The Apple M2 processor hasn’t yet been released and the first report of an M3-based Mac is already out. It could launch as soon as 2023.
This might be an indication that Apple will release new versions of its Mac/iPad chip more quickly than it has until now.
An M3 iMac in 2023?
Perhaps Apple’s most important release os 2022 will be the M2, will is expected to go into a wide variety of models.
But the Mac-maker apparently isn’t planning on resting on its laurels. The next generation of chips is reportedly already on the pipeline. “If you’re waiting for a new iMac, I’m hearing an M3 version of that desktop is already in the works,” reports Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman.
With the M2 not even official, of course the followup is still way down the road. Gurman says, “I imagine it won’t launch until the end of next year at the earliest.”
M2 might be around only a single year
Apple dropped Intel processors and launched the M1 in late 2020. And while the M2 might be out in middle of 2022, other sources point to a debut later in the year. Which means the M1 family could be Apple’s premier Mac chip for close to two years.
But if the Bloomberg report is correct, the upcoming M3 processor could launch about a year after the M2.
This is hardly unprecedented. Apple releases a new, improved A-series iPhone processor every year, and has for over a decade.
If anything, what’s surprising is that the M1 stuck around for almost two years. Consider that the recently released M1 Ultra uses the same processor cores as the A14 from 2020. The newer A15 in the iPhone 13 has improved versions of those processor cores, but Macs won’t get to take advantage of them until the M2 is out.
