An icon depicting 16-inch MacBook Pro with thinner bezels has been found in Catalina code

If you need additional clues that Apple is indeed working on a new MacBook Pro model, here’s one: an icon depicting the company’s unreleased sixteen-inch notebook has been discovered in the first two betas of the upcoming macOS Catalina 10.15.1 update.

As you can see for yourself, the icon clearly depicts a Mac notebook that looks like the current MacBook Pro family, only with noticeably skinnier side bezels. It was unearthed from the Catalina beta by French blog MacGeneration which spotted two variations of the icon, one depicting the notebook in Silver (shown on the image top of post) and the other in Space Gray.

Tellingly, the assets have the number “16” in their filenames.

One of the icons depicts a 16-inch notebook in Space Gray.

Apple is said to release a new high-end MacBook Pro notebook aimed at gamers and creative pros that is said to put a sixteen-inch display inside a body roughly the size of the current 16-inch model, which it will achieve by utilizing an edge-to-edge screen.

The computer has been predicted to ship this fall, and one would correctly assume that Apple would want to hold a dedicated event in October to announce the new portable machine. On the other hand, independent analyst Horace Dediu opined yesterday that the window’s too tight already for another Apple event for any other hardware this year.

But maybe this machine doesn’t warrant a dedicated Apple event?

Comparison: 15-inch MacBook Pro, at left, and the upcoming 16-inch model with narrower bezels, at right.

Apple could easily release this new notebook quietly with a website update and a press release, as it has done many times in the past when refreshing expanding existing Mac models.

Do you still believe this new MacBook is due this year?

Let us known what you think by leaving a comment below.