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...
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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.
