Gurman: Apple has been testing 'multiple' M2-powered Macs in recent weeks

M1 Mac Mini Macbook Air Macbook Pro Bench Hero
M1 Mac Mini Macbook Air Macbook Pro Bench Hero (Image credit: Rene Ritchie)

What you need to know

  • Apple is reportedly testing multiple new Macs that include an unannounced chip.
  • Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says Apple is testing a chip that has eight CPU cores and 10 GPU cores.
  • A new MacBook Air and MacBook Pro could house the new Apple silicon.

Apple is reportedly testing a new chip that is thought to be the unannounced M2. A new report claims that the chip has eight CPU cores and 10 GPU cores.

Writing in his weekly Power On newsletter, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says that he has been told by a developer source that Apple has been testing the chip for a number of weeks. The chip specifications match those that have previously been detailed as likely to be found in Apple silicon M2 chips.

I'm told from a developer source that Apple has been testing multiple Macs with a new chip in recent weeks that includes an eight-core CPU (four efficiency cores and four high-performance cores) and 10 GPU cores. Those are exactly the specifications of the M2 chip I detailed last year.Apple has been testing this new chip on machines running macOS 12.3 (which should be released in the next week or two and run on the new Macs) and a future macOS 12.4, as well as macOS 13, which will be previewed in June at WWDC 2022.

With Apple set to hose an online event tomorrow, it's thought that we could see a new MacBook Air and MacBook Pro ship with the chip inside. The M2 would likely replace the M1 as the base offering for Apple's hardware, with future M2 Pro and M2 Max chips being offered in Apple's higher-end devices.

Apple's March 8 event is likely to also include the arrival of an updated iPhone SE with support for 5G while rumors of a new iPad Air also persist.

Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too.

Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.