The Apple silicon transition has made a mess of desktop Macs

Apple’s M-series processors are a hit. They deliver spectacular performance and power efficiency—so much so that they instantly caused a huge shakeup in Intel and AMD processors that suddenly found themselves looking slow, hot, and power-hungry.

The inaugural M1 chip revitalized the MacBook and brought us the first exciting desktop Macs in years, including a redesigned iMac and brand-new Mac Studio. But since then? The MacBooks are still keeping pace, but desktop Macs are being left behind.

The M1 conundrum

Let’s start with the iMac. Updated to a new design and a single, 24-inch size just about two years ago, it’s got an M1 chip. It’s been 10 months since the M2 was released–why does the 24-inch iMac still come with an M1? Why does it still cost $1,299, just as it did two years ago?

Apple should have updated all M1-bearing products simultaneously when the M2 came out. There’s little excuse to sell products that haven’t changed for two years without so much as a price adjustment. (In fact, if you live outside the U.S. the price of iMacs has actually gone up!)

The Mac mini took a little longer to get its M2 update because Apple was waiting for the M2 Pro to be ready, offering that as an option. The M2 Pro and M2 Max landed early this year in the MacBook, and Apple dutifully updated the old Mac mini to M2 and M2 Pro.

What, then, is the Mac Studio holdup? Shouldn’t the M2 Max also have its M2 Ultra cousin, with updates for the Mac Studio? Maybe they’re coming at WWDC, but it’s weird to still sell M1 Max Mac Studios when M2 Max MacBook Pros have been on the market for months.

Waiting for M3

Rumor has it that neither the Mac Studio nor iMac will be updated until the M3 generation, as Apple saves the M2 Ultra for the Mac Pro.

The logic goes like this: With limited upgradability options (thanks to the tight CPU, GPU, and RAM integration of Apple Silicon), M2 Ultra has to be a Mac Pro exclusive, or everyone would just buy a more affordable Mac Studio with the same chip. That makes sense from an “Apple makes more money” standpoint, but from a customer standpoint, it begs the question–why does the Mac Pro even need to exist?

The M3 isn’t due for release until at least late this year (it’s said to be manufactured with TSMC’s 3nm process). That means the iMac will go two and a half years without an update of any kind and likely no price drop.

But it’s not likely that Apple will have the entire M3 line ready to go all at once: M3, M3 Pro, M3 Max, and M3 Ultra. At best, we can expect the M3 and M3 Pro. This means the Max- and Ultra-based Mac Studio wouldn’t get upgraded until spring next year at best. That puts it two years between updates, being soundly outclassed by M2-sporting MacBook Pros.

Predictability breeds confidence

Apple needs to get on a schedule with its desktop Macs–no more updating the laptops while ignoring the desktops. When the M3 is released, every Mac that takes the “base” M-series chip should be upgraded to it. When the M3 Pro is available, it should be available in all Macs that contain the “Pro” M-series chip, and so on.

It becomes difficult to recommend buying a Mac desktop when you have no idea when it will be surpassed by something newer. We can reasonably predict the release of new processors, but that seemingly has no impact on whether or not the iMac, Mac mini, or Mac Studio will get them. Or indeed, whether they will at all.

The release cadence doesn’t need to be yearly, as it is with iPhones, but it does need to be rational. Apple shouldn’t ever sell a Mac that only comes with the prior generation SoC. Not when the new generation is available in other products.