Tech

New MacBook Pro with new Apple chip, Mini LED display expected this fall

A notebook computer on a desk.

Enlarge / The previous generation of the MacBook Pro. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

New MacBook Pro models with Apple’s custom-designed silicon and Mini LED displays are coming this fall, according to a new report from Taiwanese news publication DigiTimes.

Last summer, Apple announced that it would transition the entirety of the Mac product lineup from Intel’s CPUs to Apple’s own, custom-designed silicon within a two-year timeframe. The first Macs to make the move were the MacBook Air and the low-end configurations of the Mac mini and 13-inch MacBook Pro. Earlier this year, Apple introduced a 24-inch iMac as well. All of these Macs had the M1, the first Apple Silicon SoC for Macs. (The M1 was also used in the most recent refresh of the iPad Pro.)

But all those Macs have something in common: they’re on the low end, with limitations like fewer ports than the more expensive systems the company makes. All the higher-end Macs still have Intel chips. Given that WWDC 2021 (which took place in early June) marked one year since Apple first announced the transition, a lot of people expected some of those high-end Macs to move to Apple Silicon at that event—us included. But it didn’t happen. Some supply chain sources seemed to indicate that Mini LED display production was a key bottleneck.

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