Apple is preparing to launch a new wave of MacBooks into the world, and all signs point to the first models hitting stores in the second half of 2024.
It’s still early, so we don’t know much yet about what to expect from these machines, but one of the safest bets is that they will be powered by a new Apple M4 chip that’s in the works in Cupertino.
While we’re still missing technical details about the M4 and what to expect, Bloomberg reporter and Apple whisperer Mark Gurman believes that AI will be a major marketing point for these chips.
That makes sense given the hype over “AI laptops” that’s been growing since the debut of NPU-equipped Intel Meteor Lake CPUs, and Apple no doubt wants to remind people that MacBooks have been equipped with their own neural engines optimized for AI since 2020. MacBook Air M1.
No one knows what the future holds, but we can make some pretty educated guesses about what the next MacBook will be. Here’s everything we know so far about the MacBook M4 and what to expect when it arrives.
MacBook M4: rumored specifications
Apple’s successor to the M3 chip will define the next generation of MacBooks, so it’s safe to say we’ll see the specs include an upgrade to the M4. Beyond that, we still haven’t heard much about what changes, if any, Apple plans to make to the specifications of the M4 MacBooks.
But the company is usually quite conservative when it comes to changing the specifications of its laptops from generation to generation, so it is likely that they will be very similar to what we saw on the M3 MacBooks. The cheapest entry point, the 13-inch M3 Air ($1,099), starts with an 8-core CPU, an 8-core GPU, 8GB of memory, and 256GB of SSD storage.
The numbers go up from there, surpassing the powerful 16-inch M3 Max MacBook Pro which, when maxed out (~$7,199), includes a 16-core CPU, 40-core GPU, 128GB of memory, and 8TB of storage. storage. We may see nominal core count improvements in the M4 MacBooks, but it’s too early to say yet whether Apple plans any more radical spec upgrades than that.
MacBook M4: Speculation on price and release date
Apple aims to launch the first M4 MacBook before the end of 2024, according to Gurman. He believes we should expect to see “a lower-end 14-inch MacBook Pro,” as well as possibly “high-end 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros… all with M4 chips.”
That matches up pretty well with the company’s habit of hosting launch events in October, as it did in 2023 when it unveiled the M3 MacBook Pro during its “Scary Fast” Apple event.
The rest of the MacBook M4 line will likely launch in 2025, as Gurman expects the 13-inch and 15-inch M4 MacBook Airs to debut in the spring.
Apple is also likely to abandon some M4-powered desktop computers, including the new M4 iMac and M4 Mac mini expected in 2024, potentially followed by an M4-powered Mac Studio and Mac Pro in 2025.
These updated M4 models may be more expensive than their current counterparts, but it seems unlikely that Apple will significantly increase the prices of the M4 MacBooks unless they are also significantly improved.
To give you an idea of the M4 MacBook price starting point, let’s look at what M3 Macs cost right now. The M3 MacBook Air 13 and 15-inch MacBook Air laptops start at $1,099 and $1,299, respectively, and I doubt Apple will want to price the M4 version of its cheapest laptop much above that figure.
The base M314-inch MacBook Pro costs $1,599 to start, while the more powerful 14-inch MacBook Pro with M3 Pro starts at $1,999 and the big, beefy 16-inch MacBook Pro starts at $2,499. If Apple were to increase the prices of the M4 versions, it seems unlikely that it would be willing to do so more than in the past, typically between $100 and $200.
MacBook M4: Design
It’s too early to say yet what changes, if any, Apple will make to the design of the MacBook M4 line. In March, Gurman said that Apple had “just begun formal development” of the MacBook Pro M4, and given the popularity of the design, it seems unlikely we’ll see any major changes.
If the M4 Air are even further away, it’s probably too early to guess what they’ll look like, but given that the lightweight and slim design is a key selling point of the line, I expect them to be as svelte as their predecessors. While I’d love to see the Air have a more usable port array, it seems unlikely that Apple will compromise on thinness.
MacBook M4: performance
The only thing you can be fairly sure of is that Apple will talk about big gains in performance and power efficiency for the M4 chips that will power these MacBooks.
We haven’t heard much yet about what to expect in terms of raw numbers, like core counts or speed increases, but since Apple hasn’t done much beyond refining the design of MacBooks in recent years, I’m holding it back. Hood upgrades are often the star of the show.
But while there is little more than rumors so far about what to expect from the M4 chip line in terms of performance, the TaiwaneseDaily economic newspublished a report claiming that these chips will feature an updated neural engine (which could mean more cores than the 16 in the Apple M3 chips) more clearly optimized for AI and machine learning tasks that impact your daily workflow.
Given the current trend of promoting laptops based on their AI capabilities, it’s easy to see Apple talking about how the M4 and its Neural Engine are optimized to run the best Mac AI apps on the market. It’s not hard to imagine a demo of a popular chatbot like ChatGPT (because you know there’s no way Apple is putting Google Gemini on stage) running locally on an M4 MacBook, with an emphasis on how that can give you greater privacy and security.
MacBook M4: battery life
Here’s an easy prediction to make: the M4 MacBooks will have excellent battery life.
MacBooks have been running consistently for 12 hours or more in our battery tests since the introduction of Apple silicon, and the M3 line was not far behind, delivering between 14 and 17 hours with ease.
MacBook M4: Outlook
There’s very little to go on right now, but what we’ve heard so far suggests that the MacBook M4 line will be a performance-focused refresh that could give us our first real look at how Apple intends to advance AI in its laptops.
This is potentially exciting, because many of the tricks used to promote AI-optimized laptops these days (like automatically centering you in video calls or automatically editing an image with the touch of a button) are straight out of Apple’s playbook. If the company feels pressure to demonstrate how well it can integrate AI to improve your daily life on the Mac, we could see some fun things.
But even if this is a nominal upgrade, as many of the new AI features in Windows laptops have been, it’s hard to imagine the MacBook M4 line not being popular. MacBooks have been pretty easy to recommend since the debut of Apple silicon, and if the company does little to change much beyond the chip, they’ll likely continue to compete with the best laptops on the market.
However, more colors wouldn’t hurt.
