The extremely anticipated new MacBook Professional fashions with Apple-designed silicon will arrive by this November, reporter Mark Gurman mentioned in his most up-to-date e-newsletter.
Gurman, who has a robust historical past of precisely reporting on new Apple merchandise from sources with direct information of Apple’s plans, writes that “some hiccups have led to manufacturing delays” for the brand new MacBook Professional computer systems, which analysts and customers have been anticipating any day now for a lot of the 12 months.
Earlier stories from the provision line recommend that the manufacturing of recent Mini LED shows could also be a bottleneck. Nonetheless, Gurman says that the brand new computer systems “ought to nonetheless go on sale by the point the present MacBook Professional hits its two-year anniversary.” Context suggests he’s speaking concerning the second anniversary of the 16-inch mannequin, not the 13-inch one. That mannequin went on sale on November 13, 2019.
This replace is predicted to be a significant one. Most significantly, it is going to transfer the 16-inch MacBook Professional to Apple’s custom-designed silicon with a brand new, quicker cousin to the M1 that hit the 13-inch mannequin and different Macs late final 12 months.
Some stories have referred to as the brand new chip the M1X, and others have referred to as it the M2. (In his e-newsletter, Gurman refers to it because the M1X.) In any case, it’s expected to have eight high-performance CPU cores and two effectivity CPU cores. Additionally it is anticipated to return in two variants, one with a 16-core GPU and one other with 32 GPU cores.
For comparability, the M1 has 4 high-performance CPU cores and 4 effectivity CPU cores, and it is available in configurations with both seven or eight GPU cores.
The 13-inch MacBook Professional was up to date with Apple’s M1 final 12 months, however regardless of the chip’s robust efficiency, Apple treats the M1 as a low-end possibility, with the quicker one described above destined for the 16-inch MacBook Professional—plus a brand new 14-inch MacBook Professional to exchange the 13-inch mannequin on the excessive finish and presumably a brand new alternative for the 27-inch iMac.
Apple usually pronounces a number of merchandise within the fall. Lately, the corporate has held two occasions late within the 12 months. One invariably focuses on the iPhone and Apple Watch (and this 12 months, it might embody a brand new AirPods refresh as effectively), whereas the opposite might contact on Macs or iPads. Often, the iPhone occasion is held in mid-September, whereas the opposite occasion is later, in October or November.
