The M4 MacBook Pro is already in development, says expert

Time waits for no one, and it particularly doesn't hang around where computing is concerned. 

Case in point – Apple is reportedly already in the early development stages on an M4 chip, just a short while after introducing the M3 to the world. 

The news comes from tech insider Mark Gurman, but frankly shouldn't be a major surprise to anyone given the track Apple is now on. It was hardly going to sit around and let the M3 gather dust until it was too late. 

The first M3-powered device arrived when the latest MacBook Pro was unveiled in October 2023, and has since been followed by a new MacBook Air, too.

Both are among the best laptops around.

So, it should still be a decent while before we actually see anything official from Apple where the M4 chip is concerned. 

All Gurman actually said, in a Q&A answer to his readers, was that the M4 MacBook Pro had "just started formal development", so there's little else to go on at present.

However, there are some safe bets you can make about what the M4 chip will offer compared to its predecessors – improvements in performance across the board, and perhaps some unique new features if Apple goes in that direction.

Since the bombshell arrival of the M1 chip, the difference chip-by-chip between generations of Apple's own silicone hasn't necessarily been enormously huge.

This might disappoint some observers if they want a pace of improvement that beggars belief, but it has some great upsides. For one thing, it means that you don't really need to worry about when Apple will drop the M4 chipset – if you get an M3 device anytime in the next year or two, it'll still feel bleeding-edge and will last for years.

Plus, when the M4 does eventually arrive, you can expect to see some price cuts on M3 laptops, as has happened with M2 versions now that the M3 chip is here, and that also makes for some excellent potential deals. 

So, it's basically business as usual at Apple. It'll work on that M4 chipset for some time before unveiling it, but even before then there are still a bunch of great Apple laptops to choose from right now.