These haven’t been good days for Apple. Last week, photos surfaced on X (formerly Twitter) of what was reportedly the unreleased M4 MacBook Pro, while the poster claimed it was for sale on Facebook. Then this weekend, Russian YouTuber Wylsacom did a full hands-on unboxing of what they claimed was the same MacBook Pro line. And now things have gotten even worse for Apple.
That’s because a second person claims to own the M4 MacBook Pro, and he did posted a video as proof. The poster is of another Russian citizen, perhaps suggesting a connection to the earlier leak. The one-minute video clip shows Russian YouTuber Romancev768 unboxing the laptop and sharing their first impressions of it. Although much less detailed than Wylsacom’s video, the MacBook Pro seen in this latest video bears many similarities to the laptops from the previous leaks.
The big question is whether these leaks depict real Apple laptops or cleverly disguised fakes – and there are some compelling elements in what is shown in Romancev768’s video. To start, the YouTuber shows the About This Mac screen in macOS, which says the device will launch in November 2024 – the same time Bloomberg journalist Mark Gurman expects the M4 MacBook Pro to go on sale.
The MacBook Pro in Romancev768’s video has the exact same model number and packaging as in previous leaks, while the device’s specs also appear to be accurate. That suggests that all the leaked laptops could have come from the same batch. It is not clear whether this is a real batch from an Apple warehouse, or a batch of fake laptops made by a very enterprising fraudster.
Interestingly enough, the boxes in both leaks feature a QR code and the text “Scan for more information about your MacBook Pro.” Unfortunately, it appears that this QR code is a little too blurry to scan successfully, but where that code goes will probably give us an idea of whether these products are authentic or not.
Benchmarks leak
And it’s not just videos that would have revealed the new MacBook Pro; benchmarks have also surfaced. On Geekbench, a new Mac – tagged Mac16,1 – has appeared, and the scores match tests Wylsacom runs in its video, both showing a single-core score of 3864 and a multi-core result of 15288. Compared to the M3 chip with 8-core CPU and 10-GPU that in last year’s MacBook Pro, the single-core result is about 26.7% higher, while the multi-core score is 30.6% higher.
The chip used in these tests is listed as an Apple M4 with a 10-core CPU, consisting of four cores in one cluster and six cores in the other (this likely reflects the separation between performance and efficiency cores). The base clock speed of the chip is 4.41 GHz and it comes with 16 GB of memory, which matches the box of the leaked MacBook Pro.
Moreover, benchmarks for Apple’s Metal graphics API have also emerged. This shows that the chip’s GPU is roughly equivalent to that of the M4 in the latest iPad Pro, with the latest result reaching a score of 57603. The iPad Pro, meanwhile, scored 53374, giving the MacBook Pro’s M4 an increase of just under 8. %. However, the difference is larger compared to the MacBook Pro’s M3 chip, which has a Metal score of 47414 – a difference of around 20%.
Benchmarks vary from machine to machine, so these should be considered raw scores. But regardless, they still provide a useful indication of the kind of performance we could expect in the M4 MacBook Pro.
Possibly the biggest leak in Apple history
That said, there are elements that indicate these leaked devices are fake. They use the exact same image on the front of the box as the M3 MacBook Pro, something Apple has never done before (the company always adds a new background to the MacBook packaging). Additionally, the layout of the information sticker on the back of the box – i.e. the one with the laptop’s specifications – is completely different from that of previous MacBook Pro boxes. That doesn’t prove it’s fake, but it does raise questions. Additionally, the About This Mac box that Romancev768 demonstrated may have been spoofed. Again, it doesn’t mean that is fake in this video, but the possibility remains.
If it is indeed a counterfeit MacBook Pro, the most likely candidate is the current 14-inch MacBook Pro with M3 Pro chip and space black color. This matches many of the specs of the reportedly leaked MacBook Pro, including its 512GB of storage and three Thunderbolt ports. However, it would take some software fraud to make a few things unclear: this existing MacBook Pro has 18 GB of memory and Thunderbolt 3 slots, while the leak apparently includes 16 GB of memory and upgraded Thunderbolt 4 ports.
There is also the question of how exactly the Russian YouTubers obtained these laptops. The packaging language and model numbers indicate that the MacBooks were intended for the US, and Apple products are currently not allowed to be sold in Russia. While Russian citizens can obtain Apple devices through back-channel means, the idea is that not one but multiple Macs are being snatched from a highly security-conscious company like Apple and then too finding their way to an embargoed country feels like quite a task.
That said, if these products are fake, they are clearly produced to a pretty high standard and are quite convincing to the naked eye. Ultimately, we’ll find out if they’re real or not when Apple announces the M4 MacBook Pro at an upcoming launch event in October. If they turn out to be real, this will almost certainly represent the largest product leak in Apple’s 50-year history.