I call no deal to M4. I do not believe it will happen. OLED + M3, yes. M4, no. This will let Apple have something to upgrade to in 12-18 months on another release.
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Will the New iPad Pro Really Have the M4 Chip?
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I’d argue the M1 is still more than good enough for the iPad Air. But of course, if they’re introducing a new iPad Air, it has to be a new chip.
Maybe a mini with M1? Or straight to M2?
Unless it's an economics issue with the N3B vs N3E pricing, I really do not expect to see an M4 based iPad.
Apple announces the next IOS and MacOS at WWDC with beta testing going until Sept on IOS and Oct on MacOS. They don't have the functionality in the current IOS/MacOS to take advantage of the M4 AI Neural Engine.
It just doesn't make sense when you consider Apple's product portfolios and how they manage their product lines, unless they intend to skip M4 for the Mac line entirely and go straight to M5.
Apple announces the next IOS and MacOS at WWDC with beta testing going until Sept on IOS and Oct on MacOS. They don't have the functionality in the current IOS/MacOS to take advantage of the M4 AI Neural Engine.
It just doesn't make sense when you consider Apple's product portfolios and how they manage their product lines, unless they intend to skip M4 for the Mac line entirely and go straight to M5.
My A17 iPad Pro 12.9 is ready for an upgrade. M3? M4? OLED? Micro LED? I don’t really care at this point.
Craig already made this joke in a keynote if I recall correctly.
I am confused. Who needs more than an M1 for an Ipad? What application needs so much cpu/gpu power that the M1 couldn't handle?
Doubt if it's any hardware feature. I think the event logo suggests it's more to do with letting your creativity loose through a combination of the iPad, Apple Pencil and, possibly, AI.
I edit 40MP Raws on my iPad Pro…. I take advantage of the M1 and the chip def matters to me.
That wouldn’t make sense based on product identifiers. You know how Apple labels their products with two numbers, separated by a comma? For instance, the M1 family of devices (computers, tablets, etc) all had a label of 13,x (x being another number). M2 devices of all kind were 14,x. M3 devices were 15,x. People expected the new iPads would be labeled with 15,x of some kind, but surprisingly those registrations in various global databases (legally required before release) were using 16,x numbers. 16 is not the standard for M3 and with the progression of numbers, that is why the rumors started for an M4 instead because logically, the M4 family of devices will be 16,x.
If Apple were to make an M3X, it would still be using 15,x because the M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max devices all start with 15. For instance the 24.5” iMac was 15,5. The base 14” MBP is 15,3. The 14” M3 Pro MBP is 15,6. The 14” M3 Max MBP is 15,8. The 16” M3 Pro MBP is 15,7 while the M3 Max version is 15,11. Why would Apple go to 16,x if the iPads were to have another variation of the M3? I think Mark Gurman is actually right about this one.
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The M2 launched in the Macbook Pro 13" and Macbook Air M2 13". IPP M2 came many months later.
Not that I think this is much of an indication for how things will turn out now. But at least, there is no precedence set here.
They're not going to announce features at the WWDC that aren't compatible with current hardware.
Such features are saved for the iPhone reveal presentation in September.
A4 debuted on the iPad.
A5 debuted on the iPad 2 (six months before the iPhone 4S).
A14 debuted on the 2020 iPad Air (a month before the iPhone 12).
While N3B is more expensive I don’t think it really enters into the debate here. Just looking at the number of M3 chips that have been made, and will continue to be manufactured for MacBook Air (and entry level MacBook Pro and iMac), then look at that compared to the number of anticipated iPad Pro. The number of M3 potentially need for the iPad Pro is just a blip in the current planned M3 production for the current Mac product line.
Even M1 is overpowered with what iPadOS has to offer.
I can see it. Ultimately I think the A17 and M3 series won't continue to be sold for long (they'll start phasing them out this fall) since the are built on the N3B process as they'll want to transition their "flagship" products to N3E sooner rather than later. I wouldn't expect M4 to be a big performance jump over M3 other than having a beefed up neural engine for AI.
I can see this happening.
It appears Apple are not making giant sweeping changes to their M-series chips each generation and instead, focusing on a couple of areas to improve each time. M2 fixed GPU scaling issues in the M1, and boosted clocks slightly. M3 added ray tracing/cell shading hardware, and boosted clocks and core count, but there were not huge changes to the CPU core or GPU raster core architecture otherwise.
And now we have an M4 coming which could potentially only have minor changes again to the CPU cores, but a focus on extra die space used for the neural engine upgrades for AI. Maybe another clock boost but I'm unsure of what the N3E platform provides over N3B in that department.
It appears Apple are not making giant sweeping changes to their M-series chips each generation and instead, focusing on a couple of areas to improve each time. M2 fixed GPU scaling issues in the M1, and boosted clocks slightly. M3 added ray tracing/cell shading hardware, and boosted clocks and core count, but there were not huge changes to the CPU core or GPU raster core architecture otherwise.
And now we have an M4 coming which could potentially only have minor changes again to the CPU cores, but a focus on extra die space used for the neural engine upgrades for AI. Maybe another clock boost but I'm unsure of what the N3E platform provides over N3B in that department.
I agree. Also let’s not forget that with newer chips comes better graphics. Great for a lot of applications. These new full spec AAA games that have been coming out to say the least.
Really the M1, M2 and M3 would've been the A14X, A15X and A17X based on how they used to name the beefier versions of the A series chips, they just decided to market them different once they started putting them in Macs too.The basis of this is how they produced variations of the earlier ARM A series SoC's, A12z example. They could certainly do that with M series SoC's one would think.