Apple released the first M4 Macs in the last week of October. With the new Mac mini, MacBook Pro, and iMac updates, the company still has a few more M4 Macs to unveil, including a MacBook Air, Mac Studio, and more.
While the M4 chip has been around since May, when Apple introduced the OLED iPad Pro, there’s still a lot to be excited about this processor. Here’s when new Macs are going to get a refresh.
M4 chip variants show Apple’s best processors are now old news
Currently, Apple has four product lines with the M4 chip: The iPad Pro, the Mac mini, the MacBook Pro, and the iMac. Unlike the M3 processor, this new one uses the second-generation 3nm technology, which is more power efficient and solves an overheating problem iPhone users experience with the A17 Pro while improving CPU, GPU, and Neural Engine power.
According to Apple, the M4 chip has a powerful new CPU with 4 performance cores and 6 efficiency cores, with next-gen ML generators. Up to 50% faster CPU compared to M2. With a 10-core GPU, it offers Dynamic Caching and hardware ray tracing. M4 can deliver the same performance as the M2 with just half the power. The Neural Engine comes with a 16-core design, with up to 38 trillion operations per second. It’s 60x faster than Apple’s first Neural Engine.
M4 Pro scales up the advanced technologies debuted in M4. It features up to a 14-core CPU consisting of up to 10 performance cores and four efficiency cores. It’s up to 1.9x faster than the CPU of M1 Pro and up to 2.1x faster than the latest AI PC chip. The GPU features up to 20 cores for graphics performance that is 2x that of M4 and up to 2.4x faster than the latest AI PC chip
On the other hand, the M4 Max, currently exclusive to the MacBook Pro, offers up to 16-core CPU, with up to 12 performance cores and four efficiency cores. It’s up to 2.2x faster than the CPU in M1 Max and up to 2.5x faster than the latest AI PC chip. The GPU has up to 40 cores for performance that are up to 1.9x faster than M1 Max and up to an astounding 4x faster than the latest AI PC chip. M4 Max supports up to 128GB of fast unified memory and up to 546GB/s of memory bandwidth, which is 4x the bandwidth of the latest AI PC chip.
M4 MacBook and Mac models’ release date
While the new M4 Macs are a huge improvement over their predecessors, there are still a few new Macs expected. This is when Apple released its first computers with the M4 chip:
- iMac: It was unveiled on October 28. It’s going to be released on November 8.
- Mac mini: It was unveiled on October 29. It’s going to be released on November 8.
- MacBook Pro: It was unveiled on October 30. It’s going to be released on November 8.
Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman says more M4 Macs will be released next year.
- MacBook Air: Similar to the M3 models, the release date for the M4 MacBook Air, in 13-inch and 15-inch options, is expected for spring of 2025
- Mac Studio: While it seems Apple will skip the M3 Ultra, it means a new Mac Studio might not be announced during WWDC 2024; that said, expect an M4 Max and M4 Ultra options in mid-2025
- Mac Pro: Gurman thinks the release date for the M4 Mac Pro will be in late 2025.
The journalist says Apple plans to “highlight the AI processing capabilities of the components” and how they’ll integrate with macOS Sequoia.
Apple Intelligence features are key for M4 Macs
With macOS Sequoia 15.1, the first part of Apple Intelligence is available for M1 Mac or newer devices. Here are the top features:
- Clean Up: This Photos app feature can identify and remove distracting objects in the background of a photo without accidentally altering the subject
- Summarization: Apple Intelligence can now summarize more than just Messages and Mail notifications
- Writing Tools: Users can rewrite, proofread, and summarize text nearly everywhere they write, including Mail, Notes, Pages, and third-party apps
- Improved Siri: With a new design, Siri can maintain context between requests. Even if you stumble over words or shift what you’re saying mid-sentence, Siri can understand what you actually want.
- Priority notifications: They appear at the top of the stack, letting you know what to pay attention to at a glance. Notifications are summarized, so you can scan them faster.
- Priority messages in Mail: Elevate time-sensitive messages to the top of your inbox, like an invitation that has a deadline today or a check-in reminder for your flight this afternoon.
- Reduce interruptions: With iOS 18.1 beta 1, an all-new Focus Mode understands the content of your notifications and shows you the ones that might need immediate attention, like a text about picking up your child from daycare later today.
- Email summarization: Tap to reveal a summary of a long email in the Mail app and cut to the chase.
- Record and transcribe calls in the Notes app: Just hit record in the Notes or Phone apps to capture audio recordings and transcripts. Apple Intelligence generates summaries of your transcripts, so you can get to the most important information at a glance.
- Smart Reply in Mail: Quickly draft an email response with all the right details. Apple Intelligence can identify the question you were asked in an email and offer relevant selections to include in your response.
With macOS 15.2, Apple plans to expand Apple Intelligence features and its availability in other English-speaking countries.
