Now that we have both the new iPad and iPad Air for today’s announcements, there’s still a chance that Apple may announce even more products for the remainder of the week. While we’re still expecting a refresh for the MacBook Air to feature the M4 chip, Mark Gurman from Bloomberg suggests that the workstation-class Mac Studio may finally receive an update. However, what’s even more bizarre about his report is that the Mac Studio will feature both the M4 Max and the M3 Ultra; yes, you did not read that wrong.
It’s not an “Air” — but the new Mac Studio, codenamed J575, appears to be imminent. It could be announced as early as this week along with the new MacBook Airs. There are signs these will come with an M4 Max but that its new Ultra chip will actually be an M3 Ultra.
— Mark Gurman (@markgurman) March 4, 2025
The M4 Max was introduced in the MacBook Pro lineup that was updated back in October several months ago, along with the M4 Pro. The current Mac Studio features the M2 Max and M2 Ultra, so it would make sense for the M4 Max to come to the refreshed Mac Studio. However, the M3 Ultra has never been introduced or released as we’ve had the M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max so far – all three were introduced back in October 2023. At first, it appears that Apple is moving away from the M3 family of chips as they use the first-generation 3nm process; however, now that the just-refreshed MacBook Air receives the M3 chip, it looks like Apple may not be giving up on the M3 family as it could introduce the M3 Ultra soon.
Both the M1 Ultra and M2 Ultra consisted of two “Max” chips linked together thanks to the “UltraFusion” technology interconnects those chips for double the core count across all aspects of the SoC. However, since the M3 Max does not have the UltraFusion interconnect feature, the M3 Ultra will likely be a standalone chip rather than made up of two existing chips, giving Apple even more flexibility to add cores without spending too much production costs overall. But why have chip configurations from two different generations? The answer is to save R&D costs overall, it’s possible that the M3 Ultra has been in development at the same time as the M4 family of chips, so rather than scrapping them, Apple could use them towards lower-end products similar to how Apple has been using binned chips for its iPads, including the iPad (A16) and iPad Air (M3).
Gurman suggests that Apple may opt to bring the M3 Ultra to the Mac Studio to further differentiate it from the upcoming Mac Pro with possibly a future M4 Ultra chip. Although Gurman is a solid analyst when it comes to new Apple products, his predictions are sometimes incorrect. For instance, he expected the base iPad to feature the A17 Pro chip to support Apple Intelligence, and that the updated iPads would come in a few weeks; however, those turned out to be false based on today’s announcements.
Tim Cook teased on X that “there’s something in the air,” so we won’t have to wait long to see whether the new MacBook Air and Mac Studio are coming later this week.
