The 45th Anniversary iMac. Duh!
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Which New Mac Will Apple Release at Its March Event?
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The 45th Anniversary iMac. Duh!
I think they will be releasing the PowerPro MacBook Mini. I hear it could possibly be the most powerful mac in the world.
Why would Apple update their low-end Mn-series Macs when they have a number of M1 Pro/Max models to still be released (Mac mini, 27" iMac, Mac Pro)...?
The Mac mini as an "OS X starter kit" was the spin when the Mac mini first came out, but there have been a number of server variants over the years & the 2018 intro of the Space Gray Mac mini was specifically aimed at a variety of professionals...
I think it’ll just be the old 13” MBP with M2. Especially since the iPad Air and iPhone SE are just spec bumps. I don’t think we’ll see any hardware redesigns.
ALL M1 Machines.
27 iMac.
Mac mini.
The M2 seems to be a minor upgrade.
So it's gonna be a LONG 18 months before APPLE comes out with a better chip
MEANWHILE AT INTEL..................
27 iMac.
Mac mini.
The M2 seems to be a minor upgrade.
So it's gonna be a LONG 18 months before APPLE comes out with a better chip
MEANWHILE AT INTEL..................
No M2's. The most probable products will all be powered by the M1 Pro. 13" MacBook Pro, Mac mini and iMac.
There is plenty of consumer demand for any of these products sporting the M1Pro's, and any roadmap Apple came up with to cover development costs of the M1series certainly had these in mind.
There is plenty of consumer demand for any of these products sporting the M1Pro's, and any roadmap Apple came up with to cover development costs of the M1series certainly had these in mind.
The M2 will not be a huge upgrade if you're looking for pure CPU/GPU performance, but it will be a huge upgrade for battery life. (Just look at what the A15 cores did for the iPhones 13.) For the low end line, that's much more significant than keeping up with high-end performance.
Add in that there will likely be a complete physical redesign of the M2-based machines, and that makes for an excellent event, especially if it includes the M2 MacBook Air.
I don't think anyone who is actually in the market for a Pro machine will be confused about the M2 being less capable than the M1 Max/Pro.
Add in that there will likely be a complete physical redesign of the M2-based machines, and that makes for an excellent event, especially if it includes the M2 MacBook Air.
I don't think anyone who is actually in the market for a Pro machine will be confused about the M2 being less capable than the M1 Max/Pro.
I wonder what the M2 will even be? Cause it cannot be better than the M1 Pro....
So I reckon it'll just be a redesign with the M1 Pro chip with less GPU cores.
However that said... why? I think there is far more value in going for the $500 market.
So I reckon it'll just be a redesign with the M1 Pro chip with less GPU cores.
However that said... why? I think there is far more value in going for the $500 market.
There is still a chip shortage, so I do not think we will see everything above coming out. I think we will just be getting
M2 Air
M2 13-inch MacBook Pro
M2 Mini
Personally, I would be hesitant to buy an M1 Pro/Max Mini knowing that Apple is releasing systems with M2 SoCs.
As they did at WWDC prior to introducing Apple silicon to the Mac, they added an iPad Pro chip to the Mac mini.
And apropos, the iPad Pro was among the first to sport an M1. Then the entry level laptop and a desktop. Now they will add the M1 Pro chips to the rest of the lineup.
This summer we will come full circle and see the cycle refresh with the M2
Oh boy...
M1Pro with less cores is ..... drumroll...... a M1
M2 would be something the next generation of core and a core count similar to the M1.
Nope the didn't.
The DTK was not a MacMini its wasn't even a product it was a limited access service (for developers) that shipped in the shell of a MacMini.
Wrong, the iPP was one of the last product that got the base M1, entry level laptop and desktop were the very first.
Define "rest of the lineup". M1Pro/Max are suitable for replacing the spacegrey Mini and big iMac. They are to little for an MacPro (unless you glue 2 or 4 together which would create a different SoC) and to big/powerhungry for everything that has the base M1 now (except the 2 fan iMac which could easily take the Pro).
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
I can't believe thread after thread get all these M2 confusion worry posts. Apple HAS rolled out new products with "old" (numbered) chips before. So they can do that because they have done it. Anyone purchased an Apple TV lately? What chip is in there? Better not check if you worry about latest & greatest numbers painted on chips you will likely never actually see.
