When to Expect New M4 MacBook Air, Mac Studio, and Mac Pro Models

[MacRumors]

Apple's fall 2024 Mac announcements have included new iMac, Mac mini, and MacBook Pro models, all of which debuted with variants of Apple's M4 chip. Apple intends to update the rest of its Mac lineup with M4 series processors over the next 12 months, which will make it the first time that Apple has used the same chip generation across all of its Macs.

This means we can expect new M4 versions of MacBook Air, Mac Studio, and Mac Pro models next year. Here's what the latest rumors tell us about when each machine will launch, and what kinds of upgrades we can expect for them.

M4 MacBook Air

Apple in March 2024 launched updated 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air models equipped with Apple's M3 chip, and the company will soon start production of M4 versions ahead of an early 2025 launch, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. There are no new design changes planned for the ‌MacBook Air‌ models, and the focus will be on the M4 chip, but the base model will come with at least 16GB of RAM, after Apple updated the base M3 model to 16GB, up from 8GB. An M4 MacBook Air could also feature a new 12MP Centre Stage camera with Desk View support, an improvement over the current 1080p FaceTime HD camera, given that both the new M4 iMac and M4 MacBook Pro models also debuted with the upgraded camera. The ‌machines will arrive next year between January and March.

M4 Mac Studio

Apple plans to refresh the Mac Studio after the M4 MacBook Air has been released in early 2025. It will be equipped with a variation of the M4 processor – likely an M4 Ultra or Max chip. The current model comes in both M2 Max and M2 Ultra variants. Given that the Mac mini with M4 Pro chip and Apple's latest high-end MacBook Pro models include Thunderbolt 5 ports, it's certain that the Mac Studio will also adopt them. Mark Gurman claims that the ‌Mac Studio‌ was on track to be updated alongside the ‌MacBook Air‌, but it is now going to see a refresh between March and June. In previous reports, he said the ‌Mac Studio‌ would come out in mid-2025, so it is unclear what has changed.

M4 Mac Pro

Apple last updated the Mac Pro in June 2023, adding an M2 Ultra chip and officially completing the transition away from Intel chips. Apple will refresh the Mac Pro in the summer of 2025, according to Mark Gurman. Like the Mac Studio, the next Mac Pro will skip the M3 series. Instead it will be equipped with the highest-end version of the M4 chip, codenamed "Hidra." Based on the description of the chip, it could be positioned as an "Ultra" or "Extreme" chip. Gurman has said the M4 Ultra chip in the next Mac Pro will "probably" have up to a 32-core CPU and up to an 80-core GPU, which would be double the M4 Max's up to 16-core CPU and up to 40-core GPU. The next Mac Pro is expected to feature Thunderbolt 5 ports. It could also support up to 512GB of memory, a notable increase over the current 192GB limit.

M4 Series Performance

Like the M3, the M4 is built on a 3nm process, but with enhancements from Apple supplier TSMC for improved performance and power efficiency. The M4 also includes an improved Neural Engine that fuels accelerated AI workloads. Apple says it is the company's most powerful Neural Engine ever, capable of 38 trillion operations per second.

Geekbench 6 benchmark results have surfaced for Apple's new M4 Pro and M4 Max chips in the new Mac mini and MacBook Pro models, so we have some indications of performance. In the new Mac mini and MacBook Pro models, the highest-end variants of the M4 Pro and M4 Max both outperform the highest-end M2 Ultra chip in the Mac Studio and Mac Pro: The M4 Max is up to 25% faster than the M2 Ultra in terms of peak multi-core CPU performance. M4 Pro's impressive performance gains are partly due to the M3 Pro being a very minor upgrade over the M2 Pro chip last year. Meanwhile, the M4 Max is up to 20% faster than the M4 Pro when it comes to peak multi-core CPU performance.

In terms of graphics performance, Geekbench 6 results indicate that the M4 Pro and M4 Max are up to around 40% and 25% faster for graphics than the M3 Pro and M3 Max chips, respectively. Notably, the 16-inch MacBook Pro with the highest-end M4 Max with a 40-core GPU has up to 85% as fast graphics as the Mac Studio with the highest-end M2 Ultra chip with a 76-core GPU, even though it has 36 fewer GPU cores.

Article Link: When to Expect New M4 MacBook Air, Mac Studio, and Mac Pro Models

 

[AusMness]

I really wish the MBA was refreshed alongside the Pros

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

As a Studio ULTRA owner, I don’t buy it again if it is last in line for a generation of chips. Why? Because the M5 MAX will likely have comparable power for a much lower price, released only up to about 6 months later.

