2024 MacBook Pro, Mac mini, and iMac incoming

After months of rumors and a big M4 MacBook Pro leak from Russia, Apple confirmed last week somewhat unexpectedly that the M4 Macs are happening. Greg Joswiak teased on X that “an exciting week of announcements” is coming, starting Monday morning.

Rumors already say we should expect M4 updates for the MacBook Pro, Mac mini, and iMac. Initially we thought Apple would hold another press conference this month, which happened during the month of October in other years. But then Apple quietly unveiled the iPad mini 7, which suggested a press release announcement would be in order for the M4 Macs.

Fast-forward to Joswiak’s teaser, and we’re in for a big twist. Apple might spread its M4 Mac announcements across the week before likely starting preorders on Friday. Thanks to Mark Gurman’s latest report, we have an idea of the schedule.

The Bloomberg reporter said in his Power On newsletter that Apple will introduce new M4 Macs on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. The company reportedly invited certain media members and creators to a venue in Los Angeles for hands-on briefings set on Wednesday.

This sounds strange, but Gurman points out that Apple did something similar in 2019, scheduling the announcements of the iPad mini and iPad Air, the new iMac, and the new AirPods for consecutive days.

Gurman doesn’t say which new Mac announcement goes where. Apple could choose any order of announcements. But the reporter detailed some of the updates coming to these three lines.

The M4 chip is the biggest upgrade for all of them. The focus will be on Apple Intelligence, with the M4 chip bringing a massive jump in performance, especially regarding the Neural Engine capabilities. We already know this from the M4 iPad Pro that Apple launched earlier this year.

The M2 Neural Engine supported 15.8 trillion operations per second (TOPS). The M3 Neural Engine goes up to 18 TOPS. But the M4 will take things to a whole new level with the Neural Engine to more than double the performance of the previous chip, reaching up to 38 TOPS.

Apple’s upcoming base M4 MacBook Pro should feature a 10-core CPU and a 10-core GPU. That’s the M4 chip version that powers the more expensive iPad Pro variants. Apple also used a 9-core CPU variant for the iPads.

The base 14-inch M4 MacBook Pro should also start with 16GB of RAM, something we saw in those hands-on unboxing videos from Russia a few weeks ago. Gurman suggests that more base M4 Macs might get the same treatment. Apple Intelligence is the reason why Apple is going for the RAM boost.

Apple’s AI needs at least 8GB of RAM on a device, whether it’s a Mac or iPhone. But the AI might use “a few gigabytes at a time.” This explains the need to upgrade the memory to at least 16GB.

The base M4 chip should be joined by the M4 Pro and M4 Max variants.

As expected, the M4 MacBook Pro will come in two sizes: 14-inch and 16-inch. Design-wise, the M4 MacBook Pro won’t change compared to its predecessor, but it should get an extra Thunderbolt port.

On the other hand, the M4 Mac mini should deliver a massive design makeover, which would make it the highlight of the launch. The desktop will be smaller, approaching the size of an Apple TV set-top box. It’ll feature two USB-C ports on the front and three on the back.

Finally, there’s the iMac upgrade. The late 2024 iMac will also get M4 chip flavors, like the other Macs due this week. But that’s about the only thing you should expect from the all-in-one desktop. Apple Intelligence might be the reason why Apple wants all its Macs to run on the M4 chip as soon as possible.

That said, three Macs in Apple’s lineup will not get the M4 treatment this week: the MacBook Air, Mac Studio, and Mac Pro. Rumors say the M4 MacBook Air will launch in early 2025.

Gurman doesn’t offer a release date for the M4 Macs, but I’d expect them to be available for preorder this week and then hit stores by next Friday. Thankfully, we won’t have to wait too long. The first M4 Mac announcement will drop in a few hours.