The incredible M4 Macs create Apple's biggest challenge yet

As the cavalcade of M4 Macs rained down upon us last week, it became clear that Apple has established a solid rhythm for updates to its processor line. So far, it’s been four years and we’ve seen four generations of Apple silicon chips, each more impressive than the last. In everything from computational and graphics capability to power efficiency, the era of Apple-made processors has proven to be a ground change for the company.

But even such an astounding success comes with challenges. As Apple has increasingly carved out its own category in the PC market, the company has left behind many of its classic competitors. It’s rarely compared to old rivals like Dell or HP; even its biggest counterparts, such as Meta and Google, don’t care about the same categories.

In truth, Apple has been left with just one real challenger—the one company it can never quite beat.

Itself.

Time is marching on

Like the clocks on which they depend, the improvement of Apple’s processors has been a constant drumbeat. Every year’s chip cores see gains of roughly 20 percent over the previous generation; wait a few years, and you’ll see improvements of 60 to 80 percent over the previous generation. Then layer on top improvements in graphic cores, memory bandwidth, and so on.

But despite that seemingly inexorable march, the real impressive part of the Apple silicon era is the degree to which older models stay relevant. I have both an M2 Pro Mac mini and a MacBook Air with an M1 chip–the first model that the company announced when they made the transition back in 2020. And what strikes me is that the M1 feels just as capable today as it did four years ago.

That’s not a given in technology. Plenty of people keep their computers for long times–my mother’s 2011 iMac says a very slow hello–but oftentimes that’s even as they adjust to the fact that those computers just aren’t as fast. But that just hasn’t yet proved true in the Apple silicon era; even those base-level chips still feel just fine. That’s quite the feat in an era where even a four-year-old iPhone can start feeling like its ripe for replacement.

Apple has carved out an impressive amount of headroom, making each chip faster than the next, to the point that base-level chips can outperform older high-level processors. I recently reviewed the M4 Mac mini and found that the M4 outpaced my M2 Pro mini from just last year on more than a few tasks.

Foundry

A lot of that is a testament to Apple’s engineering, of course. But it’s also somewhat due to the Mac’s long history, and the fact that the tasks people are doing with them haven’t changed as radically in the last several years as in prior decades or with other devices. (What you can do with iPhone now versus ten years ago is a much bigger swing than with the Mac, for example.)

That’s great for users because it means the hardware they buy is relevant for longer. And it’s mostly great for Apple because it’s a good selling point: buy this Mac and you’ll have it for five maybe even ten years.

But it also has downsides.

Hitting for the upgrade cycle

For Apple, increasing the longevity of its Macs means a longer upgrade cycle—more time before Apple can sell you another Mac. That’s not great for a company trying to rack up Mac sales, of course. One might argue that it falls under the heading of “good problems to have” but in a financial society that seems to prioritize growth above all, it’s not ideal. (Whether that’s a reasonable expectation, well, that’s a different and much longer treatise.)

Increasing the longevity of its Macs means a longer upgrade cycle. That’s not great for a company trying to rack up Mac sales.

Still, there are always people who have long eschewed buying an Apple computer–the much-vaunted “switchers”–and there are, frankly, always new people, period. Both of those provide a solid basis for growth, even if they don’t provide the steady cadence of long-time Mac users upgrading.

But as the Mac continues to move forward, it starts to feel a little less like one needs to be on the cutting edge, and more like every year brings something a little more predictable. Or maybe even, dare I say, boring? That’s certainly not an image one wants to cultivate. So how to upend it?

Year over year

Apple spent more than a decade trying to create a car, a project it ultimately shut down when it became clear it wasn’t going to happen. But there are still elements of that project the company could (and should) take away, and not all of them are about the purely technology side of things.

Car companies, after all, are the standard bearers of predictable updates. Models get revamped regularly, year over year, and mostly don’t change too much. There are longer and longer times between the upgrade cycles for many buyers. And the ultimate form of a car–four wheels, storage, steering wheel–has largely gone unchanged for decades. And yet car companies remain in business.

Mit KI erstellt (Microsoft Copilot, Adobe Sensei)

What can Apple learn from them? Well, when in doubt, change the packaging. We’ve long seen the supercycle of iPhone purchases where a change in case design spurs a buying spike–that may not be as apparent in the Mac, given the broader product line fragmentation of update timing over the last many years–but it’s hard to believe it’s limited to smartphones.

Witness the new Mac mini, for example. It’s the first redesign the desktop has seen in 14 years, and if that doesn’t provide a bump in the product’s sales, I’d be surprised. Returning color to the iMac line with the Apple silicon transition is another good example. These kinds of changes, superficial though they may seem, can still make a big difference when it comes to consumers.

It’s a little harder to picture these changes for laptops, to be fair; Apple seems to have settled on its platonic ideal of a notebook computer. But the revamping of the base model MacBook Pro shows another angle: Apple added a Thunderbolt port to the other side of the computer, a nicety that can make a big difference for people’s daily use. Just like the front-mounted ports on the Mac mini and Mac Studio, it shows that Apple is thinking about how its customers use its products. And there’s no better way of ensuring loyalty than making it clear that you’re serving your customers’ needs.