While Apple’s latest M1 MacBook Pro is less than six months old, the company is apparently working on the next generation of the laptop powered by the M2 chip, according to a new report.
Tom’s Guide cites a new report from DigiTimes that looks specifically at Apple’s booking of production for its new in-house chips that will “very likely” power the next generation of Macs. It is speculated that this will be the M2 chip.
This new chip will reportedly be manufactured by Taiwanese firm TSMC, and based on a 4-nanometer fabrication process node. The current M1 chip is built on a 5-nanometer process technology and is packed with 16 billion transistors, which is the most that Apple has ever put into a chip. Packing more transistors into a slice of silicon would mean adding more power, so dropping from the 5-nanometer process to a 4-nanometer process should result in a notable performance increase. According to DigiTimes, the production of the 4-nanometer process chip is ahead of schedule, as it was previously set for a 2022 time frame.
Improving the M1’s performance would be great, especially since the M1 in both the current MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air absolutely blew the doors off expectations and the competition. Linus Tech Tips and PetaPixel’s own internal testing have shown that both the M1 MacBook Air and MacBook Pro absolutely shred the competition, taking into consideration both previous Apple devices as well as current Windows laptops. Even the Mac Mini, which isn’t supposed to be a powerhouse device, performed extremely well.
Unfortunately, the M2 probably won’t be in the upcoming redesigned iMacs that are expected this spring. Instead, it’s expected that the new iMacs will use a desktop-focused version of the M1 chip that is expected to outperform both of the M1 MacBooks as well as the Mac Mini. In February, a leak suggested that not only will the new iMacs sport a new design, they will also come in five colors.
Those new iMacs are expected to be announced in an April event (which at the time of publication was still just a rumor), but don’t expect to see the M2 chip or new Macbooks there. You’ll probably have to wait until Apple’s fall event — the same time period that it announced the M1 chip in 2020 — to see it.