During a Q&A session about the Apple Car, Mark Gurman said that the chip in the car would have been the same as four M2 Ultra chips put together. In passing, Gurman also mentioned a few other things, such as the rumored fact that Apple “just started formal development” of a new MacBook Pro model that will include an M4 chip.
However, he didn’t offer any more information about the chip, and Apple hasn’t yet made any public announcement about it either.
Rumor mill suggest that the M4 is based on the A18, Apple’s upcoming chip for this year’s iPhones. Both will likely include additional Neural Engine cores to perform AI-related activities, which should be present across iOS 18 and macOS 15. For comparison, the Neural Engine on the A17 Pro chip can process up to 35 trillion operations per second.
Apple last updated the MacBook Pro lineup in October, adding M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max processors. As part of the redesign, Apple dropped the 13-inch MacBook Pro in favor of a new base model, the 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M3 chip.
Later, Apple also updated the iMac and MacBook Air with the M3 processor, leaving the Mac mini, Mac Studio, and Mac Pro as the only current-generation Macs still using the M2 lineup CPUs. So it could be another year before Apple unveils its first Mac with a M4 chip.
Apple announced the M1 chip for Macs in November 2020, the M2 chip in June 2022, and the M3 chip in October 2023, putting a year-and-a-half gap between each chip’s introduction. If this trend continues, the M4 chip might see the light of day in the first half of 2025.
We expect additional information about the next-generation Apple chipsets to appear online soon, so stay tuned.