A few mysterious and unreleased Macs have been spotted in Steam’s usage data for November 2022. Labeled “Mac14,6” and “Mac15,4”, the devices are likely machines with M2 Pro and/or M2 Max processors that be ready for launch in 2023.
You can view the data by going to Steam’s survey page and clicking on the line labeled “OSX Hardware Model Summary”. The two models are at the bottom of the list, each assigned to 0.00% of users. Note that this indicates a very low number rather than none at all, as the numbers are rounded to two decimal places; indeed, this makes perfect sense to a pair of engineers conducting tests on prototypes of an unreleased machine.
Foundry
It may seem strangely careless for Apple employees to test unreleased products on a public platform, given the company’s penchant for secrecy. But at certain points in development it seems inevitable, and this is how the existence of several Apple devices has been revealed for the first time.
As MacRumors points out, the specific designation “Mac14,6” has been seen in the wild before. On two separate occasions in November and December 2022, Geekbench scores for the device – believed to carry an M2 Max chip – have appeared online. My colleague Jason Cross discusses the implications of those leaks in his Rumor Reality Check column.
It’s unclear when these new Macs will be announced and available to buy. There is minimal chance of further announcements before the end of 2022, and January and February are generally quiet months for Apple. Normally we would expect new products in the pipeline to be delayed until spring, but the company has surprised us in the past and may shock us again.
For more on what’s coming, read: Every new Apple product coming in 2023.
