It may not be official yet, but the release of the long-rumored Apple M3 chip seems as certain as the Titanic crashing into a giant ice floe. And the rumor has been made more credible by a new report that The Big A will release its first M3-powered MacBook next year.

According to long-term shipping projections from DigiTimes (thanks, MacRumors), Apple's latest silicon will ship in 2024. According to these reports, Apple is in the process of moving into production mode for a new chipset that will likely implement TSMC's 3mn node.

In real-world terms, these new CPUs should represent a significant upgrade over TSMC's 5-nanometer technology currently used in the latest and greatest Macbooks. Regarding Apple's rumored production schedule for the new silicon, the previously mentioned shipment projections are as follows:

"By 2023, the share of notebooks manufactured using Arm-based processors is likely to decrease rather than increase. Because Apple, which uses its own-designed Arm-based CPUs in most of its notebook lineup, plans to upgrade the performance of its U.S.-branded vendors by moving to CPUs manufactured at TSMC's 3nm node in 2024, shipments in 2023 are expected to significantly The reason is that shipments are expected to decline significantly in 2023.

The above proposed timeline contradicts earlier rumors of an October launch hinted at by respected Bloomberg journalist (and Apple guru) Mark Gurman. Mainly because it is already October and there is zero chance that Apple will release a new lineup of M3 MacBooks in a little over two weeks.

Given that the new MacBook Air 15-inch M2 is barely six months old, it is not exactly shocking that Apple has chosen to hold off on a more powerful M3 laptop until sometime next year.

Once Apple begins shipping the new chipset, the M3 line will likely benefit not only the updated version of the Air, but also the MacBook Pro models and the new M3 iMac.

Previous reports on the M3 line indicate that there will likely be several variations of this silicon; previous leaks from Gurman's sources point to the Apple M3 Pro chip boasting 12 CPU cores, 18 GPU cores, and 36GB of unified memory.

These are still in the works.

As impressive as these as-yet-unconfirmed specs are, the also rumored M3 Max chipset should easily outperform the Pro. According to the most recent leaks, the high-end M3 silicon will have 16 CPU cores and 40 GPU cores. There are also rumors of an even more powerful Apple M3 Ultra chip, which could have up to 28 processor cores and 80 GPU cores.

Whenever the Cupertino-based giant finally announces its lineup of M3 chips, it seems inevitable that these new processors will absolutely smoke their M2 predecessors.