Apple's M4 MacBook Pro is expected to be one of the first devices equipped with the latest generation of Apple silicon, and it could be announced as soon as this year.
The M4 chip made a surprise debut in the M4 iPad Pro in May 2024, and we have a pretty clear idea of all the Macs that Apple is planning to upgrade with the chip over the next year or so, namely all of them.
The M4 MacBook Pro is one of the most exciting new products, not only because it's rumored to be so close at hand, but also because it should also herald the new M4 Pro and M4 Max versions of the chip too.
Apple's M3 MacBook Pro is the best MacBook on offer right now, and the lineup is now more diverse than ever before. With M3, Apple unveiled a new base-model option that comes with the M3 chip usually reserved for the MacBook Air. Its cheaper price point gives access to some great Pro Mac features including the 120Hz ProMotion display, expanded connectivity, and more.
Apple is expected to move its Mac to a new annual upgrade cycle in line with the iPhone starting later this year. If rumors are correct we could see a new M4 MacBook Pro before the year is out.
M4 MacBook Pro: Release date
Apple’s brand new M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max MacBook Pro models came out on October 30, 2023, the third Apple silicon MacBook Pro launch since 2020. Perhaps more surprisingly, it was the second MacBook Pro launch in less than 12 months, the M2 Pro and M2 Max lineup having graced Apple Stores in January 2023.
It seems clear that Apple is turning up the dial on Mac launches, with more products and fewer significant changes, just like its other product lines. We’ve been told to expect that a new M4 MacBook Pro could debut as early as the end of 2024. According to a leak from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in April, Apple is planning an accelerated Mac makeover which will begin with the new M4 MacBook Pro, and an update to the M3 iMac. Specifically, Gurman says Apple will announce “A low-end 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M4, coming around the end of 2024.”
We’ll discuss models in more detail below, but Apple is likely going to release multiple models of a new M4 MacBook Pro. That includes both 14 and 16-inch versions of its higher-end M4 Pro and M4 Max variants. Gurman says those are due “between the end of 2024 and early 2025.” This doesn’t preclude all three being released at the same time, which seems more likely as that’s the format Apple chose in 2023. Apple could take yearly upgrades to its natural conclusion and announce these at the end of October. November is also a likely shout, with Apple having announced Macs at events or otherwise in both months previously.
M4 MacBook Pro: Models
With the advent of the base model M3 MacBook Pro, Apple seems to have found a model configuration that works very well. Three models in two sizes. Apple’s current offering lends users the choice of either a 14 or 16-inch chassis, and three total processor options, M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max. The only caveat is that the base-model M3 version only comes in one size, 14 inches. Having so recently tweaked that lineup significantly — ditching the 13-inch MacBook Pro for a larger, more potent base model — it seems unlikely that Apple would overhaul its MacBook lineup again. While we could have made an educated guess about the lineup, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has given us a good look at the roadmap and the expected models coming. The expected model rundown is as follows:
M4 MacBook Pro: M4 chip
Apple unveiled the M4 chip in May 2024, first housed inside its brand-new iPad Pro for 2024.
Built using TSMC's N3E node, Apple's new M4 chip comes with up to 10 CPU cores and 10 GPU cores. IT features many of the same advancements as M3 including Dynamic Caching, hardware-accelerated ray tracing, and hardware-accelerated mesh shading. This being the age of AI, M4 comes with a Neural Engine (NPU) capable 38 trillion operations per second (TOPS), the fastest AI chip Apple has ever put out.
M4 also features increased memory bandwidth and machine learning accelerators baked directly into the CPU.
The CPU is made up of four performance cores and six efficiency cores. Apple hasn't offered comparisons to M3, but it says that it's 1.5x faster than the M2 in terms of CPU performance.
We don't have good details yet on the M4 Pro or M4 Max chips, but they're likely to offer similar performance and capacity gains as we did with the M3.
In the iPad, the M4 chip is benchmarking at 3674 and 13325 for single and multi-core tests specifically, a marked improvement over previous generations. For comparison, the M3 clocks around 3050 and 11598, revealing a significant power increase in this latest generation.
