M4 MacBook Pro Models Expected to Launch in Late 2024

[chucker23n1]

How? I fail to see it.

• M3-gen MacBook Pro was announced Fall 2023
• M3-gen MacBook Air was announced Spring 2024

So Apple will be updating (by units sold) 90% of their Macs—exactly one year later:

• M4-gen MacBook Pro announced Fall 2024
• M4-gen MacBook Air announced Spring 2025

Is updating 90% of their Macs (by units sold) one year later a skew of priorities?

No!

Sucks that the 4% (by numbers sold) desktop users have to wait... but if Apple manages the M4 Extreme chip for the Mac Pro, then it will all be worth it.

Agreed, but that CIRP chart has some flaws. The overall message of "the vast majority of sales are laptops" is right.

"They're selling 31% more MBPs than MBAs" is already… dubious. I'm guessing they're selling about twice as many MBAs compared to MBPs.

And as for them selling more Mac Pros than Mac minis and Mac Studios combined? Absolutely not.

 

[chucker23n1]

Low percentage is probably because Apple still doesn't have an answer to the high end PC market in many workflows.

Low percentage is largely because desktops are low percentage. That's not an Apple-specific phenomenon.

 

[chucker23n1]

I dream of a day where I can actually buy the most recent chip in the form factor that is most suited to me, instead of how things are released now. It's my money I'm spending for goodness sake 🙄😂

They're not gonna suspend releases of the entire Mac + iPhone + iPad line-ups just so they can get all SoCs ready first. Even before taking into consideration how tricky that would be with component supply, that would be poor decision-making. It also isn't how other CPU vendors operate.

 

[czoli]

I think it is safe to say that the Mac Studio will not be getting an off-the-shelf Max chip going forward, otherwise they would have already added an M3 Max or an M4 Max later this year. It was a great bargain getting a base Studio with the Max and 32GB memory and just upgrading the storage.

But yeah, I think moving forward it looks like the desktop Macs will have their own desktop-focused chips and not just appropriate the laptop ones. I think that this is a good strategy because now they have more competition with the former Nuvia team and everyone else forging forward with their own competitive ARM CPUs for both laptop and desktop.

Apple already screwed up letting the Nuvia thing happen in the first place, now they have to contend by moving extra hard to keep competition in the ARM space at bay.

I think they probably have such Max/Ultra (whatever the name) chip as using them for their AI ion the Cloud and focusing the Fab output for that (and a fraction for the Ipad PRO M4), towards the end of the year when yields vastly improved will come to the other consumer products.

 

[czoli]

That's like analogous 24GB, right?

8 GB is not enought to do AI stuff, that takes RAM, hopefully they get rid of the 8 GB Option

 

[chucker23n1]

No mobile chip has EVER outperformed an X-1 generation desktop chip.

The new reality, especially for Apple and Qualcomm, is that mobile chips is where the big unit sales occur. This is also true for AMD and Intel, though "mobile" there refers to laptop chips. That's why desktop chips and especially server chips lag behind.

 

[chucker23n1]

This has been rumored for awhile. It does make sense if Apple wants their “pro” desktops to compete with modular competitors. In the phone and tablet space, Apple is only really competing against itself. So yeah, the Mx is 33% faster than the Mz, and it’s a whole nanometer smaller, but who cares? You’re not going to browse Safari or text your partner confusing emoji any faster. But (small ‘P’) pro machines have to compete with their windows counterparts. And although impressive, the M2 Ultra sill lags behind discrete GPU performance in certain benchmarks. If a dedicated desktop chip can help close that gap, it will be worth it to pro users — and they are the only reason Apple makes the Mac Studio and Pro to begin with.

Although I think you are right in that there is definitely still room for an M-Max Studio, given that the mini tops out with the M-Pro and omitting that configuration would leave a gap in Apple’s desktop line at that price point. The Ultra Studio already has a bigger heat sink, so there’s a small degree of internal differentiation between that and the Studio Max as-is.

Just the single-core boost of 33% alone places a hypothetical M4 Ultra above most desktop chips. Yeah, you can run your Raptor Lake 14900KS at 253W turbo and eke out more performance than the M4 Ultra in some benchmarks, but I don't think competing against that is going to win Apple anything. As for the GPU, Apple has been improving that as a faster pace than their CPU p-cores, so I'm not worried there either.

 

[Pezimak]

This is too much for me. I am looking at the 14” M3 Max from the refurb store. I just can’t bring myself to spending 3 grand plus on a laptop. I was looking at the Studio but can’t wait till next year for an M4 update if it is next year. And the M3 is quite a bit more powerful then the M2 Max.

 

[iPhilPHX]

Requisite "meh, I'll wait for the M (pick your #) chip; THAT'LL be the real game changer!".