IMO: time to flip the order, preserving the all-important FALL releases as is but making Studio & PRO be FIRST with M5 MAX & ULTRA and thus can be “most powerful Mac” for longer than only a few months. Basically the concept flips ULTRA & MAX releases with BASE releases, leaving PRO & MAX releases exactly where they are now.

Why would Apple be interested? Presumably, these are the most profitable Macs on a per-unit-sold basis. Anyone buying one of these instead of MBpro MAX for “most power” are prob buying only 1 Mac that year anyway. So Apple makes more profit on any upward “cannibalization” per unit sold, while still getting the volume revenue by selling the Fall releases right on schedule. In other words, conceptually this slightly bumps up that small percentage that buy Studio or Pro in pursuit of “most powerful” Mac, yielding more profit in those sales for Apple. The Fall crowd still buys in big numbers. A revised Spring crowd feels the pull to step up too vs. waiting for “cheapest” Macs, knowing the next gen chips arrive right behind them. If that “pull” also works on some of them, they too are presumably buying more profitable Macs. 💰💰💰

Else, for me anyway, I don’t pay way up for it again when just a few months of patience will deliver M5 MAX. I understand that others will feel differently- just MY own opinion here.

 

[davidec]

Be nice to see the MP get a little bit of love. Give us music loyalists something to cheer about 😎

 

[kiranmk2]

As a Studio ULTRA owner, I don’t buy it again if it is last in line for a generation of chips. Why? Because the M5 MAX will likely have comparable power for a much lower price, released only up to about 6 months later.

IMO: time to flip the order, preserving the all-important FALL releases as is but making Studio & PRO be the FIRST with M5 MAX & ULTRA and thus can be “most powerful Mac” for longer than only a few months. Basically the concept flips ULTRA & MAX releases with BASE releases, leaving PRO & MAX releases exactly where they are now.

Else, for me anyway, I don’t pay way up for it again when just a few months of patience will deliver M5 MAX. I understand that others will feel differently- just MY own opinion here.

I think Apple likes to spread releases out through the year which is a problem both ways around.

Release the low end products like the MBA first, the single core performance will likely beat all the previous generation Macs (including Mac Studios) and the multicore performance will come close to the previous MBP (with Pro chip), meaning a chunk of you customers that would have paid more money for the MBP pick up a cheaper MBA

Release the high end products first, people will start holding off off buying the high volume products like the MBP/MBA because they know that the latest version will be launched soon. (It will be interesting to know whether MBA sales fell after the launches of the M3 MBPs in 2023 and the M4 MBPs in 2024).

 

[soyazul]

the same publication all over again, and again and again.

 

[MayaUser]

I really hope for my mental sake and for professionals sake there will be an M4 Supreme or something like that
Above M Max at least 1 or 2 SoC that are more focus on performance than performance per watt
I mean the power that M4 Max delivers...something double or triple the power of an M Max will make projects fly

 

[MayaUser]

the same publication all over again, and again and again.

and there will be many more as we will close to the Spring/WWDC events

 

[Bearxor]

As a Studio ULTRA owner, I don’t buy it again if it is last in line for a generation of chips. Why? Because the M5 MAX will likely have comparable power for a much lower price, released only up to about 6 months later.

IMO: time to flip the order, preserving the all-important FALL releases as is but making Studio & PRO be FIRST with M5 MAX & ULTRA and thus can be “most powerful Mac” for longer than only a few months. Basically the concept flips ULTRA & MAX releases with BASE releases, leaving PRO & MAX releases exactly where they are now.

Why would Apple be interested? Presumably, these are the most profitable Macs on a per-unit-sold basis. Anyone buying one of these instead of MBpro MAX for “most power” are prob buying only 1 Mac that year anyway. So Apple makes more profit on any upward “cannibalization” per unit sold, while still getting the volume revenue by selling the Fall releases right on schedule. In other words, conceptually this slightly bumps up that small percentage that buy Studio or Pro in pursuit of “most powerful” Mac, yielding more profit in those sales for Apple. The Fall crowd still buys in big numbers. A revised Spring crowd feels the pull to step up too vs. waiting for “cheapest” Macs, knowing the next gen chips arrive right behind them. If that “pull” also works on some of them, they too are presumably buying more profitable Macs. 💰💰💰

Else, for me anyway, I don’t pay way up for it again when just a few months of patience will deliver M5 MAX. I understand that others will feel differently- just MY own opinion here.

Sure, but you know this won't change. The MBP sells more and fab space is limited and the timing doesn't work out the way you want. By the time they're prepping M4 Ultra chips (probably right now) the yields will be better and the MBP sales will start to slow down so they can divert Max chips over to MP and MS allocations.

