This shortly after Intel announced Meteor Lake's unveiling at Intel Innovation on September 19 or 20. If Apple wanted to steal Intel's thunder... they probably succeeded.
Four Apple M3 chips, their expected configurations, and their Mac destinations have been outlined by a noted Apple analyst. It seems these four SoCs, the M3, M3 Pro, M3 Max, and M3 Ultra, could be headed to nine different Mac devices, with the base SKU also going to the Apple iPad Pro. The M3 Mac generation could start as soon as October 2023.