Are M3 Macs Coming Soon?

Apple is expected to ship new models of 14 and 16-inch MacBook Pro devices in the fourth quarter

of 2023, according to DigiTimes. There are conflicting reports that we've talked about

earlier on this on this very show about how like Mark Gurman and I think maybe even Ming-Chi Kuo

were saying that their new Macs are going to be delayed until early 2024, kind of like what

happened last year. But according to DigiTimes, the notebooks will include mini-LED backlighting

that can increase the display brightness by 10% compared to the first generation specifications

And the MacBook Pro line will continue to include mini-LED backlighting until 2026. At that point

it will switch to OLED. So that's all that we have from here. We don't know at this stage

it doesn't indicate whether or not it'll have the M3 chip in it. One presumes that they will

but this would be the first M3 device to come out. We'll see what happens there. Apparently

we don't have to wait very long because they're saying that these new Macs will be out by the end of the year. But there is even more. A separate report says that Apple has three other models on

its agenda for the fourth quarter. If they are both true, the company has a busy month coming up

Cupertino supposedly plans to introduce an updated version of the 24-inch iMac

which was over a year and a half ago. That's still on M1 even. A refreshed 13-inch MacBook Air

and an updated 13-inch MacBook Pro, all with the new M3. I find this report interesting. DigiTimes

I don't know exactly what their record is. I mean, they've been accurate in the past

They don't get everything right. But one of the things I think is usually interesting to

investigate when you're looking at if a new device is coming out from Apple is MacRumors

keeps a really great buying guide. For the 14-inch and the 16-inch MacBook Pro, they basically have

three statuses. Green is go ahead and buy. It's not gonna be updated anytime soon. Red is don't

buy. It's about to be updated. And then there's yellow, which is just like, hey, caution, it could be updated. So they've got MacBook Pro at caution. But the day since the last release is only 261

days. And that's not very long. So it would be surprising to me if they did update to an M3

chip at this point. But it would also be smart for them to do that now because they are right

ahead of Christmas. So now would be a really great time. And if they're gonna be doing it for the MacBook Air. And I think generally speaking, they do upgrade a lot of their lower end Macs

right before the holiday season because they sell really well over the holidays

And if they did this with the MacBook Pro, that would be extremely exciting. I don't think that

they would release a new MacBook Pro with new screen technology and not upgrade the chip

That really wouldn't make sense. They rarely do moves like that, in my opinion. But I would be

over the moon if I could get a new MacBook Pro like the M3 before the end of the year

When we do see M3, I'll be really interested to see how the performance changes year over year

because a lot of people who are running and I know benchmarks aren't everything

but a lot of people who are running benchmarks on the new iPhones are saying that even though

this is a pretty significant die shrink from five nanometers down to three nanometers, we're not

really seeing a lot of the benefits that people were expecting out of the first three nanometer

process. So I think it might be worth waiting if you're already on Apple silicon, even if you're

on an M1. I think it might be worth waiting until the quote unquote enhanced third nanometer process

comes out potentially with M4. I just wanted to highlight people were talking about the iMac in

the chat. Yeah. So the iMac hasn't been updated since April of 2021. It is long overdue. I think

that just goes to show it probably doesn't sell that well. And so Apple is prioritizing their

engineering resources to sell the things that make them the most money. And the iMac probably just

doesn't sell all that well, especially with the Mac studio and the Mac mini. I mean, it includes a

screen, but you don't really, there's a lot of options at this point to get the same level of

computing performance for a smaller price. So it'd be really cool if they actually updated the iMac

and keep it like the current M series chip. And let's see here. The MacBook pro 13 inch. Yeah

475 days since release. MacBook air. Wow. 454 days. I didn't realize it'd been that long

So they're due for an upgrade to the MacBook pro again, only 261 days and the average is 379. So

not super old at this point. Mac mini was kind of mid cycle at this point

The story there is that like those devices, the M2 MacBook pro and Mac mini were allegedly supposed

to come out in the fall of last year, but they had to kick the can because of production problems

So I guess it wouldn't be, if you consider those, those were probably, you know, manufacturing ready by that time. It's not that unusual that they would come out with the

new ones exactly a year later, but it is a little unusual. I mean, they've done it before. Um

I remember when they updated the MacBook pro with the newer Vega GPUs and I was pissed. I was like

you gotta be kidding me. Cause they had like the AMD GPUs. And then I forget how long after it was

like 180 days, they, they, they, they switched it to offer better GPUs like mid cycle, which they

had, I don't think it ever done before at that point. And I was like, this is the one that I

wanted. Like, and I jumped through a bunch of hoops to like buy the new one and sell my own anyway