Oops, we screwed up—that’s the gist of 9to5Mac‘s story correction this morning. The Apple rumor-gathering tech blog admits it bungled both its super-secret part number pre-read as well as the timing of Apple’s Mac Pro refresh. Sorry Mac Pro fans, looks like you’ll have to wait until later this month, or early next.
Instead? Looks like we’re getting a new white MacBook with a faster processor and Intel’s Thunderbolt media port slapped on the side.
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The white MacBook, which sports a unibody polycarbonate (in other words, plastic) frame, was last updated in mid-2010. It currently sports a 13.3-inch LED-backlit glossy screen (1280 by 800 pixel resolution, just like the 13-inch MacBook Pro), 2GB of system memory (expandable to 8GB), a 2.4 GHz Intel Core Duo and Nvidia’s GeForce 320M graphics card with 256MB video memory.
What’s likely in the new white MacBook? Thunderbolt, of course. Probably a Sandy Bridge processor of some sort. Apple’s 13-inch MacBook Pro sports a 2.3 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor, so it’s reasonable to suspect a dual-core equivalent, maybe clocked at 2.0 or 2.2 GHz. We’ll probably also see a shift to the slower Intel HD Graphics 3000 or AMD Radeon 6000M series video card—a real bummer for older Nvidia GeForce 320M MacBook owners (the latter’s the reason I skipped Apple’s last MacBook Pro refresh in February 2011).
And who knows, perhaps Apple will finally drop the price on this thing. $999 still seems like $100-$200 too much for what’s essentially a cheapo plastic version of the in-every-way-superior only $200 pricier 13-inch MacBook Pro.
If you’re instead looking for something like a Mac Mini, it looks like that’s happening, too, with three new models appearing “soon” and classified “best,” “better,” and “ultimate.” No word on what they’ll include, though faster latest-family processors are a given.
And don’t forget Apple’s ballyhooed MacBook Air update, still very much on track, though whether any of this stuff manifests at OS X Lion’s digital-exclusive launch (supposedly tomorrow) remains to be seen.
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Matt Peckham is a reporter at TIME. Find him on Twitter at @mattpeckham or on Facebook. You can also continue the discussion on TIME’s Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.