Secondly, we are imagining a "pattern" based on only perhaps a familial connection to what we've seen with A-series chips. Perhaps there's no M2 at all? Maybe it will be a letter change instead of a number? Hello N1. Maybe M-series is meant for Mobile macs (in spite of original Mini and "Mini" iMac) and desktops will get a D1? Maybe Apple will do a OS X branding trick and the next real hardware will be M1.2 preceding M1.3?Maybe Apple will jump to an M5 (and only increment in 5s or 10s)? Or perhaps align the next iteration with A-Series with the new M16 chip? There's no history to assume anything. Yes, it seems logical that the chip after M1 will be called M2, but until there is a M2 we have no pattern at all on only a single iteration. The long-time OS X branding implies it very easily could be M1.X branding for the next decade and a half or so.
Thirdly, hop over to where you have a group of Macs for sale now with M1 like MBpro. Mentally erase the tiny little image of a chip with a number on it. Replace it with "Powered by Apple Silicon" or "Apple M-Series Chips" and then see how confusing it is to tell weaker MBpro from stronger MBpro. Hop into your much less informed, average Joe buyer's shoes and take a look...
Any confusion about which is the more powerful Mac? Which is the lower powered Mac? What if one has a M1, another has a M50 and a third has a DX1420 painted on their CPUs? Any confusion about which is the better one from that pitch?
The average Joe looks at the bottom line- that pricing- and will assume the far right one is BETTER than the 2 to the left. Slightly more knowledgable Joe will probably notice 32GB is greater than 16GB and 1TB is greater than 512GB. Regardless of what is painted on "invisible" chips INSIDE the box, it is very easy to differentiate more power from less power in computers.
Those more concerned with such stuff- like us- would need to dig into tech specs and follow Apple Mac tech news to get their brains around that. Step backwards a bit: is a Mac with Coffee Lake better or worse than Whiskey Lake? Is Haswell better than Ivy Bridge vs. Sandy Bridge vs Veronica Lake vs. Cannon Lake vs. Land o' Lakes? Do we armchair experts remember which of those is better than the other? Several of those were once the central brains of "latest & greatest" Macs- some of which we probably purchased ourselves.
In terms of power, Apple chose to start at "the bottom" of the product mix and work towards the top. So historically weakest/cheapest models got Apple Silicon before pro machines. When the first pros got it, they got the enhanced version of it in PRO & MAX. What is left to transition? iMac "bigger" and Mac Pro. Conceptually, those should have the MOST POWERFUL Apple Silicon. So if we buy this concept that there can't be an M2 (or whatever it will be called) until all Macs are M1, what goes in the MOST POWERFUL Macs still to be released?
Yes, there are rumors of M1 MAX DUO and M1 MAX QUAD and at least DUO looks plausibly legit. Logically, if DUO went into iMac "bigger" and QUAD went into Mac Pro (Jr?), that seems nice & tidy in terms of supporting this concept that everything must transition before there can be anything with M2. But then what? Roll out M1 QUAD Mac Pro in NOV-DEC and then a weakest Mac with M2 a few months later? Aren't all these worries about consumer confusion magnified if the most powerful Mac hits at end of year and then some weakest Mac has a "2" in a chip name in about MAR '23?
Personally, I think Mac should go "2" (or whatever) as soon as a "2" is ready to sell. It's only a NAME. What could conceptually be iMac Pro M1 MAX DUO could be iMac Pro M2 DUO by changing what is printed on a chip. M1 MAX QUAD could be M2 MAX QUAD by changing what is printed on a chip. By simply being configured as DUO and QUAD, Apple marketing could spin entirely new chip and easily increment the number.
Or even more simply: 1 could be for Apple Silicon stuff released in 2021 and 2 could be for Apple Silicon released in 2022 and so on. Maybe 1 means NOTHING technologically? Have we ever seen that kind of number (in a computing) name before?
The biggest point is that it's only a NAME. And average Joe probably doesn't know the significance of a number in that name any better than Bluetooth 4 vs. 5, HDMI 1.4 vs 2 vs 2.1 and all of the many variations of USB 3: C, gen 1, gen 2, 4, thunderbolt 2, 3 & 4, wifi ac 802.11 vs 6 vs. 6e etc. Clearly, average Joe will want wifi 802.11 vs. wifi 6, right? It's a much bigger number so it must be farrrrrrrr superior.
