New Mac Part Numbers Found in Future Shop's Inventory? [Update] - MacRumors
Skip to Content

New Mac Part Numbers Found in Future Shop's Inventory? [Update]

144643 futureshoppart

According to an anonymous report, six new Mac placeholder SKUs have appeared in Future Shop's inventory system. While we've been unable to independently verify this at this time, the placement of early "placeholder" part numbers is consistent with inventory practices of some major retailers.

In February, we saw MacBook Pro part numbers in Best Buy's systems about 3 weeks before the release of the new MacBook Pros. Future Shop is a Canadian subsidiary of Best Buy.

Apple has been rumored to be planning new releases for their laptops (and maybe iMacs) before the holidays. The last rumored date pinpointed October 14th for the launch.

Update: According to one BestBuy poster, these SKUs were set up without any knowledge from Apple with only the circulating expectations that Apple would be releasing notebooks in the near future. As a result, there can be no conclusions drawn from this inventory change, except what we already know, that Apple is expected to release new notebooks in the near future.

Related Roundups: iMac, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro
Related Forums: iMac, MacBook Neo, MacBook Air

Popular Stories

apple silicon mac lineup 2024 feature purple

Apple to Overhaul Mac Lineup With 11 New Models

Wednesday July 22, 2026 8:13 am PDT by
Apple is preparing to refresh every Mac it sells over the next two years, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. The plans come amid a Mac resurgence, with sales projected to climb for a third consecutive year, partly thanks to a growing following among users who lean on the machines for demanding, agent-based AI workloads. The wave of new Macs will begin this fall with a refreshed...
Apple iMac M4 hero feature

iMac Update Expected This Year, Model With OLED Display Also in Works

Wednesday July 22, 2026 9:10 am PDT by
Apple has finished development of a new iMac that it plans to release later this year, according to a report today from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. The updated iMac is one of 11 new Mac models that Apple plans to release over the next two years or so. The next iMac will unsurprisingly have a newer chip, but the report did not indicate if Apple plans to use the existing M5 chip or the upcoming...
m4 imac side view

OLED iMac Panel Could Include Extra Layer to Fight Screen Burn-In

Monday August 10, 2026 4:34 am PDT by
LG Display is developing a five-layer OLED panel structure that could end up in a future iMac, with an extra layer added to prevent screen burn-in and increase brightness, reports The Elec. LG Display already builds four-stack OLED panels for high-resolution monitors, and arranges the light-emitting layers in a blue-green-blue-red pattern. The five-stack version reportedly under development...

Top Rated Comments

234 months ago
Nothing to see here, move along

I helped set these skus up. They were set up with no information or assistance from Apple. These were set up as the same time as a long list of placeholders for iPods for the "Let's Rock" event - we weren't sure if there were computers coming at the same time (as you can see in the thread in the Future Shop forums).

So to recap:

* We setup a bunch of skus.
* We did so without input from Apple.
* We did it to be prepared for when new product launches because we find out at exactly the same time you do. Sometimes we get a "you'll see X number of new laptops" but that's the extent of it.
* We also did it because we wanted to make sure that we weren't setting skus up in the same time frame that they were going to launch because inevitably someone with a camera phone is going to see them in the system and be a little overzealous and fire off a cropped, poorly compressed photo of our inventory system to engadget/gizmodo/macrumors/appleinsider and we figured if we set them up in advance we can avoid tipping Apple's hand in the future. Yes, we're that considerate of our partners. Phew.


Alright. Hope that clears it up for everyone.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)