Apple this week expanded its lineup of Apple silicon chips with the new M2 Pro and M2 Max processors, building on the M2 chip announced in June. The new lineup of M2 chips represents the second generation of Apple silicon that can now now be found in the latest Macs.
The M2 Pro and M2 Max are noteworthy upgrades over the M1 Pro and M1 Max, bringing more performance, battery life, and capabilities to professional users. Below, we've listed five of the most important details you need to know about Apple's latest Mac chips.
A Lot of Memory Bandwidth: The new M2 Pro and M2 Max chips feature the same memory bandwidth as their respective predecessor, which is some of the highest in the industry. Like the M1 Pro, the M2 Pro chip supports up to 200GB/s of memory bandwidth, while the M2 Max supports 400GB/s of memory bandwidth like the M1 Max.
Even Longer Battery Life: The M1 Pro and M1 Max have two high-efficiency cores, whereas the M2 Pro and M2 Max both feature four efficiency cores, allowing the new Macs to tackle heavy workloads using less energy, thereby conserving battery life.
Tons More Transistors: Thanks to the use of second-generation 5nm process technology, the M2 Pro has 40 billion transistors, which is 20% more than the M1 Pro. With M2 Max, the jump is even bigger – its 67 billion transistors is 10 billion more than the number used in the M1 Max.
Highest Unified Memory Yet in a MacBook Pro: 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros configured with the high-end M2 Max processor now support up to 96GB of unified memory. The 96GB of memory option is an additional $800, on top of the $200 extra for the higher-end variant of the M2 Max chip.
Connect Even More Displays: 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros and Mac mini models configured with M2 Pro support up to two external displays. M2 Pro supports two 6K displays over Thunderbolt, or one 6K display at 60Hz over Thunderbolt and one 4K display at 144Hz over HDMI. MacBook Pro models with M2 Max support up to four displays: three displays with 6K resolution at 60Hz over Thunderbolt and one more 4K display at 144Hz over HDMI. M2 Max also supports two 6K displays at 60Hz over Thunderbolt, and one 8K display at 60Hz or one 4K display at 240Hz over HDMI.
The new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro can be configured with both M2 Pro and M2 Max, while the updated Mac mini can be configured with either M2 or M2 Pro. Both the new MacBook Pro and Mac mini are available for pre-order on Apple's website and will begin arriving to customers on Tuesday, January 24.
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices.
Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of April 2025:
Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone ...
Tuesday April 15, 2025 6:31 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Apple is preparing a "bold" new iPhone Pro model for the iPhone's 20th anniversary in 2027, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. As part of what's being described as a "major shake-up," Apple is said to be developing a design that makes more extensive use of glass – and this could point directly to the display itself.
Here's the case for Apple releasing a truly all-screen iPhone with no...
The first iOS 19 beta is less than two months away, and there are already a handful of new features that are expected with the update.
Apple should release the first iOS 19 beta to developers immediately following the WWDC 2025 keynote, which is scheduled for Monday, June 9. Following beta testing, the update should be released to the general public in September.
Below, we recap the key...
Wednesday April 16, 2025 11:28 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
If you have been experiencing issues with wireless CarPlay in your vehicle lately, it was likely due to a software bug that has now been fixed.
Apple released iOS 18.4.1 today, and the update's release notes say it "addresses a rare issue that prevents wireless CarPlay connection in certain vehicles."
If wireless CarPlay was acting up for you, updating your iPhone to iOS 18.4.1 should...
Apple may have updated several iPads and Macs late last year and early this year, but there are still multiple new devices that we're looking forward to seeing in 2025. Most will come in September or October, but there could be a few surprises before then.
We've rounded up a list of everything that we're still waiting to see from Apple in 2025.
iPhone 17, 17 Air, and 17 Pro - We get...
Apple's upcoming foldable iPhone (or "iPhone Fold") will feature two screens as part of its book-style design, and a Chinese leaker claims to know the resolutions for both of them.
According to the Weibo-based account Digital Chat Station, the inner display, which is approximately 7.76 inches, will use a 2,713 x 1,920 resolution and feature "under-screen camera technology." Meanwhile, the...
Thursday April 17, 2025 4:12 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models simultaneously, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 17 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect from Apple's 2025 smartphone lineup.
