All of Apple’s M4 Mac announcements are here, and we’ve seen the iMac and MacBook Pro get a turbo boosted spec bump with the latest chip, alongside a completely redesigned Mac mini.
If you saw how the M4 chip has performed in the iPad Pro (and subsequently in the M4 MacBook Pro leaks), you’ll know why there’s a lot to be excited about. The performance gains seem mightily impressive — with some of the fastest single-core speeds I’ve ever seen — and the Cupertino crew has seriously beefed up the Neural Engine to support the full breadth of what Apple Intelligence will bring to the table.
And now, we’ve got a full sight of what the M4 Pro and M4 Max will be capable of. Apple is seriously beefing up the CPU cores and GPU capabilities, while drastically increasing the RAM’s memory bandwidth by up to 75% for super slick multitasking. Alongside that, Thunderbolt 5 joins the party for blazing fast port speeds.
So now that we have a clear picture of M4’s first wave (with the M4 MacBook Air, Mac Studio and Mac Pro waiting in the wings for a 2025 update), let’s go through everything Apple has announced this week.
When will M4 Macs launch?
The M4 iMac has a release date of November 8. Whatever else comes, I think it’d be a safe bet to say they will also release on the same date.
Where to pre-order M4 Macs?
- Mac Mini M4: from $599 at Apple
- iMac M4: from $1,299 at Apple
- MacBook Pro M4: from $1,599 at Apple
Macbook Pro M4
After a Russian YouTuber unboxed and benchmarked this thing a few weeks ago, the writing was on the wall for the M4 MacBook Pro to make its debut during Apple’s week of Mac. But to limit it to what you saw in the leaks would do the Cupertino crew a disservice. There are a lot of upgrades here to make this new line of MacBook Pros mightily tempting.
Much like the M4 iMac, this is all about keeping the same utilitarian design (and bringing that tasty Space Black finish to the base model MacBook Pro), but improving the internals where it matters. Let’s go through the key upgrades:
- M4, M4 Pro and M4 Max: with 2nd generation 3-nanometer tech, these chips bring big gains to performance and power efficiency. Apple is touting 2x faster Neural Engine performance for AI tasks over M3, 2x faster ray-tracing than M3, and the “world’s fastest CPU core” for blazing single-threaded performance. These mean Apple Intelligence, opening apps and gaming will be super zippy
- The base model M4 MacBook Pro will have a starting configuration with 16GB of RAM (goodbye 8GB — you won’t be missed) and a third Thunderbolt 4 port with dual display support
- The same nano-texture display glass option you see in M4 iMac is now available on MacBook Pro too, to reduce screen reflections and glare
- M4 Pro and M4 Max models will sport Thunderbolt 5 ports for faster data transfer speeds and higher power output
- The webcam has been upgraded from an FHD model to a 12MP shooter with Center Stage
- And finally, Apple is touting up to 24 hours of battery life — up from M3’s promise of up to 22 hours
Pricing remains the same with a starting price of $1,599, and you can pre-order now with a launch on Friday, November 8.
RIP 8GB
And one additional thing going on here is the final nail in the coffin of 8GB of RAM. You’ve seen the iMac, Mac mini and MacBook Pro get the pleasure of starting at 16GB of RAM for vastly improved multitasking.
But Apple had one more trick up its sleeve. The M3 and M2 MacBook Airs are now also ditching 8GB and starting at 16GB. This is going to be huge for hot-switching between apps on the fly while working.
iMac M4
Kicking off on Monday, Apple dropped a kind of mini keynote video to announce the iMac is getting an M4 spec bump. Normally, a minor update like this may be a small update, but there’s a lot more going on here that we’ve gotta talk about (as you may have seen when I compared the M4 iMac vs M3 iMac).
Here are the differences:
- The base model now comes with 16GB of RAM rather than 8GB (finally!)
- You’ve got seven new colors to choose from: green, yellow, orange, pink, purple, blue and silver
- Thunderbolt 4 port count now stands at 4 — in the past, if you configured your iMac to 4 ports, you got 2x Thunderbolt 4 and 2x USB-C
- M4 now unlocks support for up to two external displays at 6K 60Hz, or a single 8K 120Hz panel
- The display panel can be upgraded with a $200 nano-texture glass option — vastly reducing display reflections and glare
Check down below for a spec table of everything we know, but beyond the above, this is business as usual. Except for one thing — the Magic Keyboard, Magic TrackPad and Magic Mouse are now armed with USB-C ports.
It’s taken Apple a while to finally kill Lightning, but here we are, though the underside port placement on the Magic Mouse remains (much to my annoyance). My recommendation would be to grab a Logitech MX Master 3S — easily the best mouse we’ve tested.
M4 Mac Mini
Tuesday, October 29 has brought us something big from Apple — and by “big” we actually mean incredibly small. The Mac Mini has received a huge redesign with its M4 (or M4 Pro) spec bump that makes the best mini PC you can buy even mini-er.
How mini are we talking? Well, the smaller puck is now just 5x5 inches! That’s just 1.3 inches larger than the Apple TV 4K. That smaller size has also helped make the Mac Mini the company’s first carbon neutral computer — with greenhouse gas emissions across materials, manufacturing, transportation and customer use down by over 80%.
So what else does it bring to the table? Here are the big differences:
- The “5 USB-C ports only” rumor turned out to not be true: you’ve got 3x Thunderbolt 4 (M4) or Thunderbolt 5 (M4 Pro) ports, next to HDMI 2.1 and a Gigabit Ethernet port round back (upgradeable to 10 Gigabit), and 2x USB-C ports with a 3.5mm headphone jack on the front
- The M4 Mac Mini brings 1.8x faster CPU performance and 2.2x faster GPU performance over the M1 Mac Mini
- Meanwhile, M4 Pro also brings vastly improved graphics with 2x faster ray-tracing than M3 Pro, and a 2x faster Neural Engine for Apple Intelligence
You can pre-order today with the M4 Mac Mini starting at $599 and the M4 Pro model at $1,399. It’ll launch fully on November 8, just like the iMac.
Apple Intelligence is here
Another key announcement that Apple dropped is the launch iOS 18.1, macOS Sequoia 15.1, and iPadOS 18.1 software updates that bring Apple Intelligence to the world!
This is very much a first wave of announcements, and it seems as if iOS 18.2 in December is where we’ll start to see AI kick into full gear. But with this update, you’ve now got features like Rewrite and Proofread, as well as a more conversational Siri, the ability to record phone calls, transcribe and summarize audio recordings, and improved intelligence in the Photos app that allows you to search for pics with natural language.
Oh, and the Clean Up tool is here to remove any unwanted objects or photobombers from the background of your pics.
M4 MacBook Pro
It is a week of Mac after all, and we're deep in the time you can usually expect to see new MacBook Pros. And thanks to one Russian YouTuber, it's looking more certain that we're seeing M4, M4 Pro and M4 Max MacBooks.
Key upgrades we're expecting are that all-important chipset upgrade, Space Black being available across the entire range, that third Thunderbolt 4 port coming to the standard M4 MacBook Pro, and a 16GB RAM minimum (following the iMac).
