The day after I give in and buy a Mac Studio and 27" display will be the day Apple announces the M4 32" iMac. ðŸ˜
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When to Expect New M4 MacBook Air, Mac Studio, and Mac Pro Models
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It's less an indictment of the M3 and more an indictment of the process node on which it's built, N3B. And it's not that N3B is bad, it's just expensive to manufacture on and has a lower yield relative to the N3E process node the M4 is built on. It's actually cheaper for Apple to produce M4 chips so it behooves them to skip the M3 in much of its product line and focus on M4 deployment.
The M3 is a great chip. It produces 20% performance gains over the M2, the M3 Max scales to a massive multi-core monster that represents the first consumer accessible (ie: non-Ultra) Apple Silicon chip that could go toe to toe with an Intel i9 K-series desktop chip in terms of both single core and multi core performance.
And how about the iMac PRO ???
DisplayPort / Thunderbolt 4 are entirely capable of 120Hz 5K bandwidth with DSC on. This isn't a cable problem, just a product engineering one.
No, it’s not. It’s been too much hype about almost nothing.
While the move to Apple Silicon is a smashing success, there’s simply too little difference between the various generations of M chips to justify all these new chips and Macs with the first, second of third Gen. Apple Silicon SoC.
Consumers tire out on Apple announcing new Mac SoCs when there barely any reasons to buy the newer over the older.
What we get now as M4 should have been the next generation after M1.
Having M2 and M3 in between has created too much supply of new stuff that barely offers an upgrade.
I really don't grok the complaining about Apple's ARM chips.
Apple's chip development from M1 -> M2 -> M3 -> M4 has been fine -- your expectation management needs a reset.
Unless ones' work requires it, nobody should bother upgrading from one generation to the next generation. Expecting the performance to change a lot between generations is ridiculous.
10-20% improvements per generation (i.e. about every 18 months) is great stuff, why complain about it?
Don't replace your Mac for >5 years... then the upgrade will be glorious and you'll love it.
People complained that the M2 was a stop gap.
Then people complained that the M3 was a stop gap.
Just wait until we hear the complaints when some Mac lines skip the M5.
Wait, I can hear it now: The M4 and M5 are stop gap failuires that apple shipped knowing that they're designing the future chiplet Apple Silicon SoCs.
The only interesting question is: Given the Max and Pro are now unique chip designs, does Apple have the silicon space to make a unique Ultra chip design, allowing two Ultras to be paired together to make an M* Quadra?
Really, if you want to wishcast, Apple could be shipping lots more permutations of their SoC (I want a thicker MBP, not a thinner one!):
Apple's chip development from M1 -> M2 -> M3 -> M4 has been fine -- your expectation management needs a reset.
Unless ones' work requires it, nobody should bother upgrading from one generation to the next generation. Expecting the performance to change a lot between generations is ridiculous.
10-20% improvements per generation (i.e. about every 18 months) is great stuff, why complain about it?
Don't replace your Mac for >5 years... then the upgrade will be glorious and you'll love it.
People complained that the M2 was a stop gap.
Then people complained that the M3 was a stop gap.
Just wait until we hear the complaints when some Mac lines skip the M5.
Wait, I can hear it now: The M4 and M5 are stop gap failuires that apple shipped knowing that they're designing the future chiplet Apple Silicon SoCs.
The only interesting question is: Given the Max and Pro are now unique chip designs, does Apple have the silicon space to make a unique Ultra chip design, allowing two Ultras to be paired together to make an M* Quadra?
Really, if you want to wishcast, Apple could be shipping lots more permutations of their SoC (I want a thicker MBP, not a thinner one!):
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Might get the new mini! If enough cores or 16 inch MacBook Pro - excited for the change from a 2019 tower….
Having slept on yesterday’s news that the Mini will be getting a redesign, I’m getting increasingly worried that Apple is going to hobble the Mini with a stupidly small number of ports, externalizing the PSU and possibly the Ethernet port.
I fear a similar treatment for the MacBook Pros. They’ll strip ports and we’ll be back to throttling issues, especially with the Max version all for a mm or less reduction in thickness.
I fear a similar treatment for the MacBook Pros. They’ll strip ports and we’ll be back to throttling issues, especially with the Max version all for a mm or less reduction in thickness.
I can absolutely see Apple reducing the Mac mini to a USB-C powered desktop so it can have a single wire to a Studio Display.
I'd rather them just make a separate Mac nano for that (oh, I should add that to my table).
by the time the M4 MacBook Air, Mac Studio, and Mac Pro models are released, M5 will be on the horizon. and again, M4 ultra will probably be beaten by the M5 pro or max …. 2-3 months later
the main gain in single core performance of M2, M3, M4 is result of increasing core clock speed. I have to assume that M5 will be around 5 GHz. it will be very very hot, even 2 nm
the main gain in single core performance of M2, M3, M4 is result of increasing core clock speed. I have to assume that M5 will be around 5 GHz. it will be very very hot, even 2 nm
Every year apple promises great new computers… but its always the iphone, ipad and macbook… consumer….. as a pro waiting is taking to long…. No i am not going to switch… but maybe I just keep my current setup and do not upgrade… apple will loose many upgraders…
It'd be nice if the iMac upgrade introduced a 32" version
M3 was on an earlier, more expensive 3nm process that pretty much only Apple was using (and thus needed to leverage the full production capacity). They worked out a deal with TSMC where they didn't pay for failed chips, but that meant a higher cost for successful chips and hard limits on the size of chip that TSMC would manufacture.
So there never could be a M3 Ultra. This also was why there was some rebalancing of P and E cores in the Pro, and why the Max had to be unique silicon rather than just being a twice-as-large Pro.