 

[hoodlum90]

This is likely where Ross is getting his supply chain data from as he is the founder and CEO of DSCC. You can see a bump in Q3 volume for OLED panel shipments, which he is linking to the Macbook PRO. There is another much larger bump in OLED Panel shipment volume planned for Q2 next year. Apple seems to be securing the vast majority of these panels.

Q1’24 OLED Tablet Panel Shipments Jump 131% Y/Y to a Record High, Another Record Expected in Q2’24 as Apple Ramps OLED iPad Pro Volumes - Display Supply Chain Consultants

www.displaysupplychain.com

 

[satchmo]

Here I am still chugging along on a first gen Μ1 Mac mini.

 

[hoodlum90]

We should also expect a price increase just due to OLED screen. Apple may decide to make other changes/upgrades at the same time and the Macbook PRO could be thinner. Apple will probably widen the pricing above the Air.

 

[theluggage]

Agreed, but that CIRP chart has some flaws. The overall message of "the vast majority of sales are laptops" is right.

"They're selling 31% more MBPs than MBAs" is already… dubious. I'm guessing they're selling about twice as many MBAs compared to MBPs.

And as for them selling more Mac Pros than Mac minis and Mac Studios combined? Absolutely not.

The data would be more believable if it were sales by value rather than units - but the simple fact that the chart doesn’t state that clearly is a good enough reason to throw it in the bin. No details of methodology or confidence intervals - so you really can’t make comparisons between the models selling 1-3% as they could have a significant margin of error. Plus, Apple don’t release this data so, presumably, they don’t sell it to CIRP either - so the data probably excludes one of the largest sellers of Macs (Apple themselves). It could also be dominated by large third-party “consumer” retailers: Somewhere like Walmart probably sells a shedload of MBAs but isn’t where you’d go to lease a bunch of pro desktops for your studio. In short, not worth the paper it isn’t printed on.

That said, I don’t think that anybody doubts that laptops are Apple’s main moneyspinner, and get the priority. Trouble is, this will become self-reinforcing if Apple go back to their past bad habits of leaving their headless desktops to stagnate for years at a time (2014-2018 for the Mini, 2013-2019 for the pro).

 

[chucker23n1]

The data would be more believable if it were sales by value rather than units

Yeah, but then the iMac number suddenly becomes hard to believe. Four times as much revenue from the iMac ($1,299 to $2,699, and a mid-range seller) than from the Mac Studio ($1,999 to $8,799, and probably not that many fewer sales to make up for the four times)?

It could also be dominated by large third-party “consumer” retailers: Somewhere like Walmart probably sells a shedload of MBAs but isn’t where you’d go to lease a bunch of pro desktops for your studio.

But that makes "more MBPs than MBAs" even weirder!

(Another hypothesis: they asked enterprises what they purchased. Quite a few prefer not to buy the MBA because of a perception of not being appropriate for business.)

That said, I don’t think that anybody doubts that laptops are Apple’s main moneyspinner, and get the priority. Trouble is, this will become self-reinforcing if Apple go back to their past bad habits of leaving their headless desktops to stagnate for years at a time (2014-2018 for the Mini, 2013-2019 for the pro).

This is a valid concern. But right now, we aren't really there. The Mac Studio and Mac Pro are just twelve months old. Only the Mac mini is getting a little old, and even for that one, we're only talking 17 months.

They only feel old at this point because there have been two SoC generations, but that's just a release schedule oddity. Surely Apple is aiming for at least twelve months for SoC upgrades / microarchitecture changes.

(The Mac Pro being kind of a poor deal is a separate discussion, and an M4 is unlikely to fix that. Whether they're willing to address the Mx SoCs being a poor fit for a tower, and/or get rid of the $3,000 penalty for wanting a PCIe slot remains to be seen.)

 

[darngooddesign]

…(Another hypothesis: they asked enterprises what they purchased. Quite a few prefer not to buy the MBA because of a perception of not being appropriate for business.)

Dual monitor setups are very common in Enterprises, but up until now the MBA couldn’t drive two external displays which is one of the primary reasons why they weren’t considered business-appropriate.

 

[LavaLevel]

Can't wait until new M4 Mac mini!

 

[chucker23n1]

Dual monitor setups are very common in Enterprises, but up until now the MBA couldn’t drive two external displays which is one of the primary reasons why they weren’t considered business-appropriate.

But the entry-level Pro couldn't either. You'd have to go to at least $2k for that, and I imagine enterprises would be more likely to go with a DisplayLink setup then. At least that's what we did.

 

[bobjonesco]

My MacBook Pro M3 is dead already? !!!!!


/s

What did you think 'Scary fast' meant?

 

[Ethosik]

The new reality, especially for Apple and Qualcomm, is that mobile chips is where the big unit sales occur. This is also true for AMD and Intel, though "mobile" there refers to laptop chips. That's why desktop chips and especially server chips lag behind.

