Apple’s ‘Scary Fast’ event: what happened and how to recap

Apple held an online-only Mac event on 30/31 October dubbed ‘Scary Fast’. It launched its new M3 chip in addition to the M3 Pro and Max variants to mirror what it did with the M1 and M2 series of Mac chips.

As a result, Apple has also upgraded the existing-design MacBook Pro with the M3 Pro and M3 Max chips as well as (finally) upgrading the 24in iMac with M3.

The models upgraded in the summer still have M2-based hardware inside. So the MacBook Air lineup (with the still-recent 15in version) uses M1/M2 chips depending on which model you buy, while the higher-end Mac Studio and Mac Pro run on M2 Max (Studio-only) or M2 Ultra. And the early 2023 Mac Mini also runs M2. You can find details of those existing models in our main Mac roundup feature.

The ‘Scary Fast’ Apple Event was streamed live, but you can watch it again on YouTube (see the embedded video below).

Here’s what was announced at Apple’s ‘Scary Fast’ event:

Watch/recap the Apple Event here

Play

Our original article continues below

When is the Apple Event?

Apple’s latest event is taking place at a slightly odd time – 5pm PT, which puts it at 8pm ET and midnight in the UK (GMT) and 1am in Central Europe. So given the timing there is potential for it to be a US and Canada launch only, though that seems unlikely in this day and age. And we know it will be Mac-related which are obviously global products.

Here are the global times:

• San Francisco, CA, USA – PDT (UTC -7) – Mon, 30 Oct – 5pm, 17:00
• New York, NY, USA – EDT (UTC -4) – Mon, 30 Oct – 8pm, 20:00
• London, United Kingdom – GMT (UTC +0) – Tue, 31 Oct 00:00
• Paris, France – CET (UTC +1) – Tue, 31 Oct – 1:00am
• New Delhi, India – IST (UTC +5:30) – Tue, 31 Oct – 5:30am
• Beijing, China – CST (UTC +8) – Tue, 31 Oct – 8:00am
• Sydney, Australia – AEDT (UTC +11) – Tue, 31 Oct – 11:00am

Also read: Apple MacBook Pro review (16in 2023): the ultimate do-anything machine

What to expect from the Apple Event

The event seems set to reveal M3 Macs. Not only is the event’s tagline ‘Scary fast’ but the Apple logo on the event page transforms into a Mac Finder logo. Pretty obvious what’s going to happen there then. It also will almost certainly focus on hardware – after all, it was less than a month ago that macOS 14, aka macOS Sonoma, was launched (check out our macOS Sonoma tips and tricks).

So any thoughts that this was an event about the AirPods Max 2nd gen – or maybe new iPads for example – should be swiftly dispatched. Apple probably thought it was wise to manage expectations given that next year is set to be a big one for the company with Apple Vision Pro on the horizon and other key products expected.

We think there will be a new 24in iMac to replace the current M1 model (could there finally be a bigger one, too?) plus new MacBook Pros – however, they will most likely look like the current generation. We’re not currently expecting an update to the M2 MacBook Air, not least because there’s only just been a 15in version released. However, we guess it’s possible that Apple could just swap in

• Apple MacBook Air 15in review (M2, 2023): sleek yet supersized