William Gallagher
Apple will reportedly update its entire Mac line to the M4 processor, beginning in late 2024 and concluding with the Mac Pro in the second half of 2025.
Following reports that Apple is planning an M4 processor with AI features for the Mac, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has revealed an expected release schedule for the whole range. Writing in his "Power On" newsletter, he says that the transition will, unsurprisingly, start with the MacBook Pro.
According to Gurman, the plan is for these Macs to be updated to M4 around the end of the year:
- A low-end 14-inch MacBook Pro
- 24-inch iMac
Then between the end of 2024 and some time early in 2025, the list grows to include:
- New high-end 14-inch MacBook Pro and 16-inch MacBook Pro with M4 Pro/Max processor
- Mac mini in both M4 and M4 Pro versions
Following those, Gurman says that from spring to the end of 2025, Apple will complete moving the whole lineup to M4 in this sequence:
- New 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air models
- Mac Studio with high-end M4
- Mac Pro with M4 Ultra
The fact that Apple is planning an M4 processor is no great surprise, nor that there will be at least some focus on supporting AI. However, this roadmap is the first indication that for once, no Mac will be left out of the updates.
Since the Mac Pro was considerably behind the rest of the lineup in moving to Apple Silicon, it skipped the original M1 processor. Since then, Apple decided against producing an M2 version of the 24-inch iMac.
Consequently, this is the first time since the launch of Apple Silicon that every Mac in the range is to get the same, latest processor.
There are few details of what the AI features in the M4 processor could be. However, Bloomberg has previously said that an M4 Ultra — codenamed Hidra — would increase its Unified Memory capacity to support up to half a terabyte.
It's also likely that Apple will further develop its existing Neural Engine element, presumably by increasing the number of cores.
Wesley Hilliard
Christine McKee
Malcolm Owen
Amber Neely
36 Comments
Half a terabyte is a lot of unified memory. It might be worth checking this report against memory roadmaps from SK Hynix, Samsung, and Micron.
That roadmap implies no m3 Mac mini. I wonder if there will also be no m3 Mac Studio and if maybe the Mac Studio will get an m4 faster than we’d otherwise expect. And if all that turns out to be true, I wonder if the explanation might be that the first 3nm process from TSMC had yield issues, so maybe Apple wants to move to N3E ASAP
What's in a name...?
Could this Hidra AI rollout be a person / job eating monster...?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lernaean_Hydra
www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBcaLNpSyNA