Gurman: No New Mac Studio and Mac Pro Until Mid-2025

[Chuckeee]

I was scrolling through the replies to see if someone else said this. I saw a couple posts predicting an M3 Mini release and it simply makes no sense. Who's going to buy an M3 based desktop now that the M4 chip has been released in an iPad? Apple has shown that the M3 is not the future.

I'm in the market for a Mini, had been waiting for a (hoped for) M3 Pro Mini (because the M2 Pro Mini is a powerful bargain), but as soon as the M4 chip was released in a device I knew there would never be a M3-based Mini. Why would I (and other consumers) buy a desktop machine and pay extra for more RAM and storage, knowing the CPU at the center of it all has already been bested by a chip that's being sold in a tablet today?

Along the same vein, I could envision a near term M4 Mini as a replacement for both m2 mini and the M2Pro mini.

The desktop market is too small and some consolidation of the Apple desktop product line makes sense.

The number of mini sales is relatively small so the impact on the existing M4 chip production would be negligible

It is only the M4 chip, so it does not require bringing a larger M4 chip to market sooner.

It provides a greater distinction between the mini and studio desktop product lines

It wouldn’t provide any competition to the remaining M2 studio products

It would get the M4 into the hands of developers with MacOS compatibility.

It will allow closing down of M2Pro chip production.

 

[CBlakeston]

Honestly this is no big deal. M1 to M3 is barely noticeable and the same will hold true for M2 to M4.

Except for the iPad M2 to iPad M4 it’s like a 45% jump in performance.

 

[dawnrazor]

This does make sense if you look at Apples track record of upgrading these higher end desktop machines…

an M4 Ultra is going to be a very impressive machine and will make my M2 Ultra look very average…

 

[EugW]

Maybe?
Where are Cellular MacBooks?

For all we know, Apple may never deem OLED fit for Mac usage

(They'd be wrong .. but they are wrong a lot --- looking at macOS on my OLED TV as I type this )

Cellular MacBooks have been manufactured already... as prototypes, but never came to retail.

I never saw cellular as a primary feature of Mac laptops though. There wasn't as big of a call for it, since so many people just tethered off their iPhones or else used USB dongles.

He also repeatedly stated that the iPad Pro would get an M3 processor until he obviously found out that @Jamie I , through inciteful investigation, discovered it will have an M4 chip, well before anyone else.

Why the off topic rant? I asked @Warped9 if there was any evidence of a Mac Studio release this year, because I have seen zero indication that it will happen. And your post also did not provide any evidence that will happen either.

In contrast, some of the info that @Jamie I based his prediction off of was known since March actually. ie. There was actually info out there that supported Jamie's contention. It's just that people initially didn't believe it would be M4. The same is not true for a 2024 Mac Studio. AFAIK, there isn't any info at all out there suggesting such a Mac Studio release.

I don’t think Mac ever had internal blu-ray support. Heck the Apple external super drive (that is still available) doesn’t support blu-ray. Although there are a several 3rd party external blu-ray drives that work just fine with a Mac.

Apple USB SuperDrive

Apple USB SuperDrive lets you install software on your Mac and play & burn both CDs and DVDs. Get fast, free shipping when you shop online.

www.apple.com

Cheese grater Mac Pros had internal Blu-ray support. They just never had OEM Blu-ray drives. You could install your own though, and they would work fine. However, for my more recent Macs, I had a USB Blu-ray drive, and that also was supported fine. To play DRM'd Blu-ray video though, you need third party software. I had just been using Leawo Blu-ray Player for Mac on my Intel Macs, but lately I haven't bothered with my M1 (although Apple Silicon is also supported).

Apple's main computer has always been te macbook pro, it's normal for Apple to give it priority.
Anyway I'm glad Apple is finally moving a little towards Ray Tracing.
Up until now if you wanted to leverage the technology, you pretty much had to use Windows with a good RTX GPU.

Apple's best selling Mac is the MacBook Air.

Makes absolutely no sense, one of the reasons they dropped intel was the difficulty to update their computers more often. Now they control the chips but refuse to update the computers because they just feel like it?

The bigger drivers for the switch to Apple Silicon were cost, performance, and customizability, not strict yearly release schedules.

A reason not to upgrade say the Mac Studio every year is because the amount of additional profit generated wouldn't be worth going through all that extra work.

That’s cool, for me I run a production company and an Ultra will double export times. Working with an M1 Max studio now and if there’s no M4 Ultra next month then I will get an M2 Ultra. It’s a business expense. Next year I’ll get the M4 ultra then.

I assume you mean halve export times?

Along the same vein, I could envision a near term M4 Mini as a replacement for both m2 mini and the M2Pro mini.

The desktop market is too small and some consolidation of the Apple desktop product line makes sense.

While I see where you're coming from, I don't expect this to happen. The main advantage of the M2 Pro Mac mini is not really the added performance, but the additional I/O ports and the better display support.

 

[CBlakeston]

Makes me think Apple must be having issues with 3nm Ultras. Some cooling/heat issue or some such.

I think the M3 was only ever envisioned as 3 chips. With it being a different node it was kinda a one of and Apple didn’t bother with the Max or Ultra as they knew they’d be jumping to M4 in just over 6 months.

 

[dmr727]

What puzzles me is why they’d want to kill sales of M3 and M2 devices. Only an ignorant fool or someone without any choice will buy them now.

I think there's a tendency for tech enthusiasts to overestimate the number of folks that give much thought to this sort of thing. I'd bet the percentage of people that can name the SoC in any of their Apple devices is much smaller than we think.

 

[CBlakeston]

Cellular MacBooks have been manufactured already... as prototypes, but never came to retail.

View attachment 2380239

I never saw cellular as a primary feature of Mac laptops though. There wasn't as big of a call for it, since so many people just tethered off their iPhones or else used USB dongles.


Why the off topic rant? I asked @Warped9 if there was any evidence of a Mac Studio release this year, because I have seen zero indication that it will happen. And your post also did not provide any evidence that will happen either.

In contrast, some of the info that @Jamie I based his prediction off of was known since March actually. ie. There was actually info out there that supported Jamie's contention. It's just that people initially didn't believe it would be M4. The same is not true for a 2024 Mac Studio. AFAIK, there isn't any info at all out there suggesting such a Mac Studio release.


Cheese grater Mac Pros had internal Blu-ray support. They just never had OEM Blu-ray drives. You could install your own though, and they would work fine. However, for my more recent Macs, I had a USB Blu-ray drive, and that also was supported fine. To play DRM'd Blu-ray video though, you need third party software. I had just been using Leawo Blu-ray Player for Mac on my Intel Macs, but lately I haven't bothered with my M1 (although Apple Silicon is also supported).


Apple's best selling Mac is the MacBook Air.


The bigger drivers for the switch to Apple Silicon were cost, performance, and customizability, not strict yearly release schedules.

A reason not to upgrade say the Mac Studio every year is because the amount of additional profit generated wouldn't be worth going through all that extra work.


I assume you mean halve export times?


While I see where you're coming from, I don't expect this to happen. The main advantage of the M2 Pro Mac mini is not really the added performance, but the additional I/O ports and the better display support.

Yes. Double the export times or halve the export speed. Depending on how you want to look at it. And with the M4 havifng a completely new video encoder that’s twice as fast as the previous ones the M4 Ultra should be half the export speed again. When you have 14hrs of footage to export. That counts for a lot.

 

[nikikaly21]

Really wondering whether they will do a chassis redesign for the 16 inch MacBook Pro. That'd be the only way I would be tempted to upgrade from my current M1 Pro.

 

[DavidSchaub]

So the Mac Mini will get M4 Pro while the Studio is on M2 Max?

Unless M2 Ultra Mac Studio buyers are really comparison shopping with Mac mini... who cares? Why would they?

The mantra is still true: Buy if you have to, delay buying if you can?

If one really needs an M2 Mac Studio, it will be a fine computer.

 

[Elusi]

I think there's a tendency for tech enthusiasts to overestimate the number of folks that give much thought to this sort of thing. I'd bet the percentage of folks that can name the SoC in any of their Apple devices is much smaller than we think.

Yeah friends who have worked with sales in tech tell me the same thing. There's not that much of a slump in sales just because the tech-o-sphere expects new shiny things, usually. People buy when they need new stuff.

 

[DavidSchaub]

I was scrolling through the replies to see if someone else said this. I saw a couple posts predicting an M3 Mini release and it simply makes no sense. Who's going to buy an M3 based desktop now that the M4 chip has been released in an iPad? Apple has shown that the M3 is not the future.

If you are able to buy chip, that chip is not the future, that's normal.

If it is going to get replaced in 6 months, 1 year, or 2 years... does that really make much of a difference? Especially for people who might keep a computer for ~5 years?

 

[DavidSchaub]

It does bear a resemblance to the bad old days of John Sculley and the Performa lineup.

I've never understood the desire for "simplification".

Steve Jobs's simple product quadrant thing was a marketing sales pitch:
View attachment 2380244

Apple needed a simple product matrix because Apple had no money and needed to reduce customer choice to build itself back up.

A simple product matrix just reduces customer choice.

Most customers know how much money they want to spend, so Apple should offer products for them to buy.

Apple can market base SKUs to everyone, and for people who need more, they can figure out what to get.

 

[DavidSchaub]

Makes absolutely no sense, one of the reasons they dropped intel was the difficulty to update their computers more often. Now they control the chips but refuse to update the computers because they just feel like it?

Everyone always blamed Intel for Mac not getting updated, but it is even more likely that Apple doesn't care if it updates products annually.

I'm sure Apple has lots of well paid, smart people, who can approximate if bothering to release a computer will make more money than just keep selling the current one.

Apple is the company that lets hardware and software rot on the vine. They always have. Apple continuing to do this should surprise nobody.

Apple knows what it is doing.

 

[EugW]

I think the M3 was only ever envisioned as 3 chips. With it being a different node it was kinda a one of and Apple didn’t bother with the Max or Ultra as they knew they’d be jumping to M4 in just over 6 months.

Yes, this roughly aligned with TSMC's node release schedule between N3B and N3E.

However, my incorrect prediction was that Apple would use most of that initial N3E capacity for A18 instead of M4, even though the timing was a bit off, and would release M4 later. Mind you, that could still end up being true to an extent, with Apple only releasing M4 Macs after the A18 iPhones. The M4 iPad Pro is a different kettle of fish.

Yes. Double the export times or halve the export speed. Depending on how you want to look at it. And with the M4 havifng a completely new video encoder that’s twice as fast as the previous ones the M4 Ultra should be half the export speed again. When you have 14hrs of footage to export. That counts for a lot.

Halve the export times, or double the export speed.

Just because everyone always blamed Intel for Mac not getting updated, it is even more likely that Apple doesn't care if it updates products annually.

Many times Apple had drop-in Intel chips that would have required no hardware changes to the motherboard or enclosure, etc., and they still did not bother updating those Macs. Cuz it just wasn't worth the hassle and cost.

 

[cdsapplefan]

No - I don't mean that at all
You have it backwards

iPhone/iPad are constantly on the leading edge of hardware and features in Apple land (relative to Macs)

Name some tech that started on iPad and never or took years to move to MacBook Pro lineup 💻

 

[verdi1987]

Makes absolutely no sense, one of the reasons they dropped intel was the difficulty to update their computers more often. Now they control the chips but refuse to update the computers because they just feel like it?

It’s not like there’s zero cost to upgrading the processor in a product line.

 

[Manzanito]

It’s not like there’s zero cost to upgrading the processor in a product line.

So what? The same is true for every model they sell.

 

[verdi1987]

So what? The same is true for every model they sell.

Each product line generates different revenues.

 

[randian]

If a person is interested in Windows, there’s no Mac that will run Windows as well as a Windows PC. Similarly, if there interested in macOS or iPadOS, there’s nothing coming from Dell or Samsung.

Apple’s ignoring them because it’s not worth it to try to “out-windows” them.

The core problem with Windows for ARM is whether anybody is going to recompile their applications for it. It's a chicken-egg problem: if the big players sit on their hands to see what volume Snapdragon X gets before selling products for it then it will quickly be DOA. To a large extent the reason x86 has the near-monopoly it has is Windows and the inertia of its application vendors.

 

[ruka21]

Apple really hates power users that want the fastest computers. Just release the M4 Ultra MAc Studio now. Not releasing an update will cause people to not buy a Mac Studio for another year.

 

[iluvnutella]

Did I miss something? The linked newsletter just says this:

The company is speeding up its hardware upgrades, though. Earlier this month, Apple rolled out a new iPad Pro with an M4 chip that promises to vastly enhance AI processing. And the M4 is headed to every Mac in an end-to-end overhaul of the lineup by 2025.

This is the smartest reply. Pin this.

 

[randian]

Not only that, by mid-2025, they’ll be at the M5 processor. I can’t think they’ll let the Studio be three generations behind before updating it.

I wouldn't like it, but I could see it. First, because Apple has proven it's ok with stringing along business buyers for many years, and second because the Studio is widely perceived to be one of Apple's best values. Apple hates offering best value.

 

[turbineseaplane]

It's a chicken-egg problem: if the big players sit on their hands to see what volume Snapdragon X gets before selling products for it then it will quickly be DOA.

Exact same issue the Vision Pro has, ironically .. 😂

 

[Ethosik]

The M3 Max already does certain things better than the top of the line M2 Ultra. This is getting beyond ridiculous.

 

[deconstruct60]

Reading the newsletter today, I call BS on the article. Apple will likely update the Mac Pro and Mac Studio this year. It would be a dumb decision not to update it this year with super powerful M4 lineup chip, considering M2 Max and M2 Ultra is already very dated.

Very dated? At this point it isn't even a 12 months old.

2012 : Apple came out with a 2010-11 CPU while most rest of workstation industry went with Xeon E5 v1
( Apple didn't show up with an Xeon E5 offering until v2 late in 2013. )

2017 : Apple still selling MP 2013 model. MP didn't look 'dated' then?

2022 : Threadripper 5000 series introduction shortly before Apple unveils M1 Ultra (and no Mac Pro ).
MP 2019 has been static in water CPU wise for 2+ years.

iMac Pro / Studio / MP took those 'dated' lumps and manged to keep going.


Folks seem to be twisted on whether these systems are sold primarily on 'bragging rights' or for mulitple year utility.
Folks who have been squatting on a iMac Pro (2017) , MP 2012 , 2013 , 2019 the M2 Ultra is likely better for a wide variety of jobs. ( Apple has been on this 'slow roll' upper end desktop update cycles for over a decade. So the main 'comparative' from where folks are on older Macs. ) If using the computer makes enough money to pay for itself. "very dated" isn't the primary issue.


Besides, there is a secondary effect when Apple rapidly churns the Studio and MP on yearly basis. They get de-supported faster also. As soon as the new model comes out a 5-7 year countdown clock starts and they they get dropped. With the M-series folks pragmatically need to pay for the RAM/GPU costs up front. That is likely to increase the time that folks keep the systems deployed in production (not shrink it. ). Folks who buy at the beginning of product cycle and then that extra year (or two) before next refresh gets them a longer support service window. ( if looking for 8 years of support more likely to get it. ) . Apple also aggregates the relatively small group into more buying power into a single product. ( two years of people doing general updates is going to be a larger buying group than just one. )

Yearly isn't the issue that Apple needs as much as 'regular'. A regular approximately 2 year cycle wouldn't be a problem after folks adjusted their expectations and buying cycles. The 'yearly' thing is more about sibling rivalry with iPhone and 'monkey see , monkey do', exact mimicking the larger more general mainstream PC market.