Apple’s successor to the M1 chip, commonly referred to as the M2, has now entered mass production, better positioning the tech giant in its goal of completely replacing Intel chips in Macbooks with its own bespoke hardware.
Reported by Nikkei Asia, the Apple M2 could be integrated into consumer products like the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro 13-inch from July onwards, meaning interested consumers should look towards the latter half of the year for MacBooks with improved specs.
It’s noteworthy that the M2 is likely to be a different chip than the rumored M1X, which is said to be a more powerful, business-oriented processor tailor-made for specialist computers like the Mac Pro and MacBook Pro 16-inch.
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Processor successor
Apple’s M2 would come hot on the heels of the M1 SoC (System on Chip), the company’s first bespoke processor for both Mac and now iPad Pro devices. The M1 was an impressive first attempt from Apple, boasting improvements over the Intel chips the company was using prior, so it’s easy to imagine the company will be aiming to push the envelope even further with the M2 chip.
Apple’s M series of chips combine several components into one, providing central processing, graphical processing and AI enhancing capabilities all on one chip. The tech giant’s M1 chip already had improved performance and efficiency over its closest competitors – Intel Core and AMD Ryzen processors – in a number of our benchmarks, so we’re eager to see how Apple can continue that momentum with both the M2 and M1X chips.
With two new chipsets rumored to be on the way, then, consumers can potentially look forward to more bespoke hardware releasing from Apple in the near future. While the new chips might not reach the dizzying graphical heights provided by Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 30 series, in terms of professional and productivity usage, Apple’s M2 and M1X chips may well have an edge over the competition.
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