The Apple M1 processor proved to be a huge success, managing to combine big performance and battery gains over what had been possible before in laptops. Apple Silicon is clearly here to stay, and the M1's successor is apparently already being produced.
As Nikkei reports, sources have confirmed that the next-generation Apple SIlicon processor entered mass production this month at TSMC. It's likely to be called the M2 (although M1X has also been touted), and if production yields are as expected, the new chip could find its way into MacBooks this summer. The M2 will be a 5nm processor, which is thought to take at least three months to produce using TSMC's N5P technology, hence the summer availability.
Apple will have undoubtedly tweaked the design of the M2 based on what it has learned from the M1 being used in anger by millions of MacBook customers. Then there's the inevitable performance bump. Apple claims the M1 MacBook Air is 3.5 times faster than before, while graphics performance is 5x faster, the company also claims the Air outperforms 98% of PC laptops. How much more impressive will M2 MacBooks turn out to be, then?
The devices most likely to ship with this new chip first are a refreshed 16-inch MacBook Pro and a new 14-inch Pro model as predicted by well-known analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. So if you're tempted by the existing M1 13-inch MacBook Pro, the choice comes down to waiting to see what the summer brings, or enjoying a performance bump now and grabbing an existing Apple Silicon laptop (or newly-announced M1 iMac).