You OK, Apple? Seriously, your silicon lineup is … a mess
The launch of Cupertino's M4 iPad Pro this week wasn't just met with backlash over another tone-deaf ad campaign, but left us with more questions than answers regarding the health of Apple's silicon portfolio.
For one, the "new" M3-series parts powering the iGiant's MacBooks and iMacs, announced at the Scary Fast event last Halloween, haven't even celebrated their first birthday. What's more, the Mac Mini, Studio, and Pro models are still rocking older M2-series processors, with the M2 Ultra still technically the top-specced part in the lineup.
We hadn't exactly expected to see the M3 Ultra make its appearance until WWDC in June, and I think we can all agree the Mac Mini is well overdue for a refresh – its design dates back to 2010.
With the launch of M4 this week, we're left wondering whether an M3 Ultra will ever materialize, or if Cook and Co will jump straight to the M4. There's some precedent to suggest this could happen: the iMac never received an M2 refresh, jumping straight from the M1 to M3.
The M4 launching alongside the refreshed iPad Pro offers a number of material improvements over the M3. Most notably, it's using a second-gen 3nm manufacturing process from TSMC. It adds two additional efficiency cores, bringing the total up to 10, and boosts the neural processing unit – or as Apple prefers, Neural Engine – performance to 38 TOPS of machine learning grunt.