I think this is fine as long as Apple gets in the habit of updating the Studio and Pro on a yearly basis as opposed to letting them age like they did the M2 variants. An M4 Ultra will be faster than a M5 Max but probably not an M6 Max.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

While there is little history, MAX next is usually towards as fast as ULTRA last, released less than 6 months earlier. If that doesn’t change, I would wait for MAX and use it like a desktop vs. paying 2X or more. Again, just my own opinion. There ARE other benefits to Studio & Pro besides “most powerful” chip.

 

[1037]

I can't wait for a new Studio display. maybe a 30"?

 

[ctjack]

I was so hyped up for m4 air - ideal replacement for my m1 air.

But closer we come, i guess the expectation of holiday was better than the holiday itself. I just don’t see a reason to update fully working computer with 10hr battery.

 

[sledgehammer89]

No Nano Texture 120 Hz Mini LED Display? Best (fanless) MacBook is the one that isn't allowed to run macOS: iPad Pro M4

 

[jouster]

I still don’t believe the Mac Pro was originally intended to top out with an Ultra. I think they were unable to fab an Extreme efficiently enough to sell at the price they were aiming for. So I believe they viewed selling the M2 Ultra model as the lesser of two evils, compared to releasing nothing.

I think there’s a market for a box with substantial cooling capacity, PCIE slots, and more compute. And the Pro should be the showcase for the best CPU they can deliver. I don’t need one but I hope they make one.

 

[Will Co]

Pretty happy with my MBP 16 M4 Max. I run quite hefty VM loads so went for the 16 core with plenty of RAM. Windows 11 on Arm absolutely flies. Visual Studio can rebuild a very sizeable solution consisting of over 30 projects, some complex multi-platform MAUI stuff, in about 40 seconds. My old Intel 2019 MBP would take around 2 minutes to do that, and turn into a portable heater at the same time. I have hammered the workflow on the M4 and never once have I heard fan activity, and it runs cool - barely aired to the touch. Battery life is just insane. Over 2 hours development work, frequent compiles and debugging runs - plenty of load within the VM - and I've dropped less than 10% battery capacity. The old MBP? It would be asking for a power supply after a couple of hours.

Emulation is pretty impressive too. x64 apps running under emulation within the VM are faster than running natively on the old Intel. The same is true of macOs x64 apps running under Rosetta. And all the native stuff - macOs or WoA - it's just crazy responsive. So far - couldn't be happier.

Of course, the old Intel 2019 vs M4 Max isn't a fair fight, but given some of the hefty emulation that I need to make everything work, all delivered without killing battery - AS has come a long way quickly.

 

[JDHiro]

Personally, I'd like to see the Mac Pro scale even further to become one of the best workstations for ML and AI research.

I think there are three things missing there though:
1. The current high end ML applications are highly dependent on CUDA, and Apple needs software support.
2. Doing a 2x-4x chip and ending up with scores of Neural Engine cores it's helping anyone. So I'd like to see more CPU cores, but not necessarily more ANE.
3. They're going to have to do something about memory bandwidth.

 

[DaniTheFox]

I’ve got a hunch about what Apple might release in the coming months. I think we’ll see the Mac Studio and Mac Pro in Q1 25, with the M4 Max, Ultra, and Extreme chip. And in Q2, we’ll get the Air with the M5 chip. Oh, and I’m also expecting an iPad Pro with the M5 chip in Q3.

 

[JtheLemur]

They need to do the MacBook Air in colors like the iMac, FFS.

 

[theorist9]

I wonder whether Apple's reason for releasing the models with lower-end chips first is business, technological, or both.

A technological reason could be it's easiest to start development with the base chip, work out the kinks with that, and then proceed to the more complex designs.

A business reason could be that the lower-end models bring in most of the revenue, so they want to focus their efforts on those first.

But I'm just speculating. I don't know what the actual reason(s) is/are.

 

[ILoveCalvinCool]

March-June for the Studio? That would be sooner than I expected. I certainly hope that’s true. This is going to be by far the most expensive computer I have ever purchased.

 

[ILoveCalvinCool]

Personally, I'd like to see the Mac Pro scale even further to become one of the best workstations for ML and AI research.

I think there are three things missing there though:
1. The current high end ML applications are highly dependent on CUDA, and Apple needs software support.
2. Doing a 2x-4x chip and ending up with scores of Neural Engine cores it's helping anyone. So I'd like to see more CPU cores, but not necessarily more ANE.
3. They're going to have to do something about memory bandwidth.

Isn’t the memory bandwidth already superior due to SoC? I’m doing AI development also, and the dependency on CUDA sucks, but if the Silicon architecture is superior I’m hoping it will encourage the development of alternatives.

