Apple fans who were underwhelmed by the Studio Display may soon have a couple more options. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple is working on “several new external monitors,” including a 2019 update to its 32-inch Pro Display XDR.
The future panels will include built-in Apple Silicon chipsets like the Studio Display, which has a specialized A13 Bionic CPU, according to Gurman. He adds that the improved Pro Display XDR could be released after the M2 Mac Pro more on the computer in a moment.
It’s not clear if Apple could update the Studio Display as one of its new monitors. MacRumors says that in October, display analyst Ross Young tweeted that the company was planning to release a 27-inch mini-LED monitor in the first quarter of 2023. From what Young said about the specs, it seemed like Apple was going to add its ProMotion technology to the Studio Display.
Gurman also gives an update on the Mac Pro M2 refresh that has been talked about for a long time. In October, he said that the computer would come with an “Extreme” version of the company’s M2 chipset as an option. This “Extreme” version was said to have a processor with up to 48 cores and 256GB of memory. Gurman says that Apple has given up on those plans since then.
“Based on how Apple prices its products now, an M2 Extreme version of a Mac Pro would probably cost at least $10,000 without any other upgrades,” Gurman writes. “This would make it a very niche product that probably wouldn’t be worth the costs of developing it, the engineering resources it would require, or the production bandwidth it would need.”
As it stands, the last model will have an M2 Ultra chipset with up to 24 CPU cores, 76 GPU cores, and at least 192GB of RAM, according to reports.
Gurman also says that the new Mac Pro has the same expandability as the current model, including the ability to add more memory. Since Apple’s current chips have RAM that is soldered on, it will be interesting to see how they can offer this kind of upgradeability.
Two years after the first M1 chip came out, Apple was supposed to have all of its computers running on Apple Silicon. Gurman says that some of the reasons it’s taken Apple so long to announce a new Mac Pro are changes to features and a change in how the company plans to make computers. If there aren’t any more delays, the new model should come out sometime next year, but Gurman didn’t give a specific date.
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