Then Apple just signaled the death of the desktop lineup entirely. They should just drop the Mac Studio and Mac Pro. Performance is king for Professionals. To be continuously outclassed by the X+1 Max chip (M2 Max was slightly better than the M1 Ultra as well) is just frustrating.

 

[Tago]

I hope they finally give the base model 16gb.

They have that already. But you can save USD 200 by shaving off 8 gb. There´s more cash to be left in your pocket by shaving off 750 or 500 gb of storage too

 

[chucker23n1]

Then Apple just signaled the death of the desktop lineup entirely. They should just drop the Mac Studio and Mac Pro. Performance is king for Professionals. To be continuously outclassed by the X+1 Max chip (M2 Max was slightly better than the M1 Ultra as well) is just frustrating.

The Mac Studio is still a good choice if you want a fast desktop. The MacBook Pro existing doesn't negate that.

The Mac Pro is a product in their line-up.

 

[Tago]

Most of my devices are still on M1. This will be a nice upgrade. 👍

Right. They are moving to get upgrade sales from M1 owners. ´Till now, they´ve been actively converting Intels which they probably look forward to get out of their support structure AND software.

 

[transpo1]

This is likely where Ross is getting his supply chain data from as he is the founder and CEO of DSCC. You can see a bump in Q3 volume for OLED panel shipments, which he is linking to the Macbook PRO. There is another much larger bump in OLED Panel shipment volume planned for Q2 next year. Apple seems to be securing the vast majority of these panels.

Q1’24 OLED Tablet Panel Shipments Jump 131% Y/Y to a Record High, Another Record Expected in Q2’24 as Apple Ramps OLED iPad Pro Volumes - Display Supply Chain Consultants

www.displaysupplychain.com

This is interesting. The Macrumors article clearly states that the MBP is not expected to get OLED before 2026 and yet it seems the entire premise for the new machines coming this year is an increase in OLED shipments. What gives?

 

[Tago]

The Mac Studio is still a good choice if you want a fast desktop. The MacBook Pro existing doesn't negate that.

The Mac Pro is a product in their line-up.

If, like yours truly, some users don´t need portability, one could save a buck or two going Mini/Mini Pro/Studio covering the required performance, or get more perfomance for the cash to be paid when the required spec/performance is portable.

No point spending on portability if it´s not needed. I got the pherperials I need, and it is beneficial with different upgrading cycles too.

Due to the mix of M2/M3 and upcoming M4 the direct comparison is somewhat lost, and if things develops to my prediction, there may be more changes to M4 in terms of core count, balance and so on. Would be fair to assume their AI approach will have notable impact. One cannot assume they just will follow the historical development be it for the chips or stuff like USB. Hopefully, they drop USB A entirely.

 

[PaperMag]

Agreed, but that CIRP chart has some flaws. The overall message of "the vast majority of sales are laptops" is right.

"They're selling 31% more MBPs than MBAs" is already… dubious. I'm guessing they're selling about twice as many MBAs compared to MBPs.

And as for them selling more Mac Pros than Mac minis and Mac Studios combined? Absolutely not.

• MacBook Pro has always been Apple's biggest selling Mac. MacBook Air was always secondary.
• In enterprise, Apple is almost exclusively selling MacBook Pros. Keep in mind this stat includes the “cheap” $1299 13-inch MacBook Pro which is known as Apple's biggest enterprise seller.
• “Pro” sells. AirPods Pro. iPhone 15 Pro. Even iPad Pros are the most popular selling iPad model, which is shocking given the price.

Regarding Mac Pros

• consider enterprise is 21% macOS. And in enterprise, a Mac Pro is the thing to buy in some industries (data science, creative departments and agencies) so 3% of total Macs sold isn’t totally outrageous.
• Keep in mind, for example, a $10,000 Mac Pro is amortized over 5-years. So a "$2,000 per-year Mac Pro" means nothing to enterprise when they are expending $150,000 per-year in salary and benefits for the labor using that Mac Pro. In that simplified example, a Mac Pro is merely 1.3% of total costs of a workstation. So be not surprised that Enterprise buys some Mac Pros.

As far as Mac minis and Mac Studios selling only 2% combined—I'm not surprised. I'm only one person, but I live in a city with a large social/work circle, and almost all Macs are MacBook Pros. I'm the only MacBook Air user. Even my senior father went against my recommendations and bought a MacBook Pro because he "wants the best" despite only needing it for PDFs and Quickbooks. It just goes to show me that "consumer behavior" of Mac users is geared toward luxury aspirations.

And the university I'm connected to bought 3 Mac Studios for a department that does video editing. And the students are almost exclusively buying MacBooks. And staff mostly have PCs. So in an entire campus of students and staff, Mac desktops are maybe 0.15% of Macs. That chart is probably generous to Mac minis and Mac Studios—1% is them rounding to the nearest number that isn't 0. It's probably 0.6% or something.