If you skipped the iPhone...
Wednesday April 16, 2025 10:11 am PDT by Juli Clover
Apple today released iOS 18.4.1 and iPadOS 18.4.1, minor updates to the iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 operating systems that came out last September. iOS 18.4.1 and iPadOS 18.4.1 come two weeks after the launch of iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4.
The new software can be downloaded on eligible iPhones and iPads over-the-air by going to Settings > General > Software Update.
There have been complaints about ...
Apple has confirmed that it will be permanently closing its retail store in the heart of Bristol, England, and there is no replacement in sight.
Apple Bristol in 2023
Apple Bristol will be closing its doors on Saturday, August 9, due to redevelopment plans at the Cabot Circus Shopping Centre, and the adjacent Bristol Shopping Quarter. According to news reports, and a building application, the ...
The expanded display support throws up an interesting conundrum - it seems that the 8k60 (or 4k240) is only supported by the HDMI port and that the Thunderbolt interface is limited to 6k60. This means that to get the highest performance video output you can't have a one-cable solution (USB-C) and none of Apple's displays accept HDMI in (and don't seem to support >60 Hz)... Even a new Apple XDR display that supported 120 Hz would still need an HDMI cable. Does this imply that the ports are still DisplayPort 1.4? (the PC market is moving to DisplayPort 2.1 and plant of GPUs and monitors with support were announced at CES)
On battery life, does this mean maxing out the CPU will give less battery life than M1 Pro/Max as it seems that the increased battery life advertised arises from the low power cores being able to do a bigger proportion of low-mid level tasks?
HDMI 2.1 offers 48Gbps whereas Thunderbolt 4 is limited to 40 Gbps. You need 43 Gbps for 8K, 60Hz in 4.2.0. This means that the MacBook Pro's support for 8K is limited to 4.2.0 chroma subsampling: fine for watching movies, unsuitable for grading movies, OK for gaming but downright awful for displaying text at 1x the resolution, but probably alright at 2x retina. https://www.rtings.com/tv/learn/chroma-subsampling
My guess is that next year's laptops will offer Thunderbolt 5, which offers 80Gbps and will allow full 4.4.4 chroma subsampling, and the next XDR display will be 8K and require Thunderbolt 5. Or maybe, Apple will put two Thunderbolt ports on that future XDR and allow 2022 MacBook Pros to output 4.4.4 to it using 2x Thunderbolt 4 connections. Similar to how the Dell UP3218K uses two Displayport connections (this monitor seems incompatible with the 2022 MacBook Pro and I've only read about one person using it with a Mac, using a Mac Pro 7.1, two PCIe graphics cards and a fair amount of hacking).
The expanded display support throws up an interesting conundrum - it seems that the 8k60 (or 4k240) is only supported by the HDMI port and that the Thunderbolt interface is limited to 6k60. This means that to get the highest performance video output you can't have a one-cable solution (USB-C) and none of Apple's displays accept HDMI in (and don't seem to support >60 Hz)... Even a new Apple XDR display that supported 120 Hz would still need an HDMI cable. Does this imply that the ports are still DisplayPort 1.4? (the PC market is moving to DisplayPort 2.1 and plant of GPUs and monitors with support were announced at CES)
On battery life, does this mean maxing out the CPU will give less battery life than M1 Pro/Max as it seems that the increased battery life advertised arises from the low power cores being able to do a bigger proportion of low-mid level tasks?
Can we expect a MacBook Pro redesign in 2024? I'm really not a fan of the bulky design and the all black keyboard. ?
I'm a fan of it. I think the design is great. I'm pretty sure it's ”bulky” (I think it's heavy, but not bulky) for a reason. If you want slim there's MacBook Air.
Another thing: Every upgrade extra is ridiculous expensive. You can upgrade your M2 chip with $1000's worth of extra cores, graphical cores of unified memory.
While benchmarks will be interesting to see compared to the M1 Pro & M1 Max, I've still got no regrets buying my 14" MBP with the M1 Pro back in July and not waiting for the M2-series.
Battery life already lasts longer than I need it to and I don't use high-refresh rate displays. And the machine is currently faster than I need anyway. So the M2 Pro isn't bringing anything else to the table.
Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy they're out, but Apple hardware is so good currently, I no longer need to upgrade constantly.
