Apple’s MacBook Pro with M4 is on track for a launch in the final quarter of 2024, if the latest in a line of rumors about the next-gen laptop is to be believed.
This comes from a regular source of Apple info, Ross Young, who heads up Display Supply Chain Consultants, and has told us before that a MacBook Pro M4 is inbound for later in 2024.
That speculation was based on the timing of display panel shipments for the MacBook Pro M4 happening in Q3. As Apple Insider reports, Young has just told us that screens for the MacBook Pro 14-inch and 16-inch with M4 silicon have started shipping in July and August, just as predicted.
This lines up with a theoretical Q4 launch, of course – the displays for the laptop have to be shipped well in advance, so the devices can be put together, tested, and shipped themselves – as Young noted in a post on X which, oddly, has now been deleted.
In short, the likelihood is a fall (September or October) reveal for the MacBook Pro M4, followed by the laptops going on sale shortly after.
Analysis: M4 Macs aplenty
The rumors around the MacBook Pro M4 are fairly consistent and coming through quite regularly now, so while we can never be sure about anything filtering down from the grapevine, a late 2024 release seems to be a pretty solid possibility when you add up all the separate bits of speculation.
There is an oddity here, as mentioned, which is Young deleting his post on X. It’s a bit unusual for this to happen, seeing as Young, and other well-known leakers, spill details that they shouldn’t all the time – but maybe this particular nugget trod on somebody’s toes (a source, presumably) in a painful manner, somehow? We can only speculate (ironically) about that.
These MacBook Pros likely won’t be the only Apple devices to arrive this year packing the M4 processor, which has so far only graced the iPad Pro. Leaker Mark Gurman also expects Mac mini and iMac models with the M4 SoC to be launched later in 2024. (The iMac could be getting bigger with a larger-screened model, while the Mac mini M4 might shrink, incidentally).
We’ll doubtless get other M4 machines next year, too, and Gurman believes they will be the MacBook Air (which will surely happen), Mac Pro, and Mac Studio.