According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple is reportedly preparing a wave of updates to its Macs for late 2024 and 2025. On the agenda: the new M4 chip, but also at least one major design change. This would be a complete overhaul of the Mac range to make it more attractive and thus increase sales, which are already excellent.
MacBook Pro, iMac and Mac mini M4 expected by the end of 2024
The transition to the M4 chip should begin for Macs this year. After the iPad Pro last May, it would be the turn of the MacBook Pro, 24-inch iMac and Mac mini to move to this new generation. It is a real novelty for Cupertino to inaugurate a new chip on an iPad, the company usually does it on the iPhone and then the Mac.
Design-wise, there’s no big change in sight for these models. We can just expect the Magic Keyboard, Magic Mouse, and Magic Trackpad accessories that come with the iMac to finally ditch the Lightning port in favor of USB-C.
But under the hood, the performance leap should be significant thanks to the M4 chip. According to early benchmarks, it would bring a big gain on the GPU and the neural engine compared to the M3 generation — with even greater performance than on the iPad Pro thanks to the cooling of the machines.
2025: Major design changes in the pipeline
For the MacBook Air, Mac Studio, and Mac Pro, we’ll have to wait until 2025 to get the M4 chip, according to Gurman. But the wait might be worth it, because at least one of these models will get a major overhaul. The journalist doesn’t specify which one, but the Mac mini seems like the ideal candidate. Its design in the form of a small aluminum block has barely changed since 2010, apart from a few port changes. A makeover would be more than welcome.
The Mac Pro could also be affected. Its imposing “cheese grater” case inherited from the 2019 Intel model seems oversized and poorly adapted for Apple Silicon chips that do not require as much cooling and do not offer scalability. It will start to be very difficult to make the Mac Pro and the Mac Studio coexist as the latter borrows all the characteristics of its more expensive and bulkier big brother.
As for the MacBook Air, a new design seems less likely. Its chassis was completely revised in 2022 and Apple is used to keeping the same look for 4-5 years on this range. In addition, the range having been renewed recently, it is very likely that the MacBook Air will not switch to the M4 chip before the end of 2025 or even 2026. Answer very soon!
