I'm thinking that Apple may announce a new Mac Studio with the M3 Ultra at the Apple event on May 7. Here's what points to some sort of new silicon being announced:
- New Apple silicon chips are always announced at Apple Events (except for the M2 Pro and Max, but those would have been announced at an event in October 2022 if it weren't for delays).
- The fact that Apple will be announcing new iPads at an event, when they were previously expected to be press releases, would point to there being something else to justify an event, which I propose is new Apple silicon. This is a similar case to last year's October 30 event, which caught me off guard since I didn't think a few new Macs were event-worthy.
There are two potential new chips Apple could announce - the M3 Ultra or the M4. What points to the latter is detailed
here. But I don't think that's likely, because new M-series chips have always been included initially in Macs ever since they were called M-series chips, so having an iPad be the first device with the M4 chip would be odd.
Instead, assuming that the new iPad Pros indeed feature the t8132, I buy into the idea that the t8132 is actually a revised version of the M3 chip manufactured using TSMC's N3E process, as opposed to the N3B that the t8122 is made with. This would be similar to a revised version of the A5 chip which came out back in 2012, with the only physical change being that it was made with a 32 nm process as opposed to the 45 nm one used by the original. Such a revision of an existing chip probably wouldn't be worth having an event over, if Apple were to even discuss it at all.
What hints at a new Mac Studio with M3 Max or M3 Ultra chips is this:
- As this MacRumors article says, Apple is testing a Mac Studio with M3 family chips.
- Some chip ID's that were discovered here are 0x6030, 0x6031, 0x6032, 0x6033, and 0x6034. 0x6030 corresponds to the M3 Pro, while 0x6031 and 0x6034 correspond to two variants of the M3 Max. This leaves 0x6032 and 0x6033 as being potential unreleased M3 family chips. 0x6032 could be the M3 Ultra, since 0x6002 is the M1 Ultra and 0x6022 is the M2 Ultra. 0x6033 could be a variant of it, similarly to the M3 Max having two variants.
What points to there not being a new Mac Studio to announce at the event is A: there aren't many rumors of its existence, and B: the event is clearly iPad-focused based on the design of the invite.
