The Mac Studio won't be the last of its kind, according to Mark Gurman who alleges in his latest newsletter that there are two more Studio models on the way.
There was some assumption from the Apple-watching community that the Mac Studio would effectively be a one-off model to fill a gap in the Mac range Apple worked on building a full-sized new Mac Pro with an Apple M-series chip. However, it appears that the Mac Studio will now occupy a new middle spot among Apple's desktop offerings, with the Mac mini M2 at the lower end, and the rumored Mac Pro at the high end.
So when are they coming?
Gurman has previously said he's not certain of the launch timings of these new Mac Studio models. He suggests that because there would be too much overlap between products if a Studio model used the same M2 Ultra chip expected to be found in the rumored next-gen Mac Pro. Instead he believes the next-gen Studios would use new M3 Max and M3 Ultra chips. That would therefore suggest a debut of late this year, shortly after the expected announcement of the first Apple M3 chips, or more likely in 2024.
The first Mac Studio arrived in March 2022, making the current model just over a year old. Since Apple has shown it's not concerned with regular yearly updates for its other desktop Macs, a spring 2024 refresh, approximately two years after the original arrived, would be a logical decision.
What Gurman seems more confident in is the claim that we won't see new Mac Studios at WWDC 2023 in June. Instead, he says to look out for new laptops such as the MacBook Air 15-inch and updated versions of the 13-inch MacBook Air M2 and MacBook Pro M2 models. We're also expecting to hear more about the next version of Apple operating systems such as macOS 14 and iOS 17 too.