I hope M2 (or whatever Apple chooses to call it) arrives ASAP, and M3 (or whatever) ASAP thereafter. I'm smart enough to consider the scenario of M2 being weaker than M1 PRO and M1 MAX... and then assume a M2 PRO & MAX will be more powerful than M1 predecessors. For those not able to figure that out or only care about bigger numbers, they can buy M2 and that Mac will work just fine for them. If they are over and we're debating tech specs, I can pull out a pretty old Mac with 802.11 and claim it is 796 times "bigger" than their lowly 6 or 6e in their shiny new one.
Secondly, we are imagining a "pattern" based on only perhaps a familial connection to what we've seen with A-series chips. Perhaps there's no M2 at all? Maybe it will be a letter change instead of a number? Hello N1. Maybe M-series is meant for Mobile macs (in spite of original Mini and "Mini" iMac) and desktops will get a D1? Maybe Apple will do a OS X branding trick and the next real hardware will be M1.2 preceding M1.3?Maybe Apple will jump to an M5 (and only increment in 5s or 10s)? Or perhaps align the next iteration with A-Series with the new M16 chip? There's no history to assume anything. Yes, it seems logical that the chip after M1 will be called M2, but until there is a M2 we have no pattern at all on only a single iteration. The long-time OS X branding implies it very easily could be M1.X branding for the next decade and a half or so.
Thirdly, hop over to where you have a group of Macs for sale now with M1 like MBpro. Mentally erase the tiny little image of a chip with a number on it. Replace it with "Powered by Apple Silicon" or "Apple M-Series Chips" and then see how confusing it is to tell weaker MBpro from stronger MBpro. Hop into your much less informed, average Joe buyer's shoes and take a look...
Any confusion about which is the more powerful Mac? Which is the lower powered Mac? What if one has a M1, another has a M50 and a third has a DX1420 painted on their CPUs? Any confusion about which is the better one from that pitch?
The average Joe looks at the bottom line- that pricing- and will assume the far right one is BETTER than the 2 to the left. Slightly more knowledgable Joe will probably notice 32GB is greater than 16GB and 1TB is greater than 512GB. Regardless of what is painted on "invisible" chips INSIDE the box, it is very easy to differentiate more power from less power in computers.
Those more concerned with such stuff- like us- would need to dig into tech specs and follow Apple Mac tech news to get their brains around that. Step backwards a bit: is a Mac with Coffee Lake better or worse than Whiskey Lake? Is Haswell better than Ivy Bridge vs. Sandy Bridge vs Veronica Lake vs. Cannon Lake vs. Land o' Lakes? Do we armchair experts remember which of those is better than the other? Several of those were once the central brains of "latest & greatest" Macs- some of which we probably purchased ourselves.
In terms of power, Apple chose to start at "the bottom" of the product mix and work towards the top. So historically weakest/cheapest models got Apple Silicon before pro machines. When the first pros got it, they got the enhanced version of it in PRO & MAX. What is left to transition? iMac "bigger" and Mac Pro. Conceptually, those should have the MOST POWERFUL Apple Silicon. So if we buy this concept that there can't be an M2 (or whatever it will be called) until all Macs are M1, what goes in the MOST POWERFUL Macs still to be released?
Yes, there are rumors of M1 MAX DUO and M1 MAX QUAD and at least DUO looks plausibly legit. Logically, if DUO went into iMac "bigger" and QUAD went into Mac Pro (Jr?), that seems nice & tidy in terms of supporting this concept that everything must transition before there can be anything with M2. But then what? Roll out M1 QUAD Mac Pro in NOV-DEC and then a weakest Mac with M2 a few months later? Aren't all these worries about consumer confusion magnified if the most powerful Mac hits at end of year and then some weakest Mac has a "2" in a chip name in about MAR '23?
Personally, I think Mac should go "2" (or whatever) as soon as a "2" is ready to sell. It's only a NAME. What could conceptually be iMac Pro M1 MAX DUO could be iMac Pro M2 DUO by changing what is printed on a chip. M1 MAX QUAD could be M2 MAX QUAD by changing what is printed on a chip. By simply being configured as DUO and QUAD, Apple marketing could spin entirely new chip and easily increment the number.
