In March, Apple announced new MacBook Air models powered by the M3 family. By year’s end, expectations point to updates across three additional machines, a report from the MacRumor portal notes.
Looking ahead to the second half of 2024, possibly around the WWDC timeframe, Apple is anticipated to unveil two new desktops concurrently. The lineup would include a Mac Studio mini PC featuring the M3 Max and M3 Ultra chips, along with a Mac Pro system unit built around the M3 Ultra processor.
Details about the M3 Max are largely consistent with what Apple has already shown in its latest laptops. The M3 Ultra, by contrast, has not yet been officially disclosed. Industry chatter suggests the chip will be manufactured using TSMC’s 3nm N3E process, marking Apple’s entry into this advanced fabrication node. This chip is expected to power the next generation iPhone 16 Pro processor as well. The M3 Ultra is projected to double the component count of the M3 Max, delivering up to 32 CPU cores and as many as 80 GPU cores.
Additionally, a Mac mini based on the existing M3 and M3 Pro families is anticipated to debut in 2024 or early 2025. The new model is expected to be similar to its predecessor, with the primary improvement centered on the updated processor and performance capabilities.
Earlier reports noted that the MacBook Air with the M3 chip demonstrates roughly one third less performance than the MacBook Pro variant equipped with the same processor, a comparison frequently cited in industry previews. [Source: MacRumor]