New Developments Regarding Macs with Apple M4 Chip

Apple is making exciting preparations for the M4 processor Mac models it will launch towards the end of this year. The M4 chip was first showcased in the newly introduced next-generation iPad Pro a few months ago. This chip stands out by offering impressive performance to its users.

Prominent features of the M4 processor include 4 performance cores and 6 efficiency cores. This architecture provides strong CPU performance while featuring a 10-core GPU with next-generation machine learning (ML) capabilities and hardware-based ray tracing support. Compared to the M2 chip, the M4 offers 50% faster performance, achieving four times the performance of the M2 iPad Pro while consuming half the power. Additionally, the M4’s 16-core Neural Engine reaches a processing capacity of 38 trillion operations per second, which is 60 times faster than Apple’s first Neural Engine.

Mark Gurman from Bloomberg provided important information about the new M4 Macs in his latest Power On newsletter. Gurman noted that “at least one Mac model will undergo significant design changes beyond advanced performance,” but emphasized that this model will not be part of the 2024 series. Gurman mentioned that there will be three different M4 Mac models released this year, including the M4 processor MacBook Pro, Mac mini, and iMac.

• Mac mini: It hasn’t undergone significant design changes recently.
• MacBook Pro and iMac: These two models have already been updated and stand out with their current designs.

The M4 processor iMac is expected to switch its accessories to USB-C, which is not considered a major design revolution. There is currently no confirmed information regarding the new Mac mini design. It seems likely that Apple will focus on introducing the new M4 Pro and M4 Max chips rather than making a major redesign for these models.

Gurman also added that Apple plans to release a new MacBook Air, Mac Studio, and Mac Pro in 2025. Among these models, Mac Pro stands out as the biggest candidate for a redesign. Previous rumors had already implied that Apple was working on a completely new Mac Pro. Although some users were disappointed by the M2 Ultra Mac Pro’s design due to its similarity to the Intel model, Apple may finally be ready to introduce a completely different Mac Pro model in 2025. However, we will have to wait until the second half of 2025 for this new Mac Pro; as the M4 Ultra (or an even more advanced chip) is not expected to be released before the second half of next year.