Or even more simply: 1 could be for Apple Silicon stuff released in 2021 and 2 could be for Apple Silicon released in 2022 and so on. Maybe 1 means NOTHING technologically? Have we ever seen that kind of number (in a computing) name before?
The biggest point is that it's only a NAME. And average Joe probably doesn't know the significance of a number in that name any better than Bluetooth 4 vs. 5, HDMI 1.4 vs 2 vs 2.1 and all of the many variations of USB 3: C, gen 1, gen 2, 4, thunderbolt 2, 3 & 4, wifi ac 802.11 vs 6 vs. 6e etc. Clearly, average Joe will want wifi 802.11 vs. wifi 6, right? It's a much bigger number so it must be farrrrrrrr superior.
I hope M2 (or whatever Apple chooses to call it) arrives ASAP, and M3 (or whatever) ASAP thereafter. I'm smart enough to consider the scenario of M2 being weaker than M1 PRO and M1 MAX... and then assume a M2 PRO & MAX will be more powerful than M1 predecessors. For those not able to figure that out or only care about bigger numbers, they can buy M2 and that Mac will work just fine for them. If they are over and we're debating tech specs, I can pull out a pretty old Mac with 802.11 and claim it is 796 times "bigger" than their lowly 6 or 6e in their shiny new one.
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HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
And should Apple release systems with M2 SoCs, why won't we be hesitant knowing M3s will soon follow?
So wait for M3 Macs and guess what?
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Apple Announces New Space Gray Mac mini With 4-Core or 6-Core Intel Processor and Up to 64GB RAM, Starting at $799
Apple announced a brand new Mac mini with a space gray finish at its "There's more in the making" media event held in Brooklyn, New York...
www.macrumors.com
The rumours are saying that there will also be iPhone and iPad launches, so it's not like this would be an exclusive for the Mini.
Of course, I really wouldn't bet against the March event (if it happens) being iPhone SE, iPad Air and diddly squat else. Wouldn't be the first time!
...because the (regular) M2 is for low-end (in Mac terms) laptop and desktop systems. It's likely to be 20-50% faster than the regular M1 but with similar numbers of cores, similar limitations on number of ports, max RAM and number of displays. It won't compete with the M1 Pro/Max which have substantially more CPU and GPU cores, extra memory bandwidth & RAM capacity, more TB4 controllers etc. and will still thrash the M2 at milti-threaded/GPU-heavy/RAM-hungry "pro" (for want of a better word) workloads.
M2 Pro and M2 Max chips will doubtless follow - but they're expanded versions of the M2 which are harder/more expensive to make in volume and will likely lag several months behind the M2, just as the M1 Pro/Max came along almost a year after the M1.
That ship sailed the moment that Apple chose the names "M1", "M1 Pro" etc. Apple's "thinking up short catchy names that describe things without using lots of words" department messed up by copying the naming scheme for iPhone A-series processors.
The iPhone gets a new, top-end model with the latest, most powerful A-series processor, regular as clockwork, every September, and the whole range gets re-shuffled, with lower-numbered processors are either dropped or demoted to "economy" options.
The Mac range is much more complicated, with every model on a different upgrade cycle, often more like 18-months than the iPhones annual cycle, and the highest-end often on the longest cycle of all (if you can call the train wreck that is the history of the Mac Pro and iMac Pro a "cycle").
The way Apple Silicon for Mac works is that the "Mn Pro", "Max" and (rumoured) "Duo/Quad" versions are scaled-up variants of the regular Mn processor with more-of-the-same CPU cores, GPU cores, I/O modules etc. so the regular Mn variant will always have to come first - and the variants use much larger dies than the base, so it is probably not economical to just make the Max and turn off cores to get the lesser versions (...which is what tends to happen with the A-series, e.g. A12 vs A12z)
I really wouldn't rule out iPhone SE + iPad Air + some magical new watch bands + no Macs at all.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
That's one way that a M2 13" Pro without a design change could make marketing sense.
As I pointed out in another thread: the current M1 13" MBP advertises 20 hours movie playback - and beats the M1 Air in that respect (bigger Mac = bigger battery). So it's not unreasonable to speculate that, with a more-efficient M2, that could hit the magic number of 24 Hours.