 

[Frantisekj]

As a Studio ULTRA owner, I don’t buy it again if it is last in line for a generation of chips. Why? Because the M5 MAX will likely have comparable power for a much lower price, released only up to about 6 months later.

IMO: time to flip the order, preserving the all-important FALL releases as is but making Studio & PRO be FIRST with M5 MAX & ULTRA and thus can be “most powerful Mac” for longer than only a few months. Basically the concept flips ULTRA & MAX releases with BASE releases, leaving PRO & MAX releases exactly where they are now.

Why would Apple be interested? Presumably, these are the most profitable Macs on a per-unit-sold basis. Anyone buying one of these instead of MBpro MAX for “most power” are prob buying only 1 Mac that year anyway. So Apple makes more profit on any upward “cannibalization” per unit sold, while still getting the volume revenue by selling the Fall releases right on schedule. In other words, conceptually this slightly bumps up that small percentage that buy Studio or Pro in pursuit of “most powerful” Mac, yielding more profit in those sales for Apple. The Fall crowd still buys in big numbers. A revised Spring crowd feels the pull to step up too vs. waiting for “cheapest” Macs, knowing the next gen chips arrive right behind them. If that “pull” also works on some of them, they too are presumably buying more profitable Macs. 💰💰💰

Else, for me anyway, I don’t pay way up for it again when just a few months of patience will deliver M5 MAX. I understand that others will feel differently- just MY own opinion here.

You can see this from many angles. If Apple starts with Utra and Extreme, if they manage to build one, they could hamper sale of their very succesfull line up, Macbook Pro. All will be waiting for next CPU.

As of mac pro, I wonder why they still produce it if they can not build Extreme chip or if they are not gonna release some accelerator PCI cards, graphic, AI, like they had Afterburner.

 

[bradman83]

I wonder whether Apple's reason for releasing the models with lower-end chips first is business, technological, or both.

A technological reason could be it's easiest to start development with the base chip, work out the kinks with that, and then proceed to the more complex designs.

A business reason could be that the lower-end models bring in most of the revenue, so they want to focus their efforts on those first.

But I'm just speculating. I don't know what the actual reason(s) is/are.

Apple actually seems to be de-prioritizing the base M chip for initial release; casting aside the M4 iPad Pro for a moment, both the M3 and M4 debuted in Macs alongside their Pro and Max versions, with the base chip landing first in a lower volume consumer desktop and were then launched in the Air a few months later. I really don't think we'll see the M5 in the spring in the Air; I think we'll see it next fall in a similar October launch that we saw in 2023 and 2024.

I suspect this happens for a few reasons:

• Apple needs to stagger releases to make sure TSMC's bleeding edge production nodes can keep up with demand. TSMC needs to supply enough chips for both the Mac launches but the iPhone as well.
• The MacBook Air gets de-prioritized because it's both a high volume seller but also a consumer-focused device which shouldn't be getting the latest chip before the MacBook Pros or desktop models.
• The Ultra chip is both the most complex to produce but also the lowest volume chip, so it goes last in keeping with industry tradition (Xeon, Epyc, and Threadripper chips are all released long after their microarchitecture siblings are).

The M4 launching in the iPad Pro was likely an aberration. Apple needed to use the M4 because the display controller was designed to handle the tandem OLED display (and is likely why M4s across the board support more displays than the M3), and didn't want to wait until 2025 to launch it.

 

[adamw]

Looking forward to M4 Max Mac Studio model. Hope it comes sooner than spring or summer 2025. We need it now please Apple.

 

[tenthousandthings]

While there is little history, MAX next is usually towards as fast as ULTRA last, released less than 6 months earlier. If that doesn’t change, I would wait for MAX and use it like a desktop vs. paying 2X or more. Again, just my own opinion. There ARE other benefits to Studio & Pro besides “most powerful” chip.

That little bit of history is really just one generation. The M1 Ultra had issues that were fixed in M2 Ultra. So the M2 Max versus M1 Ultra comparison isn’t useful.

Your proposed approach depends on every generation being like the M3 Max versus M2 Ultra. But the architectural changes in the M3 generation probably never had an M3 Ultra in the works. So the high-end 400 GB/s M3 Max was differentiated from the low-end 300 GB/s M3 Max in a way that M2 Max was not.

The M4 Max carries on that differentiation, and so presumably the M4 Ultra will also. There will be two tiers of Ultra, with significant differences in memory bandwidth, 820 GB/s versus 1092 GB/s. How an M5 Max would compare to that is anybody’s guess.

One thing we do know, however, is that M2 versus M3 embodies a significant change in process node, from TSMC N5P to N3, with major architectural changes to the GPU intertwined. M4 versus M5 isn’t nearly as big a jump, from TSMC N3E to N3P.