The funny thing about rumors is that it's hard to get upset if they're inaccurate (remember when Gene Munster was convinced Apple was going to make its own television set?). Case in point: MacRumors reported yesterday that analyst Ming-Chi Kuo now expects Apple to release its new scissor switch keyboard "in the late second quarter or early third quarter of 2020."
This rumor is closely related to another rumor that Apple plans to introduce a MacBook Pro with a larger 16-inch display. The company last offered a MacBook Pro with a display size larger than 15 inches back in 2012. Rumors indicate that the company's trip down memory lane would also include a switch (pun intended) back to scissor switches, which it replaced with the butterfly mechanism in 2015.
Kuo said in February that Apple would release a MacBook Pro with a 16-inch display some time in 2019. He then said in July that Apple was on track to release the device this year and added that the new MacBook Pro would ditch the company's widely maligned butterfly mechanism in favor of a scissor switch. That means he spent most of 2019 claiming a 16-inch MacBook Pro would arrive this year.
Not that Kuo was the only one. IHS Markit made a similar claim in June, and in August, Bloomberg reported that Apple planned to release a 16-inch MacBook Pro this year. It seemed like the notebook's arrival before the turn of the decade was all but guaranteed. It's not clear why Kuo is now changing his tune.
All that leaves us with is the continued insistence that Apple plans to a). ditch the butterfly mechanism and b). release its first 16-inch MacBook Pro. We don't know if those changes will arrive concurrently or when they'll make their debut. Apple hasn't officially announced either product, so technically we don't know if these will ever be more than a rumor either. And so the mill continues to spin.
