Apple's much-rumored M4 chip will be available in the latest MacBook Pro models and the 24-inch iMac by the end of the year. The Mac Mini should also get the M4 treatment, as Cupertino's smaller PCs are likely to skip the M3 chip altogether.

As day follows night, this latest Apple rumor naturally comes from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman (thanks, MacRumors). In his latest newsletter "Power On," he explains that he expects the next Mac Mini to skip the M3 generation altogether, and that the M4 Mini will be available "between late 2024 and early 2025."

Bypassing the M3 chip appears to be a simple timing issue, with Garman stating that "it is safe to say that those Mac desktops will skip the M3 generation because there is no room for an M3 model before then."

Whether or not Garman's report is on target, the Mac Mini is in dire need of a silicon upgrade. The latest version of Apple's small PC was released last January with the Mac Mini M2 and M2 Pro models, which are expected to feature dual Thunderbolt 4 connections, HDMI 2.1 ports, and Wi-Fi 6E support introduced in the 2023 Mac Mini.

The M4 chip also appears to be an attractive upgrade to existing Minis with a faster Neural Engine to speed up AI tasks. As for microdesktops skipping a generation of chips, Apple has followed this strategy in other areas as well. A similar situation can be seen with the iMac, where the company decided to skip the M2 chip for PCs, moving from the M1 to the M3 model released at the end of 2023.

Given that the M3 lineup feels like it was just introduced yesterday, if the jump to M4 feels earlier than planned, we can probably attribute it to the intensifying chip wars in the computing market: the Snapdragon X Elite chipset already outperforms the M3 Pro in multi-core tasks, so it is understandable that Apple would want to produce an M4 product as soon as possible. If you've been pining for a Mac Mini, you might want to save your money for the new version of the M4, which is rumored to ship within the next 12 months.