Apple plans a stack of M4 Macs this year, including new iMac

Apple's M4 processors are coming to the Mac mini, the Mac Pro and every other current Mac – and some of them will launch sooner than expected

iMac M3
(Image credit: Apple)
Carrie Marshall
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Apple plans to make its Mac updates mirror the iPhone, with new processor generations every year – and that means there are absolutely stacks of M4 Macs planned for the coming months. Between now and 2025 Apple reportedly has at least ten different M4 Macs lined up for release, with models ranging from the little Mac mini to the range-topping Mac Pro.

According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, the new M4 processors will focus heavily on AI apps: on-device processing is very demanding, and with Apple apparently betting big on AI for both mobile and Mac the new processors will excel at AI-powered apps.

So what Macs can we expect?

When will Apple release the M4 Macs?

First up, Gurman says, Apple intends to offer a "low-end" 14-inch M4 MacBook Pro, and that's currently planned for late 2024. The iMac will also get an M4 update for around the same time, so that should be out in plenty of time for Christmas. That particular processor bump is a welcome surprise: the previous iMac was feeling a bit unloved before it got the M3 late last year.

The next Macs to get processor upgrades will be the more powerful MacBook Pros and the Mac mini. The 14-inch MacBook Pro and the 16-inch MacBook Pro will be kitted out with Pro and/or Max variants of the M4 chips, and they're expected between the end of 2024 and early in 2025. 

The Mac mini should get its M4 updates around the same time, and like the current model it'll be available with the standard version of the chip for everyday computing and the more powerful Pro variant for more demanding tasks. 

That's it for 2024, but there are more M4 Macs tipped for early 2025 release. Both the 13-inch MacBook Air and the 15-inch MacBook Air will be updated with the M4 and launched "around spring 2025", while for power users the M4 Mac Studio will be launched somewhere near the middle of 2025. 

Last but definitely not least, the Mac Pro will come with the M4 Ultra processor, and that's scheduled for the second half of 2025. That means it's possibly going to skip a processor generation: the current model runs the M2 Ultra, and Gurman says that while Apple has been internally testing an M3 Ultra "at least some of Apple's high-end desktops" are going to go straight from M2 to M4 next year.

Carrie Marshall
Carrie Marshall

Writer, musician and broadcaster Carrie Marshall has been covering technology since 1998 and is particularly interested in how tech can help us live our best lives. Her CV is a who’s who of magazines, newspapers, websites and radio programmes ranging from T3, Techradar and MacFormat to the BBC, Sunday Post and People’s Friend. Carrie has written more than a dozen books, ghost-wrote two more and co-wrote seven more books and a Radio 2 documentary series; her memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, was shortlisted for the British Book Awards. When she’s not scribbling, Carrie is the singer in Glaswegian rock band Unquiet Mind (unquietmindmusic).

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