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This would be quite an accelerated timeline if Apple ships its second-generation M-series chip only eight months after the first. Typically, they’ve followed a

This would be quite an accelerated timeline if Apple ships its second-generation M-series chip only eight months after the first. Typically, they’ve followed a sort of six-month tick-tock pattern for the A-series, launching a new major revision in the fall with the new iPhone, and launching an “X” revision in the spring with new iPads. I think most observers have been expecting an “M1X” for Apple's first pro-oriented ARM Macs, so an M2 already would be a surprise.

Reason077 6y ago
> "I think most observers have been expecting an “M1X” for Apple's first pro-oriented ARM Macs" I'm pretty sure that's what this is, rather than a next-generation ("M2") chip. It will likely have the same cpu core designs as the M1, just more of them. And possibly paired with the new, long rumored "desktop class" Apple GPU.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- simondotau 6y ago
  Given the timing, I doubt it. Apple has established a fairly stable cadence of core improvements every 12 months. Enough time has elapsed between the M1 and this new chip that I'd expect it to have more in common with the "Apple A15" generation SOC than the A14/M1. As to what Apple's choice of marketing name, that's entirely arbitrary. (For what it's worth, my guess is they're ditching "X" suffixes and will designate higher spec variants with other prefix letters e.g. the "P1" chip.)
- rsynnott 6y ago
  I'm not sure about that, because the M1 cores are, in essence, quite old at this point; they're pretty similar to the A12 cores. Apple usually does quite a major micro arch refresh every few years; it's probably coming up to time.
- ksec 6y ago
  Considering M1 doesn't support LPDDR5, and A15 will be in a similar time frame. I would not be surprised it will be a M2 ( Based on A15 ), or more likely a M2X.
clajiness 6y ago
> "This would be quite an accelerated timeline if Apple ships its second-generation M-series chip only eight months after the first." The M1 was available on Nov. 17th, 2020. The article states that the chip is entering mass production, and due for release sometime in 2H. This could easily be released a year after the M1, if not 13 months later.
thehnguy 6y ago
We're in a brave new world. The early prognosticators thought the M1 was more a proof of concept (shove it into existing designs to get it out there). But now we know that it was always intended to be a real player (it's in the iMac and iPad Pro). So this news is interesting to me because now it seems to cut back the other way that maybe the M1 was designed for a short shelf life. In a world where Apple is controlling so much of its silo, "normal" design and building deadlines will be upended.
- dijit 6y ago
  > The early prognosticators thought the M1 was more a proof of concept (shove it into existing designs to get it out there). Which is a weird take when you consider the thermal issues that Intel macs were plagued with. It's almost like the chassis was designed with 10w of dissipation in mind which Intel couldn't operate within, but the M1 could easily. I had assumed that Apple designed for the M1 and then fit Intel chips into those designs.
  - apetrovic 6y ago
    My private conspiracy theory (supported by nothing) is that Intel promised to Apple good 10w processors back in 2014-ish, and Apple designed 2016 MBP based on that promise. And when Intel didn't delivered, they shipped Macs anyway, and either started working on M1 or cleared any doubt about should they continue working on it.
    - clairity 6y ago
      that’s not just your (conspiracy) theory, it’s exactly what happened (something i’ve also noted before). intel screwed apple years ago and apple decided to move on. it just took many years of chip development to get to this point.
      - zimpenfish 6y ago
        Honestly wouldn't be surprised if it came out that they started working (at least theoretically) on Apple Silicon when they transitioned to Intel in the first place and it just took this many years for all the pieces to be ready and lined up.
_the_inflator 6y ago
Imagine they put Macbooks on a yearly upgrade cycle like the iPhone - OMG, that would be impressive.
- gtirloni 6y ago
  I don't know if you're being serious but, given the lack of improvements in chip design lately, that would indeed be impressive. I don't mind upgrading every other year. I just want the upgrades to be meaningful.
  - Tagbert 6y ago
    It’s not that you, as a user, need to upgrade, but Apple could upgrade the SOC in their machines each year. It’s like the phone, small incremental updates each year. If you wait a few years to buy a new one, the change feels dramatic.
mtgx 6y ago
Not really, because M1 was probably meant as a stop-gap, and it's mostly a rehash of A12. M2 is probably based on the Arm v9 ISA and has been in design for years.
- EricE 6y ago
  The M1 is no stop gap. When you have people criticizing it because it only bests 90% of the current PC market but not all of it... Well, if that is indeed a stop gap then I can't wait to see their first "real" chip :)
cmsj 6y ago
I'm not sure you'll see a true second generation chip, I would be expecting it to be mostly the same thing, but with more cores and some solution to providing more RAM. Having said that, Apple does have something of a history of pushing out v1 of a product that sets a high bar for everyone else to try and catch up with, then immediately pushing out a v2 that raises the bar well above where everyone else was aiming. Overall though, it's awesome that the Macs now get to benefit from the vast investment going each year into making faster/better CPUs every year, for hundreds of millions of new iPhones.
rbanffy 6y ago
> I think most observers have been expecting an “M1X” An M2 name implies some architectural differences like extra cores or more external bandwidth. I'd be totally happy with an M1x with some tweaks like more external connectivity and more memory. Which, for me, would be quite perfect. The only reason I'm holding back this purchase is the 16 GB memory limit.
- larkost 6y ago
  Same here. I want a replacement for my 27in iMac and would have held my nose at the slightly smaller screen, but really want more memory than 16GiB (docker, etc...). So Apple will just have to wait to get my money until fall (or whenever they announce the successor to the 27in iMac).
  - thehnguy 6y ago
    I'm excited for the 27 (or maybe it will be 29") variant
ogre_codes 6y ago
Apple forecast a 2 year transition a year ago at WWDC. That means they need a processor for their base laptop/ consumer desktops. One for their high end laptops and many of their pro desktops. And arguably one to replace the Xeon in the iMac Pro and Mac Pro. Unless they are going to use this same CPU for the Mac Pro, this is right on schedule.
gregoriol 6y ago
Some people (a lot?) are now waiting for the new Pro devices and won't buy new until then
- EricE 6y ago
  I'd buy a MacBook Air in a heartbeat if I could get 32GB of RAM in it. RAM is the only thing causing me to turn up my nose at the M2. If they would have released the new iMac with a bigger panel so there were options for the 27" as well as the former 21" then my mother would be rocking a new iMac next month. I know they said up to two years for the transition but I want to transition now :)
pfranz 6y ago
When they switched to Intel they released the first Macbook Pros in January 2006 (32-bit Core) and in October 2006 shipped 64-bit Core 2 Duos.
paulpan 6y ago
I think getting out the M2 before the fabled "M1X" actually makes sense. This could explain the decision to put the M1 into the new iPad Pros, to re-use the M1 chips elsewhere once the new M2 becomes available. Main reason being the M1 was a more proof of concept and rushed out (despite being as good as it turned out to be). The M2 will be a more refined M1 but with notable improvements such as LPDDR5 support - akin to AMD's Zen1 and Zen+ releases. On the other hand, there could be a M1X being readied for release in the upcoming June WWDC. It may be architecturally older than the M2 but still superior performance on a big cores differential, e.g. M1 only has 4 big cores and 4 small cores, the M1X just needs more big cores to be notably more performant. All highly speculative of course, will have to find out in about a month.

