Apple’s holding a Mac event on October 27th: 'hello again'

As expected, Apple just sent out invites for an event in Cupertino next week on October 27th. The tagline on the invite, "hello again," is a clear reference to the Mac, which was originally introduced with the word "hello" in 1984. The event will be streamed live starting at 10AM PT / 1PM ET — and if an endless string of speculation is true, we’ll finally be seeing some new MacBook Pros. (If there’s ever a time for finally to be appropriate, it’s now — the Retina MacBook Pro hasn’t seen an update in over a year, and Apple still sells a base MacBook Pro that hasn’t been touched since June 2012. Yes, you read that correctly.)

Anyway! The rumors suggest the new MacBook Pro will have an OLED touch control bar above the keyboard that will dynamically display different function keys, which is nice. There are also reports that Apple will move to an all-USB-C port arrangement, dropping classic USB and its own MagSafe power connector in favor of the simple all-in-one port it uses on the smaller 12-inch MacBook.

Bloomberg also previously reported that a fall hardware event could include a new iMac desktop, MacBook Air, along with a new standalone 5K monitor. All of that would be great as well; the entire Mac lineup is getting a bit long in the tooth. We’ll see what happens on October 27th — The Verge will be there live as always.