Apple may have accidentally confirmed the existence of an M1X MacBook Pro

Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference keynote came and went this year without a new MacBook Pro — but it looks like that wasn’t the original intent! Intriguingly, Apple quietly included the phrases “M1X MacBook Pro” and “M1X” as tags on its YouTube video of the live keynote, as spotted by Max Balzer (via 9to5Mac).

Not only does that sound like tacit confirmation of at least one new Arm-powered MacBook Pro, it also corroborates the rumors that it’ll include a new M1 chip, and that Apple will likely market it as an enhanced “X” variant, like it used to do with its high-end iPads, rather than going straight to M2. (Or, as some are pointing out, it could mean that someone on the social media team decided to try for an SEO boost and made it up.)

Three weeks ago, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported that we’d see redesigned 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros “as early as this summer,” ones that would bring back the SD card slot, HDMI port, and some form of the beloved trip-friendly MagSafe charging connector; offer twice as many high-performance CPU and GPU cores; and support up to 64GB of RAM. I really thought announcing them at WWDC would be the perfect way to distract from recent developer turmoil — you know, by announcing a MacBook Pro that’s actually for pros?

Perhaps that was the original idea, but we got an absolutely jam-packed keynote filled with rapid-fire software announcements instead. Check out our supercut below for the condensed video version, or read our list of the 15 biggest WWDC 2021 announcements if you only want the highlights.

Update, 6:11PM ET: Added the possibility that Apple just wanted to boost this video in search by adding some words that might draw attention.