Moving to the new process required some redesign, and they also rolled in a few other improvements while at it into the M4.
I actually don't think they are done with the migration, as they will be even more limited by die size in processes going forward. We may not even see a M4 Pro, the next pro systems may be M5-based.
I hope I'll be able to afford an M4 Ultra Mac Studio.
My M1 Ultra is due for an upgrade, and I always felt the computer needed a good 30% more power to be truly useful to me and my specific workflow.
That said, I love the mac studio as a package; I like its size, its heft, all the ports and the fact it runs silent.
The only thing I'd hope is for apple to give it a bespoke desktop-tier chip; no need to be limited by power saving measures on a desktop machine.
My M1 Ultra is due for an upgrade, and I always felt the computer needed a good 30% more power to be truly useful to me and my specific workflow.
That said, I love the mac studio as a package; I like its size, its heft, all the ports and the fact it runs silent.
The only thing I'd hope is for apple to give it a bespoke desktop-tier chip; no need to be limited by power saving measures on a desktop machine.
Extremely unlikely that Apple will come out with a 4:3 ratio laptop. That either makes the laptop taller (causing issues with things like airline seats) or thinner (meaning you have difficulty having a proper keyboard layout), is less useful for watching media, and it creates more dead space on the bottom surface which isn't visually appealing.
They can cut out whatever shapes they want, but the cost goes up because of the probability of a manufacturing defect within the panel area. These were already very expensive panels. They may not be able to justify it today because of the base price increase.
If they were to do it, I would expect it to happen around Fall 2026, since they are on a five year design refresh typically. This would let them design around the panels, for instance making the 14" tier have 4k output.
Not impossible, but these would be very different designs that the word "like" does not fully convey. The entire weight of the iPad is the screen. For a Mac, the weight is in the base.
Sequoia has some features that would make sense on a touch enabled display.
- Drag windows to the sides with your fingers to snap them, like on iPadOS.
- Math notes with Apple Pencil.
- Touch with iPhone Mirroring for controlling, and moving files, photos and videos between iPhone and Mac.
Apple's Work on Touchscreen Macs: What We Know So Far
Some Apple fans have long wanted Apple to combine the functionality of the iPad with the Mac, and it appears that it's finally going to happen....www.macrumors.com
Apple is trying to unify development tools, partly because desktop software development has dried up (everything is just an electron app) but mobile development is still going strong. They want to make it easy for the iOS developers to release a good iPad version, and then make it easy for the iPad version to run on visionOS and on the Mac.
This is why so much of the Mac design language is aligning with the iPad.
They added trackpad and keyboard support first class to the iPad so they wouldn't have to mandate touch on the Mac.
Touch interface on the current MacBooks would be annoying, but redesigned MacBook lines could make it acceptable.
But it would still be unusable on a iMac for anything other than short interactions. Hold your arm straight out in front of you for 60 seconds and now imagine that was how you interacted with your computer for hours a day.
And it is ludicrous on the Mac mini, Studio and pro. There is no existing market for external touch monitors.
Apple won't add touch to their laptops because the developers who would be porting their apps from iPad to Mac use those laptops, and Apple doesn't want them to mandate touch.
I'm glad I bought the M2 Max Studio w/64GB RAM last year. I thought about waiting, but my late 2017 27" iMac was getting long in the tooth.
That's silly.
M3 vs M1 on geekbench 6 shows a 30% performance improvement on single-core and 38% on multi-core by my measurements. Mac owners should not have to wait for the M4 to get that kind of performance boost if they need it. You think that they should have to wait for 4 or more years so that they can get a 60% performance improvement in SC and a 50% improvement in MC? That really isn't how the computer industry works. On the other hand, if you own an M1 Mac and waited to upgrade to the M4 you might be pleasantly surprised.
Yeah I remember reading about the supposed gains the M3 was going to bring to battery life, and was planning on holding out for it. Then my 2015 MBP (the famous "best laptop ever") screen died and I replaced it with the 15" M2 Air.
M3 came out and specs were barely different from M2, and the M3 was heavily discounted soon after release. Not sure I would call it a "failure" but it sure wasn't significantly different than the M2. Glad I made my purchase when I did.
Honestly at this point all I'm looking for is battery life improvements (already pretty great on the laptops but pretty bad on ipads and phones). Everything else about the machines (other than ports which Apple is not going to give us) is fantastic. Of course they should upgrade the base RAM above 8GB or come off the absurd $200 RAM premium which is about 10x what RAM costs on the Windows side.
What else does anyone really need from their Macbook that's not here already?
If you are willing to lossy compress, why limit yourself to just 5k?
I'm very confused by the above?
That is entirely how the computer industry works? Users absolutely should expect to wait for the M4 to get M4 performance?
Heck, look at intel in the 2010s, they could only dream of getting a 50% performance increase over 4 years with the same power/thermal envelope.
I don't understand where these expectations are coming from.
10% to 20% increase every 18 months or so, is perfectly fine. It adds up to amazing performance increases over the years.
The M2 through M3 are fully justified because:
1) They sold reasonably well
2) They are the stepping stones to the M4
3) The M4's process didn't exist when the M2 came out?
Is everyone here just saying that Apple should only releaese new computers every 4-5 years? Why? Apple can ignore upgraders, they'll probably eventually be in the market for a new Mac. Apple has lots of customers who are looking for a computer now, and marketing to them is what matters.
Absolutely.
Nothing's wrong with waiting a few generations to upgrade. All is good, investment is good, Apple's progress is pretty good.
Apple's BTO prices are ridiculous, but that is a different subject entirely.
