Apple Reportedly 'Just Started Formal Development' of M4 MacBook Pro

Bloomberg's Mark Gurman today held a Q&A session focused on the Apple Car, in which he revealed that the vehicle's chip would have been equivalent to four M2 Ultra chips combined. He also said the vehicle had an underlying "safetyOS" system that was one part of the overall operating system, but he did not elaborate.

m3 mbp space black
Gurman also briefly touched on a few other topics, including that Apple apparently "just started formal development" of a new MacBook Pro with an M4 chip. He did not provide any additional details about the chip, which has yet to be announced by Apple.

Apple announced the M1 chip for Macs in November 2020, followed by the M2 chip in June 2022 and the M3 chip towards the end of October 2023, so there has been around a year-and-a-half gap between each of the chips being introduced. If that pattern continues, the M4 chip would be released in the first half of 2025. However, a late 2024 release is also possible if the interval shrinks to one year.

Apple last updated the MacBook Pro lineup in October with M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max chips. As part of that refresh, Apple discontinued the 13-inch MacBook Pro and replaced it with a new base model 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M3 chip. Apple has also updated the iMac and MacBook Air with the M3 chip, leaving the Mac mini, Mac Studio, and Mac Pro as the only current-generation Macs still equipped with the M2 family of chips.

Current Chip Last Updated Next Chip ETA
13" MacBook Air M3 March 2024 M4 2025
15" MacBook Air M3 March 2024 M4 2025
14" MacBook Pro M3/M3 Pro/M3 Max October 2023 M4/M4 Pro/M4 Max Late 2024/2025
16" MacBook Pro M3 Pro/M3 Max October 2023 M4 Pro/M4 Max Late 2024/2025
iMac M3 October 2023 M4 2025
Mac Studio M2 Max/M2 Ultra June 2023 M3 Max/M3 Ultra 2024
Mac Pro M2 Ultra June 2023 M3 Ultra 2024
Mac mini M2/M2 Pro January 2023 M3/M3 Pro 2024

Apple's chipmaking partner TSMC is expected to begin volume production of chips based on its 2nm process in the second half of 2025, so the M4 chip will likely remain 3nm like the M3 chip. However, the M4 chip will likely be manufactured with an enhanced version of TSMC's 3nm process for improved performance and power efficiency.

Last month, the Taiwanese publication Economic Daily News reported that the M4 chip will feature an upgraded Neural Engine with "significantly" more cores for artificial intelligence tasks, but no other specific details are known about the chip at this time.

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Top Rated Comments

ShivneelSingh Avatar
13 months ago
I still use my 2021 16” MacBook Pro M1 Max, 32GB RAM, 1TB storage.

It can handle literally anything and everything I throw at it.

Battery is OK, 87% with 300 cycles.

At this rate, I’ll just wait for the M6.
Score: 20 Votes (Like | Disagree)
swiftapplefan Avatar
13 months ago
Wow that's a powerful car. How many external displays would it have supported? And is that with 8 or 16 GB of ram?
Score: 17 Votes (Like | Disagree)
darngooddesign Avatar
13 months ago

Honestly with the M4 and M5 being so close in time, I’m no longer sure what to wait for, because the M4 will use a similar node, while the M5 will use the new node at 2nm using a new transistor architecture (GAAFET). Maybe it’s worth waiting until the second half of 2025.
You’re overthinking things; buy a computer when you need/want a computer. If you can wait a year until mid 2025, then you didn’t need a new computer now.
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Chuckeee Avatar
13 months ago
I’m more interested in when TB5 get folded into the design. WiFi 7, 6G modem, AV1 hardware encoder and H.266 hardware encoder/decoder while we’re at it.
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
HobeSoundDarryl Avatar
13 months ago

They can fit four in a car but they can’t fit two in a Mac Pro case.
What if Mac Pro IS the car? Just add those Apple wheels ('https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MX572ZM/A/apple-mac-pro-wheels-kit'), carefully balance (Cirque Du Apple) and drive... well hang on and hope Siri can get you somewhere near where you want to go. ;)
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
bradman83 Avatar
13 months ago
I don't think it's unreasonable to expect the M4 this fall instead of early 2025. Apple has historically released updates to its most popular models on an annual basis (sometimes even more frequently).

The M1 and M2 rollouts were slowed by Covid supply chain issues, especially lockdowns in China that didn't end until late 2022, plus TSMC's 3nm rollout delays, so looking to those upgrade cadences might not be accurate. Apple debuted the M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max in one event and thus kept a roughly annual upgrade schedule for the MBPs.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)