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The first Apple Silicon Macs are officially available to consumers. Early options include a 13-inch MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and Mac mini, each powered by Apple’s new M1 processor. There are still new Macs with Apple Silicon to come, and here are all the details we know right now.
Apple has acknowledged that it will take around two years to transition the entire Mac lineup to Apple Silicon chips. The new Mac mini, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro are just the first three Apple Silicon Macs available. We expect the following Macs to be introduced slowly over the next two years until the transition is complete.
New iMac
One of the most anticipated Macs to transition to Apple Silicon is the iMac. The iMac received its last internal upgrade in August, but that update simply included new Intel processors inside, with the external design remaining unchanged.
The iMac is long overdue for an industrial overhaul. The outer chassis was last revised in 2012, when Apple released a new iMac case that tapers down to 5mm thick on the sides. But this design feature can only be seen from the side, and when viewed from the front, the iMac has remained unchanged for a decade.
Reliable Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has repeatedly reported that Apple will release a redesigned iMac with a 24-inch display during Q4 2020 or Q1 2021. The redesigned iMac is likely to be released. with Apple Silicon will arrive in the first quarter of 2021.
What’s interesting is that the 24in iMac would apparently replace the existing 21in iMac, which hasn’t seen a major update in years. We haven’t heard any reports yet on the fate of the 27-inch iMac. The 27-inch iMac may be further along the roadmap given that it is more powerful than the 21-inch iMac.
New MacBook Pro
A version of the 13-inch MacBook Pro is already available with Apple Silicon inside, but it’s rather limited: 2 Thunderbolt ports, a maximum of 16GB of unified memory, and a maximum of 2TB of SSD storage. We expect Apple to make the transition from its high-end MacBook Pros next.
First, multiple reports suggest Apple has a redesigned 14-inch MacBook Pro along the way. Kuo said it will be released in the second or third quarter of 2021. More recently, Kuo doubled down on this claim and reported that MacBooks with “brand new form factors and industrial designs” will arrive in the second half of 2021.
And finally, we also expect Apple to refresh the 16-inch MacBook Pro with Apple Silicon inside next year. It’s unclear what kind of form factor changes we might see here.
New Mac Pro
The Mac Pro is one of the more mysterious products in the Apple lineup and it’s unclear where it stands on the Apple Silicon roadmap. More recently, Bloomberg reported that Apple had a new Mac Pro in the works that would be about half the size of the current Mac Pro design.
The Mac Pro is harder to predict because it features an incredibly modular design, allowing users to mix and match components and upgrade individual parts. It is unclear how Apple Silicon will take this design into account.
Mac mini
The current Mac mini M1 suffers from similar limitations as the 13-inch MacBook Pro and peaks at 16GB of memory and 2TB, and there are only two Thunderbolt ports on the back and no 10GB Ethernet. This is actually a downgrade from the previous generation Intel Mac mini, which Apple continues to sell today.
It’s possible Apple has a new Mac mini in-line with four Thunderbolt ports and other high-end specs, but we’ll have to wait to find out for sure.
More Mac Intel?
Finally, it is not known if Apple plans to release additional Macs using Intel processors. At WWDC this year, Apple said it had even more Intel Macs in the pipeline, but technically that has already been proven with the new iMacs introduced in August.
In response to a recent report from Ming-Chi Kuo, a reliable Twitter leaker L0vetodream said the redesigned form factor was “not just for Silicon,” but this post is rather cryptic and unclear. This could refer to Apple keeping the Intel Mac Pro due to its high level of customization.
It’s also likely that Apple will keep some Intel-equipped Macs available to businesses and education customers, but the consumer line will almost certainly transfer completely to Apple Silicon over the next couple of years.
What do you think of Apple’s ongoing transition to Apple Silicon in the Mac lineup? What are you most looking to try? Let us know in the comments!
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