M4 MacBook Pro: Design
Apple solidified its MacBook Pro design with the 2021 version of its MacBook Pro. While Apple often releases new MacBook Pro models every year, the broader design language tends to last for five or even six years at a time. Apple’s iconic unibody aluminum MacBook Pro took us from late 2008 to late 2011, despite getting six refreshes during its lifetime. Similarly, the 14 and 16-inch MacBook Pro models are still quite fresh design-wise, so we wouldn’t expect any significant changes or tweaks to the MacBook Pro’s design for 2024, and there are no rumors to suggest otherwise.
M4 MacBook Pro: Display
One of the best features of the current MacBook Pro lineup is its Liquid Retina XDR display. Pumping out 3024-by-1964 native resolution at 254 PPI and 3456-by-2234 native resolution at 254 PPI respectively, both the 14 and 16-inch models of the MacBook Pro offer a 1 million to one contrast ratio, and 1600 nits of peak HDR brightness powered by mini-LED.
Apple introduced OLED to the M4 iPad Pro in May. Meantime, we’ve been hearing lots of rumblings about the prospect of a future OLED MacBook Pro. However, the leaks and rumors are all so scattered that it's impossible to pin down a good timeframe. One recent report from February 2024 indicated that the new OLED Macbook Pro was still years away, with a reveal tipped for 2027.
However, in December the OLED MacBook was tipped for a 2025 launch, while a report in November said the upgrade was coming 2026.
All of this seems to suggest that OLED is really too far away from the MacBook to make an appearance as early as the end of this year. An OLED MacBook certainly seems like a clear path Apple will choose for the future, and the MacBook Pro is the obvious choice as the next recipient of such an upgrade. However, Apple’s existing mini-LED lineup already offers some of the best displays of any notebook out there. While OLED would offer better contrast and black levels, a more important benefit would likely be the advantage of thinner displays which could reduce the MacBook Pro lineup's overall thickness and weight.
Crucially, the new M4 chip includes a dedicated new display engine that powers the Ultra Retina XDR display of the new M4 iPad Pro.
M4 MacBook Pro: Memory and Storage
Apple continues to offer some really hefty configuration options for its MacBook Pro models in 2024, each with eye-watering price tags to match. Apple’s M3 MacBook Pro comes with 8GB, 16GB, or 24GB of RAM along with storage of up to 2TB. The M3 Pro models offers up to 36GB of memory, while the M3 Max version can go all the way up to 128 GB. Apple’s M4 chip could likely add even more memory to the mix later this year, or perhaps more memory bandwidth. The biggest pressing need here, however, is a starting configuration of 16GB. While Apple claims that 8GB is still plenty of memory for most users who want a base model, it seems to defy logic that this is an option in 2024. Drawing a line under 8GB MacBook Pro models would be one of the biggest steps the M4 MacBook could make for 2024.
M4 MacBook Pro: Connectivity
After eschewing all of its ports for USB-C slots a few years back, Apple finally made MacBooks useful again by bringing back HDMI and SDXC slots in 2021. With no design changes expected, Apple’s connectivity support is likely to go unchanged for 2024. Apple already offers all of the ports a MacBook Pro users could need including Thunderbolt 4, HDMI, and even a headphone jack. As it stands, there are no current reports of any connectivity changes coming to the M4 MacBook Pro.
A significant rumored upgrade, based on the specs of the M4 chip, includes support for twice the number of Thunderbolt ports currently available, so four instead of two. The M4 MacBook Pro could also include support for more than three displays, including up to 8K, and official Thunderbolt 4 ports, up from Thunderbolt 3 in the current model.
M4 MacBook Pro: Price
With a new starting price of $1,599, the M3 MacBook Pro lineup is arguably more affordable than it has been in previous years. The theme of the M4 MacBook Pro upgrade for 2024 overall is a slight tweak to performance in M4 and not much else. As such, we’d expect many of the MacBook Pro’s features and specs to remain broadly the same, if not identical. As such, the M4 MacBook Pro 14-inch is likely to retail at the same $1,599 price tag as its predecessor. Likewise, the 14-inch Macbook Pro will likely be $1,999, and the 16-inch model will start at $2,499. With no major upgrades or design changes, there’s no clear reason to indicate Apple would increase the price of its MacBook Pro lineup at all. Furthermore, Apple’s MacBook Pro models are incredibly expensive, and pushing the price up further would likely have customers looking elsewhere.
