All this week’s M4 Mac news: iMac, Mac mini and MacBook Pro confirmed

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All of Apple’s M4 Mac announcements are here, and we have the iMac And MacBookPro get a turbo boost with the latest chip, in addition to a completely redesigned one Mac mini.

If you saw how the M4 chip has performed in the iPad Pro (and then in the M4 MacBook Pro leaks), you know why there’s a lot to be excited about. The performance gains seem hugely impressive (with some of the fastest single-core speeds I’ve ever seen) and the Cupertino team has seriously improved the Neural Engine to support the full breadth of what Apple Intelligence has to offer.

And now we have a full picture of what the M4 Pro and M4 Max will be capable of. Apple is serious about improving CPU cores and GPU capabilities, while dramatically increasing RAM memory bandwidth by up to 75% for super-slick multitasking. Thunderbolt 5 also participates for lightning-fast port speeds.

So now that we have a clear picture of the first wave of M4 (with the M4 MacBook Air, Mac Studio and Mac Pro waiting in the wings for an update in 2025), let’s go through everything Apple announced this week.

When will M4 Macs launch?

The M4 iMac has a release date of November 8. Whatever else happens, I think it’s a safe bet to say they’ll also be released on the same date.

Where can I pre-order M4 Macs?

MacBook Pro M4

After a Russian YouTuber unpacked and benchmarked this thing a few weeks ago, the writing was on the wall for the M4 MacBook Pro makes its debut during Apple’s Mac Week. But to limit it to what you saw in the leaks would be a disservice to the Cupertino crew. There are a lot of upgrades here to make this new line of MacBook Pros extremely tempting.

As with the M4 iMac, it’s all about keeping the same functional design (and bringing that tasty Space Black finish to the base model MacBook Pro), but improving the internals where it matters. Let’s go through the major upgrades:

• M4, M4 Pro and M4 Max: With second-generation 3-nanometer technology, these chips deliver major gains in performance and energy efficiency. Apple touts two times faster Neural Engine performance for AI tasks than M3, two times faster ray tracing than M3, and the “world’s fastest CPU core” for stunning single-threaded performance. These mean that Apple Intelligence, opening apps and gaming will be super fast

• The base model M4 MacBook Pro has a starting configuration with 16 GB of RAM (bye bye 8 GB – you won’t be missed) and a third Thunderbolt 4 port with dual display support

• The same nano-textured screen glass option seen in the M4 iMac is now available on MacBook Pro, to reduce screen reflections and glare

• M4 Pro and M4 Max models feature Thunderbolt 5 ports for faster data transfer speeds and higher output power

• The webcam has been upgraded from an FHD model to a 12 MP shooter with Center Stage

• And finally, Apple is promoting a battery life of up to 24 hours – compared to M3’s promise of up to 22 hours

Prices remain the same with a starting price of $1,599, and that’s possible pre-order now with a launch on Friday, November 8.

RIP 8GB

And another thing going on here is the final nail in the coffin of 8GB of RAM. You’ve seen the iMac, Mac mini and MacBook Pro get the pleasure of starting with 16GB of RAM, for vastly improved multitasking.

But Apple had another trick up its sleeve. The M3 and M2 MacBook Airs now also drop 8 GB and start at 16 GB. This will be huge if you can quickly switch between apps while working.

iMac M4

At kickoff on Monday, Apple dropped a mini-keynote video of sorts to celebrate the iMac gets an M4 spec bomb. Normally an update like this might be a minor update, but there’s a lot more going on here that we need to talk about (as you may have seen when I compared the M4 iMac with the M3 iMac).

These are the differences:

• The base model now comes with 16 GB of RAM instead of 8 GB (finally!)

• You have seven new colors to choose from: green, yellow, orange, pink, purple, blue and silver

• The number of Thunderbolt 4 ports is now 4. In the past, if you configured your iMac with 4 ports, you would have 2x Thunderbolt 4 and 2x USB-C

• M4 now unlocks support for up to two external displays at 6K 60Hz, or a single 8K 120Hz panel

• The display panel can be upgraded with a $200 nano-textured glass option, significantly reducing reflections and glare on the screen

See below for a spec table of everything we know, but other than the above this is business as usual. Except for one thing: the Magic Keyboard, Magic TrackPad, and Magic Mouse are now equipped with USB-C ports.

It took Apple a while to finally kill Lightning, but here we are, although the port placement on the bottom of the Magic Mouse remains (much to my chagrin). My recommendation would be to get one Logitech MXMaster 3S – easily the best mouse we tested.

M4 Mac Mini

Tuesday, October 29th brought us something big from Apple – and by ‘big’ we actually mean incredibly small. The Mac Mini has gotten a huge redesign with its M4 (or M4 Pro) spec bump, making the best mini PC you can buy even more mini-er.

How mini are we talking? Well, the smaller puck is now only 5×5 inches! That’s just 1.3 inches larger than the Apple TV 4K. That smaller size also helped make the Mac Mini the company’s first carbon-neutral computer, reducing greenhouse gas emissions from materials, manufacturing, transportation and customer use by more than 80%.

So what else does it bring to the table? These are the big differences:

• The rumor about ‘only 5 USB-C ports’ turned out to be untrue: you have 3x Thunderbolt 4 (M4) or Thunderbolt 5 (M4 Pro) ports, in addition to HDMI 2.1 and a Gigabit Ethernet port on the back (expandable to 10 Gigabit) and 2x USB-C ports with a 3.5mm headphone jack on the front

• The M4 Mac Mini offers 1.8x faster CPU performance and 2.2x faster GPU performance than the M1 Mac Mini

• Meanwhile, M4 Pro also brings vastly improved graphics with 2x faster ray-tracing than M3 Pro, and a 2x faster Neural Engine for Apple Intelligence

You can pre-order today at the M4 Mac Mini from $599 and the M4 Pro model from $1,399. It will be fully launched on November 8, just like the iMac.

Apple Intelligence is here

Another major announcement that Apple has dropped is the software updates for iOS 18.1, macOS Sequoia 15.1 and iPadOS 18.1. Apple Intelligence to the world!

This is very much a first wave of announcements, and it appears that is the case Starting with iOS 18.2 in December, we will see AI running at full speed. But with this update, you now have features like Rewrite and Proofreading, as well as a Siri that’s more talkative, the ability to record phone calls, transcribe and summarize audio recordings, and improved intelligence in the Photos app that lets you search for photos with natural language.

Oh, and the Clean Up tool is here to remove unwanted objects or photobombers from the background of your photos.

M4 MacBook Pro

It’s a Mac week after all, and we’re deep into the time you’d normally expect from new MacBook Pros. And thanks to a Russian YouTuber, it looks more certain than we see M4, M4 Pro and M4 Max MacBooks.

The major upgrades we’re expecting are the all-important chipset upgrade, Space Black being available across the range, the third Thunderbolt 4 port coming to the standard M4 MacBook Pro, and at least 16GB of RAM (after the iMac).

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