Apple has officially unveiled the 2024 MacBook Pro, powered by its most advanced chip to date, the M4.
Available for preorder now, the new MacBook Pro joins the refreshed iMac and Mac mini in adopting the M4 processors, signaling a leap forward in speed and AI capabilities. Promising enhanced performance across all three configurations, Apple says the new device will launch Nov. 8 at a starting price of $1,599.
“MacBook Pro is an incredibly powerful tool that millions of people use to do their life’s best work, and today we’re making it even better,” John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Engineering, said in a press release.
Learn more about each new MacBook model
Each MacBook Pro comes equipped with Thunderbolt 4 or 5 ports, an HDMI port for up to 8K resolution, a SDXC card slot, a MagSafe 3 port for charging, and a headphone jack. The device comes in two colors: black or silver.
The 2024 MacBook Pro line is differentiated by three versions of the M4 chip:
- The 14” MacBook Pro with M4 contains a 10-core CPU, 10-Core GPU, three Thunderbolt 4 ports, and up to 32GB of memory — with 16GB in the base model. It costs $1,599.
- The 14” or 16” MacBook Pro with M4 Pro is built for developers, professional artists, engineers, or other graphics-intensive business use cases. It contains a 14-core CPU, up to a 20-core GPU, and the M4 Pro chip itself, which can expedite AI tasks, geo mapping, structural engineering, and data modeling. It starts at $1,999.
- The 14” or 16” MacBook Pro with M4 Max is designed for the most demanding workloads. This includes professionals who often use heavy-duty animation programs or developers who use large language models. It holds up to a 16-core CPU, up to a 40-core GPU, and over half a terabyte per second of unified memory bandwidth for desktop-like performance. The device includes the Media Engine, which leverages ProRes accelerators for improved performance when working with 4K / 120 FPS video. It starts at $2,499.
Apple also announced new MacBook Air models with M2 and M3 chips will be available with double the previous starting memory, at 16GB, for $999.
SEE: Computer navigation is a new potential use case for AI, with both Siri and Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet able to carry out commands.
Display, performance, and AI features get a boost
Like some of the new iMacs, the 2024 MacBook Pro line uses a nano-texture screen to show clearer images in bright conditions, such as when working outdoors. All of the new laptops include Apple’s contemporary 12MP Center Stage camera and “Center Stage” and “Desk View” modes. Desk View can automatically show both a person’s face and their desk for content creation.
The M4 chip’s performance-per-watt efficiency contributes to what Apple claimed is a 24 hour battery life. It speeds up tasks like editing photos or editing animated scenes in Blender, Apple said.
As Apple has previously noted, the M4’s neural engine is designed to run relatively heavily AI workloads like the generative Siri upgrade Apple intelligence. However, Apple Intelligence is only compatible in U.S. English and only works on macOS Sequoia 15.1.
Apple Intelligence brings rewriting, proofreading, and summarization tools, a revamped Siri that can respond to more naturalistic typed or spoken requests, and image generation. The 2024 MacBook Pro line will be ready for the expanded Apple Intelligence capabilities expected to drop in December.
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