Bloomberg's Mark Gurman today held a Q&A session focused on the Apple Car, in which he revealed that the vehicle's chip would have been equivalent to four M2 Ultra chips combined. He also said the vehicle had an underlying "safetyOS" system that was one part of the overall operating system, but he did not elaborate.
Gurman also briefly touched on a few other topics, including that Apple apparently "just started formal development" of a new MacBook Pro with an M4 chip. He did not provide any additional details about the chip, which has yet to be announced by Apple.
Apple announced the M1 chip for Macs in November 2020, followed by the M2 chip in June 2022 and the M3 chip towards the end of October 2023, so there has been around a year-and-a-half gap between each of the chips being introduced. If that pattern continues, the M4 chip would be released in the first half of 2025. However, a late 2024 release is also possible if the interval shrinks to one year.
Apple last updated the MacBook Pro lineup in October with M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max chips. As part of that refresh, Apple discontinued the 13-inch MacBook Pro and replaced it with a new base model 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M3 chip. Apple has also updated the iMac and MacBook Air with the M3 chip, leaving the Mac mini, Mac Studio, and Mac Pro as the only current-generation Macs still equipped with the M2 family of chips.
| Current Chip | Last Updated | Next Chip | ETA | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13" MacBook Air | M3 | March 2024 | M4 | 2025 |
| 15" MacBook Air | M3 | March 2024 | M4 | 2025 |
| 14" MacBook Pro | M3/M3 Pro/M3 Max | October 2023 | M4/M4 Pro/M4 Max | Late 2024/2025 |
| 16" MacBook Pro | M3 Pro/M3 Max | October 2023 | M4 Pro/M4 Max | Late 2024/2025 |
| iMac | M3 | October 2023 | M4 | 2025 |
| Mac Studio | M2 Max/M2 Ultra | June 2023 | M3 Max/M3 Ultra | 2024 |
| Mac Pro | M2 Ultra | June 2023 | M3 Ultra | 2024 |
| Mac mini | M2/M2 Pro | January 2023 | M3/M3 Pro | 2024 |
Apple's chipmaking partner TSMC is expected to begin volume production of chips based on its 2nm process in the second half of 2025, so the M4 chip will likely remain 3nm like the M3 chip. However, the M4 chip will likely be manufactured with an enhanced version of TSMC's 3nm process for improved performance and power efficiency.
Last month, the Taiwanese publication Economic Daily News reported that the M4 chip will feature an upgraded Neural Engine with "significantly" more cores for artificial intelligence tasks, but no other specific details are known about the chip at this time.
