We didn’t have much time to digest a report that Apple would be releasing a Mac Studio with the M4 Max and M3 Ultra chips instead of an M4 Ultra, as the company unveiled exactly that this morning.
With the new M3 Ultra chip, Apple broke several patterns of its Apple Silicon release schedule. Up until the M2 family, Apple would release a base model, then Pro, Max, and, eventually, Ultra iterations. For the M3, Apple released a base model, Pro, and Max versions, and a few months later, it moved on to the M4 chip with the iPad Pro due to its improved manufacturing process.
At the time, there was a “general understanding” that Apple would skip the M3 Ultra processor as the M3 family was just a quick pit stop for something bigger: M4.
After all, the manufacturing process used to make the M3 family is the same as that used for the A17 Pro chip, the first 3nm chip in the world. With this iPhone processor, several reports highlighted that it used to overheat and even perform basic tasks a little hotter than its predecessors, so it made complete sense that Apple was ready to move on to a better manufacturing process, more power efficiency, and better AI capabilities with the M4.
But today we saw Apple introduce an “older” chip family in the middle of a new generation. After all, while we thought Apple would skip the M3 Mac Studio and Mac Pro, we now have an M3/M4 Mac Studio, but the M4 is technically less capable.
The real reason why there’s no M4 Ultra… yet
To make some sense of that decision, Apple was quick to address the lack of an M4 Ultra chip and why it went with an M3 Ultra chip instead. To Ars Technica, Apple representatives told the publication that “not every generation will see an Ultra chip.”
That being said, it doesn’t mean an M4 Ultra chip has been scrapped. However, it means that the company can always surprise us or start a new trend, such as having its Mac Studio get the latest chip from the latest family and the best chip of the previous generation. Or that Apple doesn’t know what to do with the Mac Pro and has now decided to give it a chance by making the latest Ultra chip exclusive to that computer.
Still, if Apple is giving the M3 Ultra to the Mac Studio and, possibly, the M4 Ultra to the Mac, I’d say the company needs to work extra hard to ensure that Mac Pro users get the modularity they need instead of Apple expending so much effort on an impressive chip without room for other technical improvements.
Currently, the Mac Pro is the weirdest Mac available, and it makes little to no sense to exist in the way it does. Previous rumors revealed Apple wanted to redesign the high-end computer, and now it feels like the perfect opportunity for that.
While this is all speculation, Apple also told the French website Numerama that we might never see an M4 Ultra processor because the M4 Max chip lacks the UltraFusion connector. While the lack of this connector was rumored for the M3 Max, Apple now confirms that the latest M4 Max doesn’t feature it. Is this enough to prevent Apple from releasing an M4 Ultra processor? Only time will tell.
Wrap up
To be fair, we still need to understand the M3 Ultra chip better before saying that Mac Studio is a must-buy. Apple was quick to move away from the M3 family, and even though it offers several products with that chip (the iPad Air, the iPad mini, and now the Mac Studio), I’d stick with the products that feature the M2 or M4 chips for now.
In addition, as the Mac Studio gets its third iteration with the same design and ongoing rumors that Apple is planning a second-generation Studio Display, the company could be readying a more impressive upgrade for later this year or 2026.
