Mass Production of M4 Pro & Max MacBooks Starts This Month
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Apple will kick off mass production of M4 Pro and M4 Max MacBook Pro models starting this month, according to a report by Taiwanese industry publication DigiTimes. With less than a week remaining until September, mass assembly of the new laptop has likely already begun.
Earlier this month, display industry analyst Ross Young claimed that shipments of displays for Apple’s next-generation 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models were being sent out.
In May, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman said we “should expect M4 Pro and M4 Max chips later this year as part of the high-end MacBook Pro.” Gurman also says Apple has plans to release four new Macs powered by the standard M4 chip later this year. He expects Apple to release a lower-end 14-inch MacBook Pro, iMac, and Mac mini.
Gurman notes that developer logs reveal the new Macs are powered by base-level M4 chips. Three Macs have a 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU, while the fourth machine has an 8-core CPU and an 8-core GPU. All four M4 Macs are expected to boast 16GB or 32GB of unified memory.
It won’t be a big surprise if Apple follows tradition and announces new Macs sometime in October, which has proven to be the most common month for Mac announcements from the Cupertino firm. If Apple follows that pattern, it will announce its next 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models with M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max chips in two months or so. Since Apple’s last Mac unveiling event was held on October 30, 2023, the potential is certainly there for another October event this year.
Apple first used the standard M4 chip in its new iPad Pro, which debuted earlier this year. The new processor’s Geekbench results show that the M4 provided up to 25% faster multi-core CPU performance when compared to the M3 chip. We expect the same incremental power and efficiency improvements with the M4 Pro and M4 Max processors as we saw with the M3 family last year.
The M4 powering the 256 GB and 512 GB iPad Pro models has a 9-core CPU and 10-core GPU, while the chip powering the 1 TB and 2 TB models has a 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU. The chip in the high-end iPad Pro models is the same one that will power some of the new Macs.
No major design changes are expected for the next MacBook Pro models. An OLED display is still a few years away for Apple’s laptops. However, Gurman said in June that Apple intends to release slimmed-down models of its MacBook Pro in the future, following up on its “slimmest ever” M4 iPad Pro that was released earlier this year.
Gurman said that Apple is now focusing on creating the thinnest possible devices across its MacBook lineups without compromising on battery life or new features. The Apple Watch and the iPhone are also a part of Apple’s “slimming” plans, with a thinner iPhone coming as soon as 2025.