"First laptop in its class with 24 Hour battery life" would be a huge marketing coup, and maybe worth making an otherwise questionable "detour" for. (Darkness... fade up overture to Also Sprach Zarathustra... no, Morning from Pier Gynt - sun rises over moodily-lit image of 13" MacBook Pro, zoom in on indictor still showing 20% remaining battery... OK, you probably don't want to hire me to do the advertising
) Otherwise, though, once the M2 is available in quantity, Apple are going to want to stop making the M1 - and it could be a fairly trivial drop-in replacement for all the current M1 machines.
It's likely that Apple will update its SoC every 18 months, not every 12. So You'll probably have to wait at least another year.I think it’ll be worth upgrading from my 2019 16” for the M2 Max, but that’s likely an extra 8 months away
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Plausible, but I hope not.
Right now there are 2 configs of M1 Mini in the store with the "higher powered" Intel Mini still for sale too. Conceptually, those 2 M1 Mini configs could remain with an M2 Mini replacing the "high powered" Intel Mini. If M2 is meant as a direct replacement for M1, it seems Intel Mini could have been retired with the launch of M1 Mini long ago. Clearly, Apple seems to want to roll out a third Mini with higher power. Technically, the rumored M2 could be that though I would much more strongly guess that an M2 Mini replaces the M1 Mini at the "entry level" power and pricing level.
There seemed MUCH confidence that PRO & MAX Mini was going to launch with those MBpros months ago. I suspect those are not just very wrong guesses by some of the usually-more-right-than-wrong rumor names. If so, I don't think Apple would "waste" the development of them to then switch (again) to M2 instead. Priced high enough, Apple gets every bit of the margin they want from selling Macs. Why should they care about holding something back for only iMac or Mac Pro if they can roll it out now and get some new, high-profit revenue?
Besides, I find myself more believing (than not) this DUO concept. So I can easily see rolling out Mini PRO & MAX now and easily differentiating the rumored iMac "Pro" with M1 PRO at the base (to hit the "starting at only $XXXX" price for the press) and MAX DUO up into the old iMac Pro price range for the fat margins Apple loves.
I'm more skeptical about the QUAD rumor. Right now, I would guess that Mac Pro (Jr.) rolls out with M2 (or whatever it will be called) MAX DUO, potentially being the FIRST Mac with a M2 (or whatever it will be called) in it.
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The M2 baseline won't be faster than M1 Pro/Max, just more efficient and slightly more powerful than the M1 baseline.
My money is on a 27" done like the MacBook Pro. Two distinct flavors, and lots of options. I think the Mini, sadly, is a 'side project', rather than a serious device. Apple seems to be all about what you can see on their systems with a monitor, and the Mini doesn't measure up. Unless Apple does come out with a lower end monitor, and start selling bundles with that screen and a Mac Mini. THAT I could see happening, but I don't know if it would sell.
An M1 Max equipped Mini doesn't exactly make sense, does it. Making it more competitive in the current Apple product line doesn't make sense, IMO. But a SCREAMING iMac with a Max SOC and big storage makes sense. I doubt they will call it an 'iMac Pro', but maybe an 'iMac Max'? They slaughtered the 'Pro' suffix, and resurrecting it would seem to be awkward...
An M1 Max equipped Mini doesn't exactly make sense, does it. Making it more competitive in the current Apple product line doesn't make sense, IMO. But a SCREAMING iMac with a Max SOC and big storage makes sense. I doubt they will call it an 'iMac Pro', but maybe an 'iMac Max'? They slaughtered the 'Pro' suffix, and resurrecting it would seem to be awkward...
Not the same chip at all.
The M1 Pro has 6 high powered and 2 efficiency, has newer functionality like the video decode engine and it has 14 GPU cores at base.
So I could see them doing a 8 cores the same as the Pro and then like 12 GPU cores or something.
Then suddenly it looks 50 percent faster on a graph.
What would the M2 improve on without being faster than the M1 Pro? Battery and that is about it. However what realistically can it do over the M1?
I just cannot see an M2 happening, especially with how well the M1 is selling.... they're better off making a budget Macbook. Maybe redesigning the Macbook Air with the M1 Pro or M2, whatever they do. Then having the Macbook SE with the M1...