Apple is about to unveil the first Macs with M4: Six things to look forward to – 9to5Mac

Apple is expected to begin unveiling their M4 Mac lineup in under two weeks, with updates to the iMac, MacBook Pro, and Mac mini to start off the new M4 transition.

It’s unclear whether or not there’ll be a proper Apple Event, since the company decided to release the new iPad mini as a press release. Either way, the new Macs will be in customers hands starting November 1st.

16GB RAM as standard

According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple is likely to start shipping at least 16GB RAM on the new M4 Macs, including the base model 14” MacBook Pro, the new Mac mini, and the new iMac.

Apple has been shipping 8GB of RAM on its base model Macs for the past 8 years, so this is a pleasant change. It definitely makes sense with Apple Intelligence being more memory intensive on our devices.

Mac mini redesign

Recent reports have suggested that Apple’s upcoming Mac mini will be the biggest redesign in the computers 14 year history, with the upcoming model expected to shrink significantly. In the process, it’ll also likely lose support for USB-A, although it should gain some additional USB-C ports to make up for it. It’ll also have ports on the front, similar to the Mac Studio

While we don’t know a ton about what it’ll look like, it sure should be exciting, especially given the fact that it’s Apples cheapest Mac.

USB-C Magic Mouse, Keyboard, and Trackpad

Rumors point to there being a new iMac this month, which opens the door to Apple finally refreshing all of the Magic accessories. Given the fact that Apple has to comply with the European Union’s USB-C mandate by the end of this year, it’s almost certain that we’ll be seeing goodbye to lightning on Apple’s desktop accessories with the new M4 iMac refresh.

Space Black on the cheapest MacBook Pro

Currently, Space Black is exclusive to the higher end M3 Pro and M3 Max MacBook Pros, and isn’t available on the base model M3 MacBook Pro. That computer unfortunately still comes in Space Gray. While this might seem like a deliberate choice, it could just be a matter of convenience.

Last year, when the new M3 MacBook Pro was released, it was discovered that they were running macOS Ventura out of the box, rather than the latest macOS Sonoma. This might not seem like much, but the M3 Pro and M3 Max MacBook Pros did run macOS Sonoma.

The fact that the base model M3 ran Ventura might suggest that the MacBooks were ready to ship earlier than the higher end models, but Apple just simply didn’t release them. This could explain why the base model still comes with the older Space Gray color, rather than being consistent.

Hopefully, that means we’ll see Space Black come to Apple’s cheapest M4 MacBook Pro.

Brand new M4 Pro and M4 Max chips

Although we already saw the base model M4 chip debut in the iPad Pro back in May, we still haven’t seen Apple’s higher end chips, the M4 Pro and the M4 Max. Those chips should be making their debut for the very first time in the new higher end MacBook Pros later this month.

We don’t have concrete leaks on the M4 Pro and Max chips, other than the fact that they should be based on TSMC’s more efficient 3nm process, shared by the A18 and M4 chips. They’ll be faster as per usual, although there’s no word on the core counts at the moment.

Wi-Fi 7

Apple is likely to support the Wi-Fi 7 standard on the upcoming M4 Macs, as they did on the iPhone 16 lineup.

Wi-Fi 7 supports speeds of up to 46 Gbps, which is over five times faster than Wi-Fi 6E’s 9 Gbps. Wi-Fi 7 also operates on 320 MHz channels and supports the 6 GHz band, widely reducing interference and signal congestion.

Wrap up

Overall, the M4 Mac lineup seems quite exciting – especially the base model MacBook Pro. It’ll be interesting to see whether or not things prices change, given the RAM upgrade. The Mac mini gaining its first redesign in over a decade is also exciting, especially with frontal I/O.

Does the upcoming M4 Mac lineup excite you? Will you be buying one? Let us know in the comments.

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