Yes guys, we have breaking news! Apple just announced that we are having M4 Max next week. They didn’t say M4, they just said Max next week starting Monday morning. That’s a tweet from Greg Jazak with this really cool animation showing the Finder icon from the Mac turning into an Apple logo.
There’s a little Easter egg because you see the Finder icon winking, which it usually doesn’t do. This might point to that little four. Of course, that might be speculation, but we do know it’s M4 Max coming next week based on months and months of leaks and rumors from Mark Gurman. So much confirmation, including the Russian M4 leak that showed the M4 chip, just a ton of different leaks that confirm next week’s M4 Max.
Influencer Previews
Based on information from Mark Gurman, influencers have been invited next week to a studio that Apple made in LA to check out these new Mac machines. The craziest thing is that some of those scheduled times are before 10:00 a.m., which is Apple’s usual event date. Now we know there is no event, but it was really weird why it would be scheduled earlier. Well, because we’re getting press releases: one on Monday, one on Tuesday, and one on Wednesday. As soon as the third one on Wednesday goes live, that’s when the influencers are showing up and testing out all three of those brand new Macs.
Order of Releases
The big question we need to discuss is the order in which those Macs are coming and everything you need to know about them before next week. It makes sense for Apple to release the most important and popular product first on Monday. They better go out with a bang with that first product, so I think it’s going to be the M4 MacBook Pros. Of course, we have the lower end and the higher end, which Mark Gurman just confirmed: we’re getting both the low-end and high-end MacBook Pros, the iMac, and some redesigned Mac mini models with the M4 and M4 Pro chip.
M4 MacBook Pro Details
Now, starting with everything you need to know about the M4 MacBook Pro, it’s already leaked into Russia. A couple of YouTubers got it, at least the base model. We know for sure that it’s getting 16 GB of RAM, and the base model is now getting a Thunderbolt port on the right side, which it didn’t have before. Performance benchmarks show a huge boost compared to the previous model.
In terms of the M4 Pro and M4 Max chips, I estimated the performance with different calculations. The M4 Pro is going to be basically as fast or faster than the 14-core M4 Max in terms of CPU, which is just nuts! The graphics will also get boosted. The M4 Max chip isn’t going to be as big of a difference, but it’s still going to be nice. As far as the feature set and design, nothing is changing. No design changes, and the display is not getting upgraded, so don’t get too excited about that. It’s just a spec bump with better chips, making it a better time to upgrade if you haven’t already.
iMac Updates
Moving on, I think the iMac will be announced on Tuesday morning. Why? Because it’s the middle of the announcements, and it’s kind of the most boring update. This thing is getting even fewer changes—literally just the M4 chip. We’re not expecting the M4 Pro or anything. We might get an additional port on the higher-end iMac model, so five instead of the current four, with three of them being Thunderbolt, which is cool due to the M4 chip having four Thunderbolt controllers built in instead of the previous two.
Don’t expect any display changes; it’s just the M4 chip. We are expecting USB-C accessories: the Magic Mouse, Magic Trackpad, and Magic Keyboard might all get USB-C, potentially with some new colors. But don’t expect drastically redesigned accessories; they’re already really good.
Mac Mini Revamp
Finally, we have the Mac Mini. This design hasn’t changed in almost 15 years! Can you believe that? Why is Apple not doing an event to show this off? I guess they’re just doing a press release likely on Wednesday morning. This new Mac Mini is supposed to be about two times smaller, with the internal power brick staying inside. It’ll be almost as small as an Apple TV, which is amazing.
We’re getting the M4 chip and the M4 Pro, which is a big deal because the current Mac Mini only has the M2 and M2 Pro. You’re skipping a generation for a much bigger performance boost. The charts above show this is definitely a good upgrade. Even if you already have the M2 Mac Mini, it’s still worth upgrading to this new one.
Mark Gurman mentioned that Apple is completely redesigning the back in terms of ports. Instead of the two USB-A ports, they’re going away forever, and we’re getting up to five USB-C ports. We’re still keeping Ethernet and HDMI, likely updated, but five USB-C ports, and check this out, we’re going to get two of them on the front just like we have on the Mac Studio. That’s going to be amazing!
Conclusion
When it comes to the three on the back, they’re going to support Thunderbolt—yes, three Thunderbolt ports! This is such a massive upgrade with this new Mac Mini. It’s likely going to support even more external displays.