Which Mac minis (Pro vs Non-Pro)? There's no promise that they'll get updated at the same time?
So M2 was never seen on the:
- iMac
And M3 may never be on:
- Mac mini
- Mac mini (pro)
- Mac Studio (maybe)
- Mac Pro (maybe)
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So M2 was never seen on the:
- iMac
And M3 may never be on:
- Mac mini
- Mac mini (pro)
- Mac Studio (maybe)
- Mac Pro (maybe)
1) Apple needs to market itself as having lots of AI because the stock market demands that they do.
2) Apple does have artificial intelligence Apple Neural Engine cores in their Apple Silicon SoCs, so there's every reason to believe that these will get more powerful in the M4, and hopefully Apple will give Macs more RAM so that they can run bigger ML models.
It would need to be the pro mini for me, M3 or eventual M4. I would think if they do one they would do both since. If Apple could make the Studio as quiet as the mini, when not going full out, I would gladly pay more for the power. The mini and the MacBook Pro spoiled me for quiet operation.
It makes sense, if iMac doesn't sell as well as other devices then they can release it early without it putting pressure on their M4 fabrication.
Eagerly waiting to see the new iPad Pros along with new Pencil. Hopefully with the M4, the base RAM increase to 12 GB
With the latest company wide propaganda hitting the scenes again about 8Gb equivalent to 16Gb and trying to justify the unjustifiable, where even Apple now comment about 8Gb suitable for basic tasks, perhaps they need to rename the 8Gb MacBook Pro as the MacBook Basic.
If the iPhone sells so much more than the Mac, what if they made an iPhone that was a Mac?
It would look like a regular iPhone, perhaps a bit thicker, and act like one. But if you plugged it into a special keyboard/dock, the phone would become a touchpad, and output to a PC monitor. The A18 chip will probably approach the M1 in performance.
A more expensive version would look like a laptop with built in screen. The phone would go where the trackpad would be, and again serve that function. Do this, and all the high-end iPhone buyers would have Macs.
It would look like a regular iPhone, perhaps a bit thicker, and act like one. But if you plugged it into a special keyboard/dock, the phone would become a touchpad, and output to a PC monitor. The A18 chip will probably approach the M1 in performance.
A more expensive version would look like a laptop with built in screen. The phone would go where the trackpad would be, and again serve that function. Do this, and all the high-end iPhone buyers would have Macs.
Is that your leak? Because it makes sense… EDIT: okay, I misunderstood you, excuse me! You’re just quoting the last MacRumors report.
I think they will update those models, including Mac mini, with M4 and M4 Pro SoC this year, yes. Then by 2025 maybe they will equip the Mac Studio with newer M4 Max and M4 Ultra using the next N3P process… so they are a bit more powerful than M4 and M4 Pro, increasing the differentiation between categories inside the same chip family. This is pure speculation on my part, of course. One of the things I enjoy the most of posting here in MR is speculating about future Apple tech, makes me feel Gurman for a moment (only I don’t get paid for it).
Gurman's story is a very different recontextualizing of what sounds like the same rumour mentioned on ATP, basically saying that M4 is coming along as normal, if hopefully a bit faster than M3. But interestingly, Gurman presents a more plausible release schedule, and one that might start to show a pattern.
This is true, but they cannot give a fledgling market yearly attention. That doesn't make business sense. In the case of Macs, if they have an 8% overall market share in the personal computing market, what do they gain by creating yearly releases? We already know they aren't willing to do that, even with popular macs. Mac mini and Mac Pro have shown that. With the release of M series chips, even more reason not to upgrade so frequently as the chips performance is just that good. I suspect this will change in the future depending on how well the new Qualcomm ARM chips are received by the market.
The Mac division represents ≈10% of Apple's revenue. That may not seem like much, but Apple's so big that, if the Mac division were a stand-alone company, it would rank ≈100th on the Fortune 500 list. That's huge. And that certainly makes it big enough to have the resources to update its products annually.
Plus Apple has signaled that's what it wants to do—since the M-series and A-series chips share architecture, it makes sense to synchronize the M-series chip updates with the A-series chips updates.
Even if the rumour is accurate, shipping this year could be December. I honestly would interpret “end of year” as being within a couple months, either way, from Jan 1, 2025
Where is the line between signals and tea leaves?
It does feel like Apple would like the M* chips to be annual, but push comes to shove, they will always slip if it risks the iPhone schedule at all.
Apple made the A*x/z for many years at a 18 month cycle, which is the same class chip as the M* line rebranded. Even when Apple was hoping iPads would take over from the Mac, they didn’t speed up that cadence.
So it might happen, but I would consider it a coin toss.