Reason077 6y ago

> "I think most observers have been expecting an “M1X” for Apple's first pro-oriented ARM Macs" I'm pretty sure that's what this is, rather than a next-generation ("M2") chip. It will likely have the same cpu core designs as the M1, just more of them. And possibly paired with the new, long rumored "desktop class" Apple GPU.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
simondotau 6y ago
Given the timing, I doubt it. Apple has established a fairly stable cadence of core improvements every 12 months. Enough time has elapsed between the M1 and this new chip that I'd expect it to have more in common with the "Apple A15" generation SOC than the A14/M1. As to what Apple's choice of marketing name, that's entirely arbitrary. (For what it's worth, my guess is they're ditching "X" suffixes and will designate higher spec variants with other prefix letters e.g. the "P1" chip.)
rsynnott 6y ago
I'm not sure about that, because the M1 cores are, in essence, quite old at this point; they're pretty similar to the A12 cores. Apple usually does quite a major micro arch refresh every few years; it's probably coming up to time.
ksec 6y ago
Considering M1 doesn't support LPDDR5, and A15 will be in a similar time frame. I would not be surprised it will be a M2 ( Based on A15 ), or more likely a M2X.

clajiness 6y ago

> "This would be quite an accelerated timeline if Apple ships its second-generation M-series chip only eight months after the first." The M1 was available on Nov. 17th, 2020. The article states that the chip is entering mass production, and due for release sometime in 2H. This could easily be released a year after the M1, if not 13 months later.

thehnguy 6y ago

We're in a brave new world. The early prognosticators thought the M1 was more a proof of concept (shove it into existing designs to get it out there). But now we know that it was always intended to be a real player (it's in the iMac and iPad Pro). So this news is interesting to me because now it seems to cut back the other way that maybe the M1 was designed for a short shelf life. In a world where Apple is controlling so much of its silo, "normal" design and building deadlines will be upended.

