers, because updates are expected for so long. Apple’s Mac Pro has lagged particularly in that respect – not being updated for more than three years, despite Apple making fun of claims that it couldn’t innovate when it released the computer.

But the October event will see the company release new versions of the MacBook Pro and potentially drop certain models of the MacBook Air. The new Pro laptop is likely to get the biggest changes, including a row of touchscreen keys that will sit at the top of the keyboard.

The event comes almost exactly a month after the release of the iPhone, and just a few weeks after the September event where it released that handset alongside new versions of the Apple Watch.

Together, the two events will mean that almost every major part of the Apple will be updated for Christmas. The only exceptions will be the iPads, which were updated earlier in the year, and the Apple TV.

It will also mean that there are new MacBooks ready to run Sierra, the newest version of MacOS. That was unveiled at Apple’s June WWDC event and then show-off again at the September event – but when it was released soon after, there were no new laptops ready to run it.

The company hasn’t yet publicly sent out invitations to press and so it’s unclear how big the event is. It’s expected to happen at or near Apple’s Cupertino campus, Recode reported, likely meaning that it will be smaller than the huge events Apple now uses to launch new iPhones.

The same week will feature Apple’s earnings report and a Windows 10 event.