dijit 6y ago
> The early prognosticators thought the M1 was more a proof of concept (shove it into existing designs to get it out there). Which is a weird take when you consider the thermal issues that Intel macs were plagued with. It's almost like the chassis was designed with 10w of dissipation in mind which Intel couldn't operate within, but the M1 could easily. I had assumed that Apple designed for the M1 and then fit Intel chips into those designs.
- apetrovic 6y ago
  My private conspiracy theory (supported by nothing) is that Intel promised to Apple good 10w processors back in 2014-ish, and Apple designed 2016 MBP based on that promise. And when Intel didn't delivered, they shipped Macs anyway, and either started working on M1 or cleared any doubt about should they continue working on it.
  - clairity 6y ago
    that’s not just your (conspiracy) theory, it’s exactly what happened (something i’ve also noted before). intel screwed apple years ago and apple decided to move on. it just took many years of chip development to get to this point.
    - zimpenfish 6y ago
      Honestly wouldn't be surprised if it came out that they started working (at least theoretically) on Apple Silicon when they transitioned to Intel in the first place and it just took this many years for all the pieces to be ready and lined up.

_the_inflator 6y ago

Imagine they put Macbooks on a yearly upgrade cycle like the iPhone - OMG, that would be impressive.

gtirloni 6y ago
I don't know if you're being serious but, given the lack of improvements in chip design lately, that would indeed be impressive. I don't mind upgrading every other year. I just want the upgrades to be meaningful.
- Tagbert 6y ago
  It’s not that you, as a user, need to upgrade, but Apple could upgrade the SOC in their machines each year. It’s like the phone, small incremental updates each year. If you wait a few years to buy a new one, the change feels dramatic.

mtgx 6y ago

Not really, because M1 was probably meant as a stop-gap, and it's mostly a rehash of A12. M2 is probably based on the Arm v9 ISA and has been in design for years.

EricE 6y ago
The M1 is no stop gap. When you have people criticizing it because it only bests 90% of the current PC market but not all of it... Well, if that is indeed a stop gap then I can't wait to see their first "real" chip :)

cmsj 6y ago

I'm not sure you'll see a true second generation chip, I would be expecting it to be mostly the same thing, but with more cores and some solution to providing more RAM. Having said that, Apple does have something of a history of pushing out v1 of a product that sets a high bar for everyone else to try and catch up with, then immediately pushing out a v2 that raises the bar well above where everyone else was aiming. Overall though, it's awesome that the Macs now get to benefit from the vast investment going each year into making faster/better CPUs every year, for hundreds of millions of new iPhones.

rbanffy 6y ago

> I think most observers have been expecting an “M1X” An M2 name implies some architectural differences like extra cores or more external bandwidth. I'd be totally happy with an M1x with some tweaks like more external connectivity and more memory. Which, for me, would be quite perfect. The only reason I'm holding back this purchase is the 16 GB memory limit.

larkost 6y ago
Same here. I want a replacement for my 27in iMac and would have held my nose at the slightly smaller screen, but really want more memory than 16GiB (docker, etc...). So Apple will just have to wait to get my money until fall (or whenever they announce the successor to the 27in iMac).
- thehnguy 6y ago
  I'm excited for the 27 (or maybe it will be 29") variant

ogre_codes 6y ago

Apple forecast a 2 year transition a year ago at WWDC. That means they need a processor for their base laptop/ consumer desktops. One for their high end laptops and many of their pro desktops. And arguably one to replace the Xeon in the iMac Pro and Mac Pro. Unless they are going to use this same CPU for the Mac Pro, this is right on schedule.

gregoriol 6y ago

Some people (a lot?) are now waiting for the new Pro devices and won't buy new until then

EricE 6y ago
I'd buy a MacBook Air in a heartbeat if I could get 32GB of RAM in it. RAM is the only thing causing me to turn up my nose at the M2. If they would have released the new iMac with a bigger panel so there were options for the 27" as well as the former 21" then my mother would be rocking a new iMac next month. I know they said up to two years for the transition but I want to transition now :)

pfranz 6y ago

When they switched to Intel they released the first Macbook Pros in January 2006 (32-bit Core) and in October 2006 shipped 64-bit Core 2 Duos.

paulpan 6y ago

I think getting out the M2 before the fabled "M1X" actually makes sense. This could explain the decision to put the M1 into the new iPad Pros, to re-use the M1 chips elsewhere once the new M2 becomes available. Main reason being the M1 was a more proof of concept and rushed out (despite being as good as it turned out to be). The M2 will be a more refined M1 but with notable improvements such as LPDDR5 support - akin to AMD's Zen1 and Zen+ releases. On the other hand, there could be a M1X being readied for release in the upcoming June WWDC. It may be architecturally older than the M2 but still superior performance on a big cores differential, e.g. M1 only has 4 big cores and 4 small cores, the M1X just needs more big cores to be notably more performant. All highly speculative of course, will have to find out in about a month.